My How To: Swap seats in 88-89 EF

[SMOOTHN]

Do you want to change the seats in your EF? Many people told me seats were almost impossible to do on EF and suggested getting after market racing seats... I refused to believe seat swaps for EF was not possible... So I gave it a shot and this was my result... NOTE: This was all done on 89 EF hatch DX... Try at own risk... What you need is: Donor Seat (in this this project I used Integra seat) Needle nose pliers Hog rings Zip Ties (Suggest something better like metal bands or wire) razor/box cutter Take your needle nose and remove the rings holding the seat cover onto the pan on my Civic seat the backrest frame was held on by little metal rings... on the integra there was a zipper you need to grab witht he needle nose pliers the location of the zipper head is pictured.... Here is the Civic seat with the Skin and cushion removed, here you can see how the Civic seat has the bracket coming out of the cushion, im not sure what year they started putting the brackets further apart but it probably would've made this swap easier... After removing both pans from the seats i did a comparison... there is no way you can make the original bracket fit the 88-89 hatch with out custom fabrication to the interior frame, I opted out of that cause lack of resources to welding... Get your razor/box cutter and cut a hole where the seat bracket has to come out (guesstimated it)... By guessing though it made the seat a little crooked... Also do not remove the rings from the cushion as I did int he pics... it creates slack in the fabric if you dont fasten it back down correctly and the foam then holds it in place is fragile... You'll see in later pics... I compared the backrest frames and they are almost identical in shape, which is both a plus and a sigh of relief knowing im on the track... also noticed that the holes for head rests are the same width as the integra head rests so that an extra PLUS++++ After putting the cushion on the the seat pan secure the the skin with zip ties... Here are pictures of the flaws that I noticed after completion Here you can see how the head rest are the same and the Integra slide/lock fits perfect... Here it is bolted down... Testing stage... All the way forward Fully reclined Passenger View Ending result... Modified by SMOOTHN at 12:45 AM 1/3/2008

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[ComeOnKip]

nice write up. some moderator *cough toad cough* should add this to the faqs. it would save on a bazillion how do i make X seats fit in Y car in this forum.

Edit: I hope you reapplied the hog rings and didn't just leave it ziptied......

[Red_ED8]

Nice write up, I just finished a similar project. Swap the seat skins from my SI seats onto my DX seats. Swapped over driver seat covers onto the passenger side to prolong the life of the bolsters. And I also left it zip tied (hog rings where rusted), but I just cut them short .

[SMOOTHN]

Originally Posted by ComeOnKip

nice write up. some moderator *cough toad cough* should add this to the faqs. it would save on a bazillion how do i make X seats fit in Y car in this forum.

Edit: I hope you reapplied the hog rings and didn't just leave it ziptied......

Ive searched and searched but nobody had a write up like this... could be more detailed but this was just an experiment... I will take more pics when i do the passenger side seat...

Originally Posted by Red_ED8

Nice write up, I just finished a similar project. Swap the seat skins from my SI seats onto my DX seats. Swapped over driver seat covers onto the passenger side to prolong the life of the bolsters. And I also left it zip tied (hog rings where rusted), but I just cut them short .

Could you snap some pics of your seat swap? Yea my hog rings were pretty bad too... and i dont think all the rings would fit the integra seat skin...

[dem0nk1d]

what a hot mess that is. i thought all you have to do is swap out pans.

[Rease3]

how shit ima have to go to junkyard and pull teg seats

[SMOOTHN]

Originally Posted by dem0nk1d

what a hot mess that is. i thought all you have to do is swap out pans.

I thought about that too... but there was something that wouldnt let me do it that way i forgot what it was... lemme go look at the seats again...

[SMOOTHN]

Originally Posted by Rease3

how shit ima have to go to junkyard and pull teg seats

yea tegs seats are real comfy...

Originally Posted by SMOOTHN

I thought about that too... but there was something that wouldnt let me do it that way i forgot what it was... lemme go look at the seats again...

I think the recline part bolts through the pan and the on the integra the holes are in different locations and wouldn't hold the pan in place...

[Loserkidwac]

Nice, I opted to make custom seat rails when I put CRX Si seats in to my VX...but they aren't perfect, I wonder if this method would have been a little better...

