Evening all, Well I've been devoid of a vw ( except the leon estate which is a golf in disguise I suppose) for a while now, trying to downsize the cars, then had a spur of the moment impulse moment and fancied something fun and then ended up with 2 more cars in the dodgy household, one each. Came home a few weeks ago with an R53 mini cooper s, has been very well looked after, few mods already done when purchased but still room for improvement. So, first point of improvement after removing some iffy carbon vinyl, will be the brakes, so looking around seems the later r56 brakes fit, and they also have 4 pots on the top end stuff, checking autodoc I found the big calipers and associated parts for £200 cheaper than a UK kit. They use a 4x100 316mm disc which may be useful fitting 312mm TT calipers on a mk2 hub, unfortunately I haven't tried that though. I've also got a set of different wheels, well 6 in fact which are 4+2 as the first set I bought ended up having one cracked Tidy up of them is on the go, and my genius tip is for masking the bolts is get some 13mm stickers off ebay for 99p, easier than stressing with tape! And that's the progress so far, big pile of parts to fit and a few to collect, but basically a set of bigger injectors, uprated coil, new gp shocks, jcw brakes all round, exhaust manifold with sports cat all sat ready, and fingers crossed getting the r56 rear arms soon to lighten rear end. Already has LSD gearbox, reduced pulley and bigger intercooler, milltek system and other bits. Now for the Recaro question... On mk2 and mk3 Recaro seats,the base is part of the seat, but I've read the Corsa VXR seats which are a budget CS style use a standard recaro bolt pattern and is possible to take off the Vauxhall runners and fit a recaro subframe for whichever vehicle you want to fit it in. My mind then starts whirring and looking at other Recaro seats, Ford Focus, for these there is a lowering base available as one of the criticisms is the height due to certain factors, it would then appear similarly to corsa seats the subframe will unbolt. SO, my question dear people is have you had any dealings with focus or newer style recaros and do they actually come apart with 4 bolts from their runners? If they do it could be very useful for fitting in a different car with adaptor plates like my 53fab tt seats or a bucket seat subframe. Vxr seats are approx 500 quid, less than half of the other big wings, and st225 seats between 150 and 300, which for Recaro seems good, and a comfortable retrofit. Any input appreciated. Thanks for letting me ramble on.
Worth getting one of the many ebay sellers to send a pic of the underside of the seats? Personally I can't imagine the newer ones being bolted to the base like the old skool seats. With things like chairbags and locking seatbelts I can see that method being done away with for safety reasons, happy to be proved wrong. I did see a MK2 golf with corsa vxr seats though so anything possible with fab? Focus recaro seats are fugly tho arnt they
https://www.sportseats4u.co.uk/transferring-seats-from-a-corsa-vxr/ An interesting read, but recaro subframes seem extortionate, worse than sparco ones. It's early focus ones that I was considering, near identical to the ones fitted in the mini as an option,
Considered factory mini recaros? The cooper S seats fitted in the same model as mine are nice too, worth a look especially if a bolt in solution.
Great to see you fully engaged in car stuff again Dave and not pretending you enjoy pedal cycles and Mobylettes What is wrong with the existing seats?
It does me, but you get what you pay for. The povo bucket seats look and feel like they have been trimmed in a Primark T shirt.
Dodgemeister, have you ever heard of this crowd? MINI (plantedtechnology.com) It may not answer your question directly, but it may be up your alley if you want to keep the seats low. I'm inclined to agree with Tristan regarding the price of Recaros, it has gone beyond a joke.
Without railroading Daves thread, see how much people are trying to charge for standard MK2 interiors also. 1250 for a set of rainbow seats?! People are starting to ask 5k for mk2 recaros now. Glad I got mine when I did
I had the sparco r100s in the classic mini, then transferred them into the mk2, sold them when got the tt seats, they were great, maybe a little flatter in the seat bottom than expected, like the look of the r333 though. The early mini cooper works had sparco seats as an option, they seem to be £1200 second hand at the moment, and were either leather or cloth. I'll keep checking lidl for covers, and might find some beaded ones even, fingers crossed.
Have you seen the cabrio set for sale, same as the seats @PhilRyder got , the guy had them up at £3500, and I got offered the matching mk3 door panels only for £550 which as me and Phil discussed was way over the top.
Early 90s they were the go to aftermarket, either bucket style or the Le mans which were very much recaro like. What I need to find is an old mk2 cavalier Sri and get the tweed recaros out of, got some for my anglia in early 90s, three quid each.
The recaros on the SRi's were the mutts nuts - there's a crowd out in the Far East that restore older recaros and ship them worldwide Retrofast Garage | Kulim | Facebook Prices are probably lawless but it's still nice to see retro seats getting a new lease of life.
