I’ve always wanted some new seats although the stock FD ones are rather comfortable; however, the leather doesn’t really hold you in. Plus, some Black seats would be a nice balance of Black and Tan in the interior.

I went with some Bride VIOS III seats, which come with the signature sparkle silver backing, and I chose the Gradation model. The seats look great, and have a really nice snug feel to it. The fabric is rather dense and soft, so they’re not uncomfortable.

At first I thought it’d be rather straight forward installing these, but it turned out to be quite enduring. I decided to reuse the stock rails because they looked to be well made but going this route required some fabrication.

I began the install by trying to mount the seats with normal L brackets, until I realized that the rails (which sit 12.5″ apart) are too narrow and the seats are too wide. This meant the L brackets didn’t have enough reach, so I had to uninstall and do some thinking. Luckily, there was a place called MemoryFab that specialized in seat systems, and they were also conveniently in the same city as me. The next day, I called them up and went over and grabbed the last set of 4 Large Sized L Brackets off of them (including a pair of ones they had on Display). This solved that problem and gave the required reach.

When I tried putting the L Brackets on however, the seat belt clip that mounts to the side of the rails was in the way. So I had to mount the L Brackets just in front of the seat belt clip mount and a couple holes had to be drilled. Also, the stock rails have a piece of hardware that comes up from the top mounting surface… so I had to use an angle-grinder with a cut-off wheel and make some cuts:

This allowed the L Brackets to sit flush on top of the seat rails. Unfortunately that wasn’t all that was interfering… there was a small piece of metal that stuck out from the seat belt clip mount, which also blocked the L Bracket from sitting as far back as possible.

Busted out the angle grinder again and took care of that. Here’s a picture with the stock seats removed and the interior vacuumed. I found a quarter and a receipt from 1997.

In good timing, I was able to sell the stock seats to a fellow from Santa Cruz who also has a Montego Blue FD. Surprisingly, the pair of stock tan leather seats fit in my Miata:

After I had the passenger seat slowly put together, I stuck it in the car and tried it out. The slider worked but would come to a dead stop near the back. I took the seat out and back in a few times trying to figure this problem out. The seat would slide back past that point just fine when off the car, and there was nothing in the sliders that was interfering. From what I could see in the car, I didn’t see anything that was hitting… until I finally noticed that a spot on the carpet near the transmission tunnel was getting crinkled.

The culprit was once again related to the seat belt clip mount. There was this piece that hung too low, so I cut off the circular part and detached the metal pole that went through it.

I reinstalled the other portion of the piece since it was basically a washer. I put everything back together and reinstalled it into the car, and finally the seat fit and had full range of slider movement. Repeat for the driver side, and done!

As for fitment, the shoulder bolsters only rub the door trim slightly. If you move the seats too far back, however, the door trim curves inward more and the bolsters will put an indent when the doors are closed. Using the Large L bracket and stock rails, the seats sit at about the same level as stock which is what I preferred… since if you sit too low, you look sort of awkward from the outside.

The installation took 4 days of work due to all the set backs… some other troubles included multiple trips to hardware stores for washers and such, over-tightening a bolt and having to cut/drill it out, going back out to a hardware store because one of the cut-off wheels wore away, and needing to redo the line that connects the slider mechanisms together on both sides.

The hard work paid off, in my opinion, everything feels great and fits properly. Getting in and out of the car is a bit harder due to the bucket setup, and getting the seatbelt on takes a little more time, but those are all trivial when compared to the benefits. The seats feel nice and snug and really do the job of holding you in. Not to mention, the Brides spice up the interior a good bit.