Installing different seats?

[scgamecock]

I have a set of Mitsubishi Eclipse seats I am wanting to install.  They fit inside the seat wells fine but the tracks are longer and wider than the OEM hole locations.  

Do I take the OEM seat tracks and try to adapt them to the seat frame?

Do I drill new holes in the floorboards to correspond with the new seat tracks?

Suggestions?  Pics of what others may have done?

 

[mudbilly]

If the tracks fit nicely on floor, I'd drill new holes. Use some thick washers underneath. That way the integrity of the seats is as built.

It is not trivial trying to swap tracks. Although if you can weld and there is good mounting points it works easier.

My swap was a PITA and long story.

 

[Silverback]

The thing is that we don't know what you're looking at and how much off it is.

In theory, the stock mounting points are reinforced "hard points" in a stronger part of the pan that should be better than choosing other points even if you reinforce them. In some cases you'll fail a safety inspection by moving where the seat is bolted to the pan. Do you care? Probably not, most areas don't do detailed safety inspections of older cars. Can that change? Sure.

I'm tall enough that I have problems with quite a few cars and have moved a few driver's seats. I have always used the stock floor mounts and moved them by changing how the top rails mount to the bottom of the seat. In most cases the bottom of the seat has a couple of steel pieces on either side and there's quite a bit of space for moving stuff around. I would likely look at that, swapping the stock rails to the bottom of the seat first, and then possibly making some sort of adapter plate. But again, I'm not looking at what you're looking at.

 

[mach1000]

I swapped out front buckets for one from a 2008 Mustang. Used original 7173 tracks. Made a simple flat plate adapter to bolt the original 7173 tracks to the newer seats. Found that the easiest route.