FYI. Anyone who may be interested the stock seats weigh 65lbs each. Just pulled them out to replace them with aftermarket buckets. Going with fixed back Braums weighing 19lbs. Plus the weight of custom aluminum mounting brackets and hardware Im estimating they should be about 30lbs per seat maybe less. Cuts a good 70lbs of weight. I’ll post up pictures once everything gets fabricated and mounted.

 

Which stock seats are those, the Sport or Performance?

 

Sorry should have been more specific. Performance seats.

 

What brackets and sliders are you using for your buckets?

 

I've been trying to find someone that's done this. Definitely interested to see how this comes out

 

What are you gonna do about the airbag faults & occupant classification system faults from the passenger seat?

 

Do we know if Sport or Performance seats are lighter?

 

First question that popped into my mind too.

 

There was another member working with Braum a few years ago. It didn't pan out. As Cambo mentioned, you'll have to work around the airbag and OCS system. I'm a little skeptical of safety items that haven't gone through the rigors of safety certification like Sparco or RECARO.

 

The mounts and rails are all being custom fabricated by a shop called Flatout Motorsports. As far as all the faults, honestly I’m not 100 percent sure on how to navigate through them. Hoping to talk to Stuart at vap and see if he can at least turn off those lights on the dash. Im understanding that those codes will still exist but I figured I could just swap back the stock seats and clear the codes when I need an inspection. Not sure if I could use some type of resistor to trick the system also. This is kinda just an experiment and I’m going to tackle those things as best I can. Also considering looking into harnesses. If things don’t work out I can just go back to the original set up.

 

Good luck with everything and thank you for taking the plunge into uncharted territory. I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out and make things work. Very interested in what you discover, come up with and fabricate to make this work.

 

Just to give you an idea, the UK-spec XKR-S GT had fixed seats, and there is a special wiring harness that plugs in to mimic the full electric seat.



at £277 each (~$800 USD a pair) my curiosity never got the better of me to find out exactly what they are.


We could never find out what this "software update" was, as the software in the RCM of the GT's was the same as regular cars, and nothing in the Car Configuration File seemed to be applicable...

Somewhat related, I had a customer F-Type that we tried for ages to alter the airbag setup to be the same as UK/EU cars, so the passenger front airbag could be disabled via a menu in the instrument cluster (the UK/EU cars have this feature).
Nothing would work, and we pretty much tried everything... in the end we fitted a manual switch that is used in American police cars... as there was no way to fix it via software.

And definitely related, doing a seat swap in an XK, there was simply no way to disable the Occupant Classification System, we turned it off in the Car Configuration File, but it made no difference...

Good luck!

 

Thank you for that information. I appreciate you sharing that. So what exactly does that mean when it comes to the airbag system? Will the system still operate normally without the airbag in the seats being detected. Meaning will it deploy even if the system is throwing a fault code? Or is it completely disabled. Sounds like you disabled the whole system with the switch. Still trying to figure out how everything interplays with everything else. Very interesting about the harness. May have to look into that.

 

I don't know if the other airbags will function if there are certain ones unplugged. But there's more to it than that anyhow.

The seats in the F-Types have multiple sensors, and if they aren't functional that will also cause faults.

There is a track position sensor in each seat slide, so the airbag module knows how close the occupant is to dash or steering wheel.
There is a sensor in each seat buckle, so the airbag module knows if the occupant has their sealbelt on or not.
The OCS detects the weight of the passenger, and also the tension on the passenger seatbelt. This actually a separate module, connected to the CANbus.

Then there are the airbags in the sides of the seats (which you could bypass with resistors).
Fortunately the seatbelt pre-tensioners were changed from being in the buckles (like the XK) to the reels in the F-Type, so not on the seats anymore.

We only disabled the front passenger airbag with that switch, everything else still worked, and no fault codes or warning lights.

I don't think the XKR-S GT harness' will be a straight plug-in swap for an F-Type, perhaps you need to get three of them (two UK drivers, one UK pass) and modify them as the XK doesn't have the track position sensor on the passenger side, only the drivers, but the F-Type has on both.

But it was more to show you what Jaguar themselves had to do to make it all work in the GT... the F-Type will be a similar challenge.

 

So the seats are all installed and I must say I’m very happy with the results. A major improvement all the way around. I love the way the car looks with them but I was very surprised at what a difference it made in the driving experience. I now feel much more connected to the car and I get much more feedback compared to before. Also the reduction in weight is noticeable especially under braking.
All the brackets were custom fabricated out of aluminum and were made to accommodate my size and driving position. I still have some adjustments available but I declined to use sliders to keep the weight down but they can make them with the sliders if requested. If anyone is interested you can contact Kyle from Flatout Motorsports in Mendon Massachusetts.

