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9 minute read
Install Evo X seats (now with installed pics)
Compliments of XxSCAxX @ www.iwsti.com
3-6-2009
Ok, well after viewing Peleg's thread of installing evo 8 seats into our sti's, i was so set on picking up leather recaro's out of a 9 and installing them. well, after 3 different sellers jerking my chain, i finally gave up and stumbled upon the new X seats. i like them as well, and (to me) they are just as comfy, plus i havent seen anyone else install these yet so i figured i could be the first. I figured i'd make a separate thread b/c the process is not the same.
What you will need:
safety glasses
gloves
some kind of respirator mask from metal debri
10,12,14,17mm sockets and wrenches
torx bit (forgot the size, i think,45)
Dremel with cut off wheels, grinders, etc
Power drill with drill bits
patience
so after buying the seats, i quickly came to realize that the sliders are VERY diffferent from the older models. take a look:
Driver seat:
you have 5 pieces you have to remove from these set of sliders, which isnt so bad because they are just held in by rivets, which i simply just cut the tops off of, pried off the bracket using a screwdriver/hammer, and then used a punch to knock the remaining piece out. ill go into detail later.
Passenger seat (these have the EVO base attached to it)
after you take off the base and other misc rubbish you dont need, you are left with four of these in each corner on the actual base along with one other bracket on one of the sliders:
see those nice welds? yep, have to cut through them. luckily there is one on each slider that is only welded on one side, which makes things a tad easier (picture above only has welds on one side of that bracket). the opposite side has welds on both.
ok, so lets rewind and start off from the beginning. i forgot to take some pictures of it, but on the passenger side it has what im assuming is the seat weight harness and you need to remove that, ill get a picture later)
1) Start by removing the sliders from the seat. both seats have 3 star bolts (forgot the exact name for em, torx?) on each side that you need to remove. see on the left side of this picture below there are two next to each other, followed by another on the other side that is screwed almost all the way out. you also should take the seat belt bolt off at this time (if your seats came with the seatbelts).
2) once removed you should be left with these pieces for each seat:
3)here is the passenger sliders unmounted from the seats. now you need to remove the slider bar.
4) the slider bar simply is snapped in place, just twist it a tad and remove it and unhinge it.
5) now you are left with this. (dont mind my nosey ass dog, lol)
6)now, time to drill. i'll only show one side as if you can tackle the passenger side you will breeze by the driver one.
i grabbed my trusty dremel and the first point of action was to cut those rivets (yeah, even the damn welded sides have them).
cut the top off like so. this will make it easy for you to pop off the bracket once you cut through the welds. be patient, they take a bit to get through them. once you do, what i did was stick a screwdriver in the spot i just cut into the weld, and hit it with a hammer to get it to separate.
once you do this, and you get the bracket off, it should look like this:
7) there is a tiny bit left of the rivet still sticking up. you would think you would be able to just use a punch and knock it out, but cut the rest of the rivet off, and you will get this:
8) now take your punch and whack just on top of what you cut off. where the rivets are on each slider is your mounting holes.
9) repeat for both sliders, removing all the brackets. you end up with this:
all that is left to do is grind down where the welds were (and on the driver side, there are two threads coming out in the middle of the slider you need to cut off) and then you are left with two clean sliders.
now repeat the same steps give or take and remove the driver side brackets on the sliders. this side is much easier like i said earlier since only the rivets are holding them in.
this is the carnage you are left with after tackling both sliders on each seat 
10) re-attach the sliders to the seats.
11) your next course of action is to decide what bolts you are going to use to mount them, and what bases. you can either order custom ones from wedge giving them the correct measurements (a buddy is also putting x seats into his 08, he is ordering from wedge so i will confirm the measurements once he has it) or, you can use sparco bases (same models listed in Pelegs thread). i decided to use sparco bases because i had sparcos in my STi until these.
***something to note. make sure whatever bolt you use, will fit in between the slider pieces first. if you get a bolt that has too big a head on it, you wont be able to slide the sliders back and forth.
i had to mod my bases a tad to get them to fit, but as you can see in this picture it wasnt by much. the sparco base has two mounting locations, and the outer holes are the ones you will use for the x seats. i had to shave down a little on the each back corner on the sparco seats to get it to fit right. also, you will need to drill out the mounting holes to the appropriate size of the bolts you are using. i used a 5/16.
in this picture you can see the bolt comes up, and looks to interfere with the weld/bracket. if you shave down just a little bit, you can get the nut onto the thread without hacking up the bracket.
12) bolt the 4 corners up, add some locktite, and you are ready to mount them into the car!
13)
could have taken better shots, but you get the idea 
I know i was brief, but if you have any questions, or any comments that should be added, let me know. I tried my best to take shots of everything, but once im in a groove i tend to forget haha. i will get pictures up tomorrow of them mounted in the car.
big thanks to jay_barton on Nasioc, as he gave me a pre-warning of the sliders and some tips of how to tackle this. not sure if he has a user name on here but if you do chime in with anything i might have missed.
