So I recently purchased a set of supposed "front" SY seat belts on eBay. I got the belts last Thursday and decided to install them the next day. I was kind of excited to do this simple esthetic mod. so I just dove right in. I removed the Bose bass box from the rear deck. and pulled the drivers side rear panel off to expose the seat belt. Mind you, this took me about an hour since I had to figure out how to remove the panel as I had never done it before.

Once I had the panel out I started to remove the belt itself and quickly noticed that the mechanism to attach the stock belt looked quite different than the new SY belts. I suddenly realized that the SY belts from eBay were not the front belts as they were advertised, but were rear belts. Needless to say, I was not too happy.

So instead of throwing tools across the garage I decided to make the time I spent removing the panel worth while. I decided to remove the rear seat backs. I also tucked the rear seat belts away to hide them instead of removing them completely. Once I had the rear seat back out of the car, I noticed how heavy they were. They have to weigh at least thirty pounds total (although I have not weighed them as of yet).

So if you are looking to save some weight, and would like some instruction on how to remove your rear seats, just let me know

P.S. I can also provide info on how to remove and replace front seat belts as well. It's not as hard as I thought it would be.

 

I too removed the rear seats last year prior to installing the roll bar. I packaged the rear seats and mats in a box and can see why the 997 is heavy. In my opinion the rear seats are useless, and this removal was a no brainer.

P.S. I too suffer from the flying tool problem when things aren't as they are suppose to be!

 

Yeah, I don't know why I didn't do it sooner I make sure to throw my tools out of the garage into the driveway as to not have it ricochet and hit me or better yet the p-car

 

Was it difficult to remove the rear seats? If you could post a DIY that'd be great

30lbs seems like a lot to be lugging around, especially in the rear of the car...

 

Seats aren't hard to remove, there are three bolts. On either side on the bottom of the seat back is a plastic cover, pull that down and away from the side of the car to remove, then it looks to be a 12pt screw, though a torx will remove it.

In the center is another cover, don't pull this up, but rather slide it towards the front of the car. In side there is a small allen screw. After that just unlock the seat backs and slide them up out of the side rails.

I weighed just the seat backs on the bathroom scale and I measured just under 20lbs. The seat bottoms just attach with velcro and they weigh about nothing. I'm sure the whole package including rear mats is right around 25lbs. Best part is, you can still easily sit back there without the seat back. It's a little less comfortable, but for an adult, seat backs or not it's not an ideal place to hang out.

Not sure where to go next on the car for weight, already running no mufflers (those I'm guessing were about 20lbs each). Replacing the rear glass with the RS plexiglass would be nice, not sure how well it holds up though for daily driver. We have the manual sport seats, they are pretty light and no bose.

Haven't dug through the front yet to see what the options are. I'd really like to weigh the car to see where I'm at. Not sure how accurate the 3031 stated weight is. I'm guessing Porsche took the lightest possible option and weight it with no oil/water/gas.

 

Thanks RyanS4 - procedure doesn't sound hard at all...

I wonder if additional weight savings can be had from removing the rear belt mechanisms as well?

On the topic of weight reduction, I recently installed the Aerokit rear wing and although I didn't weigh the parts before installation (I really wish that I did), the Aerokit decklid + wing *felt* like a good 10-15lbs less than the standard decklid and motorized wing assembly.

 

Rear seat removal is very easy, 10 minutes at most.

I am sure the rear deck lid weighs a lot, motors tend to pack on the pounds quickly my AS seats were 26lbs heavier then the GT3 seats mostly due to all the motors.

 

You make me wish I didn't get the power seat option lol

26lbs per seat over the GT3 seats is a lot of weight!

 

Can you post some pics of the rear without seats? I'm just wondering how they look.
There's a post a few days ago about a member who put in GT3 front seats and saved a ton of weight.

 

Here are the pictures of my GT3 seats from last year when I installed them.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...-pictures.html

You feel the car a lot better with these seats then the ***, a little harder to get in and out but well worth it when you start driving (even on long drives, seats are great).

 

I hadn't thought about this. So if you get an aero-kit or GT3 wing, you remove the factory motor and wing assembly altogether? Is this a DIY kind of thing?

 

The decklind and motorized wing assembly are completely replaced by the aerokit wing.

It can definitely be done on your own as it is just four mounting bolts and a single wiring harness (although I did not since my shop was doing the front bumper anyway and they threw in the rear decklid installation for free)

 

on the topic of this thread, who makes the lightest rear wing/decklid?

 

Yeah. Make sure you slide this and don't pull up. I ended up breaking off a small piece of the inner plastic , but it still snaps in just fine.

I will try to get pics up in the next few days. I left the buckles intact because I did not want to lose any parts. I also tucked the rear seat belts inside of the side panels to hide them.

Like strife_wy says it is definitely a DIY job. Just need to get the cable to replace the motorized wing cable so you do not get a dash light.

 

I would think it would be the RS wing, but the factory one. I don't know how much the rep RS wings would weigh, but GMG may have that info.