 

Wow, very nice outcome....did all of the electrical issues get addressed?

 

Unfortunately no, those issues were not all addressed. I’m talking to the shop about a possible harness set up moving forward for added safety. That will probably be a project for next winter.

The stock seats are set up to be an easy plug and play replacement for when I need to get an inspection.

 

I think the shop did a great job and kudos but here are some thoughts.

(prompted by your noting no electrical support and a plan to go to harnesses...)


1. Safety systems are just that, an integrated system. JLR has done a huge job in that the seats per the above and other links I read last night know our weight and how far we are from say the dash or wheel. I think that is amazing frankly and am impressed. If you undermine a part of the system you can compromise the whole system. This then can result in your getting very much more hurt in a crash. I have read and believe it realistic that an insurance company could deny medical coverage if you were to get hurt in serious accident if they discovered data suggesting a safety system was compromised. I'll leave your mind to wander there. It is not a nice world these days and dollars go up really fast...
2. Convertibles to me are inherently less safe than coupes. Not sure why I think this but the roof "might" help protect you and be a little bit of a cage...not sure if in the F type that will be the case, especially with a panoramic roof, but who knows. So I'd be super motivated if I had a convertible to keep it safe.
3. Corollary to 1 is that the three point belt is a great solution, does the job, and has the airbags and such designed for it. It is designed so your neck won't snap. A harness on the other hand, will make it MORE likely to hold you into the seat if a standard harness and if you do that you need a neck device (Hans, etc.). That means a helmet is needed. I realize exactly what I am saying in this.
4. Because of 3 I spent a lot of time in my prior car trying to get a harness to be safe on the street and the only thing I could find to achieve this was the various ASM types of things that I think were first created by Schroth (seem to be common in BMW's). They certify these for street use and are only ok if put into specific, approved vehicles. I went all the way to PCA national to get approval of this for my car...and they were ok with it.
5. Anyway, I'd probably only support seats if the airbags and such were kept functional given my thinking on liability and self harm concerns (I'd never get over it if my passenger got killed by my "lighter" seat installation somehow...no amount of driving pleasure could compensate me for that risk.


So, my thinking on a street car is leave it as from the factory if it is a modern car (anything with an airbag by my definition). Older cars are less "system" but one should likely still respect the physics of the neck and stick to 3 point unless you go helmet/HANS or ASM variant if approved for the car.

Or go full track, do it full track safety...for that a full cage, only with a helmet. etc. Basically ruins the car for the street as it is unsafe to drive on the street with a cages sans helmet....some can perhaps hide the case well if uber expensive work is done (I am mentally thinking Ruf or Singer cars but I am sure others have done this too.....).


Don't get me wrong here - I love the install and would love to lose the 140ish pounds off the car. But safety equipment is the last place to cut weight and unfortunately Jaguar put in boat anchors in the Lear supplied (or is it Recaro) seats. But in a crash I might really want the boat anchor to be there so the airbags don't either kill me or fail to deploy. It matters a lot. And insurance companies are aware of these issues for sure.
Before you get mad at me, you posted that you did what you did with photos after everyone pointed out the issues with the airbags/harness. I feel NOT stating the above would be to tacitly support this and honestly cannot in good conscious. This was one of the reasons I sold my track/street car....basically it was a slippery slope and it was really hard to have a safe car unless left stock or done with full track safety (fire suppression too in the latter case). I runined the car as it was a hybrid that was unsafe in this context AND made anything off the track boring as it was too capable.

Sorry it was so long. I wish I had your seats..awesome looing seats for sure and I have used them in other cars/been in them...great choice. But I plan to leave the F type alone. The one thing that I think is safe and makes almost any car "better" is the CGLoc seatbelt device gadgets...those plus our stock seats "almost" gets one to a track seat feel (have not tried them in our cars...assume they fit but maybe they won't....have a few from the prior track process)...almost. That is just where I draw my line for my car now after a long journey down the one you are taking....I sure do wish I had your seats. And they look great. But I am just too fearful of being hit and through no fault of my own being killed or as above having a passenger hurt - and not having that covered by insurance (an ICU run and surgery could be well over 250k fast...even double that...).

 

Got my bucket seat installed after watching this thread, what to know how do you deal with all the plugs underneath the seat?
The seat belt warning light will be my new daytime running light, which was what I expected.
But somehow my car stop charging the battery, I got a low battery warning and a bunch of code related to low voltage right away. Tried resetting the battery but it did not help.....
Here is a pic of the seat on the car as well as the plugs I am worrying about.

 

You likely need to put in a resistor to "jumper" the airbag wires.