[SMOOTHN]

i looked at the seats at the junkyard from a crx and it looks like you could just drill hols in the crx brackets to fit the EG rails... thats how i got my 94 prelude seats to fit my EG

[Loserkidwac]

Originally Posted by SMOOTHN

i looked at the seats at the junkyard from a crx and it looks like you could just drill hols in the crx brackets to fit the EG rails... thats how i got my 94 prelude seats to fit my EG

I though of doing something like that, I drilled out the one side and bolted it to the CRX seat but the CRX seat was actually narrower then the EG seat so I had to make brackets for the inner rail to line up right...but this also cause my seats to sit a little closer to the doors then the originals seats...I might eventually redo them but its just a DD and they are way more comfortable then stock EG seats

[SMOOTHN]

Originally Posted by ComeOnKip

nice write up. some moderator *cough toad cough* should add this to the faqs. it would save on a bazillion how do i make X seats fit in Y car in this forum.

I think he did put it in the FAQ's i just checked it... Thats pretty cool!!! ... Thanks guys... Glad I could help...

[bigrob119]

Nice writeup.

Although the zipties are ghetto fab, I myself am ghetto fab. This certainly would've helped with my attempt at Teg seats in my old EX sedan, 6 years ago, but now I can go cop some tan Teg seats and save myself and the wife the headache of reupholstering the stockers in my current LX ourselves.

[braass91]

Now that I see what the skeleton of the front seats look like, esp the headrest piece, is it possible to take the headrests hardware and install them on the USDM rear seats, creating a JDMish backseat with headrests? Any clues or has anyone done it before? Thanks

[SMOOTHN]

im sure if you hack it up and have welding done to it it could happen...

[THE GAME IS THICK]

too lazy to read everyone else's post. will this procedure also work with a 89' CRX?

[SMOOTHN]

Im sure it could... might be a little different but possible... IMHO

[bigdonnyboi]

Just want to add another FACT. I tried to do the same thing with my 88 std civic seats, which is the same as the above 89 seats, but i tried to swap the 92-93 ls/gs/se/gsr seats into my 88 std hatch, the 92-93 headrest is different than the 94 and up integra, its a bit more wider so it doesn't bolt on the 88 std seat, not sure for the rest of the seats from 89-91 civic/crx, also 90-91 da


Modified by bigdonnyboi at 1:35 AM 2/13/2008

[SMOOTHN]

The seat i used was from a 94-01 integra...

[HondaHeddie]

AWESOME THREAD..... THANK YOU


what would be different about a RSX into 91CRX swap?

would these same steps work?

I want to avoid any custom fab work for the same reasons as you SMOOTHN.


BTW, to all that have swapped :
(maybe this question should be a 2 part poll)

In everyones opinion, what is the best seat swap for a 19CRX that needs the least alteration?

(just disassembling the seat and swapping hdwr is not alteration as far as this question goes )

[SMOOTHN]

Originally Posted by HondaHeddie

AWESOME THREAD..... THANK YOU


what would be different about a RSX into 91CRX swap?

would these same steps work?

I want to avoid any custom fab work for the same reasons as you SMOOTHN.


BTW, to all that have swapped :
(maybe this question should be a 2 part poll)

In everyones opinion, what is the best seat swap for a 19CRX that needs the least alteration?

(just disassembling the seat and swapping hdwr is not alteration as far as this question goes )

The RSX seats are probably harder to do... I wouldn't hack up the seats just to try ... If I really wanted to i could find a way, but the easier the better ... at least thats how i feel about it now... Ive been looking at cars that have out of this world modifications but originality is what i like...

[bigdonnyboi]

much easier if you just add on the 94-up integra head rest to your civic STD DX. Thats what I did. Same grey colors but different materials. Seats are leather and headrest are cloth. Nice

[361 accord]

can i get some before and after's at like the same angle?

[SMOOTHN]

here is the seat before...

[clothespinsman]

hey i just swapped 94 integra seats into my 90 crx today after reading this post. all i did was change the bottom cushion over to the crx pan and transferred the top half of the integra seat to the crx pan. it lined right up to my suprise! didn't have to change the padding or anything.