Customer Question: How Do I Fit Sparco R100 Seats Into My Nissan Skyline R34?
Customer question, Nissan Skyline R34
Cameron had a lad on the phone on Thursday who already knew what seats he wanted. A pair of Sparco R100s, in an R34. What he did not know was what holds them to the floor, and on an R34 that is worth asking, because the obvious answer and the popular answer are not the same part.
Garreth wandered over about a minute in. He had heard the words R34 from the other side of the showroom and wanted to know which one it was.
- Three parts, floor upwards: Planted bracket, sliding runner, then the seat
- Bracket £222.60 a side, runners from £41.94 a seat, R100s from £282.00 a seat
- Driver and passenger brackets are separate parts, SB436DR and SB436PA
- The R100 is base mount on 345mm x 271mm, so the Sparco runner bolts straight to it
- Cloth in four colourways or vinyl plain or diamond stitched, all the same seat underneath
- A BRIDE vehicle specific rail will not take an R100, it is a side mount rail
What actually goes under the seat
Floor upwards, it is three parts. A Planted bracket that bolts to the holes Nissan already put in your floor. A sliding runner on top of the bracket. The seat on top of the runner.
Cameron’s way of putting it on the phone was that the bracket is the part that has to know about the Skyline, and the runner is the part that has to know about the Sparco. Neither one has to think about the other, which is why the same three parts go into most of what we sell seats for.
| Layer | Part | Price inc VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Onto the R34 floor | Planted Technology bracket, one a side | £222.60 each |
| On top of the bracket | Sparco sliding runner kit, one a seat | £41.94 each, £78.00 for two |
| On top of that | Sparco R100 reclining sport seat | £282.00 each, £540.00 the pair |
Driver side on its own comes to £546.54. Both sides in cloth is £1,063.20.
The bracket, and why it is two part numbers
Planted make one for the R34 specifically. Cut from 3/16 inch steel, welded up and powder coated black, and it bolts to the mounting points Nissan drilled at the factory. Nothing gets welded to your car, no fresh holes go in your floor, and there is nothing here that cannot be undone in an afternoon.
Driver and passenger are separate parts. SB436DR is the driver side, SB436PA is the passenger side, and if you want both you order both.
Small thing Garreth enjoys about these. Planted are an American firm, and they still list this one as driver, right side, because the car they put on the ramp to measure had its steering wheel on the correct side.
Send us the chassis number when you order. Every R34 in this country is an import and the registration was issued here long after the car was built, so it tells us nothing about what we are looking at.
- £222.60 inc VAT a side
- SB436DR driver, SB436PA passenger, listed 1998 to 2005
- 3/16 inch steel, laser cut and hand welded, black
- Bolts to Nissan’s own floor points, no drilling
- There is a space in it for the seat belt buckle
- Made to order, so ask us for a lead time when you ring
The runners, one seat or both
The Planted bracket does not slide. It is a fixed platform and it is only meant to be a fixed platform, so on a road car something between it and the seat has to move.
Sparco’s own kit is the straightforward choice, because it is already drilled for the pattern on the bottom of an R100. Nothing gets opened out, nothing gets shimmed. It comes two ways: a single kit that does one seat, and a two kit bundle for the pair that saves you about six pounds over buying two singles.
The Endurance runner is the one to look at if the car sees track days. Same 345mm Sparco spacing, heavier build, dearer.
Those three are the ones that suit an R100. There are more in the sliding runners category if you are mounting something else at the same time.
Cloth or vinyl, one seat or two
The R100 is where most people land when they want a proper sport seat they can still live with on the way to work. It reclines. It takes the standard three point belt. It has the two slots in the shoulders if a harness goes in later.
Tubular steel frame, about 13kg. It is not a light seat and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it is, is cheap to mount and narrow in the bolsters compared with the seats above it in Sparco’s range, which is why it turns up in so many older Japanese cars.
Cloth and vinyl are the same seat. Same frame, same 345mm by 271mm base, same 13kg, same recline. The cover is the whole difference. Vinyl wipes clean and shrugs off wet boots and spilled fuel, which is why it goes in kit cars and track cars. Cloth is warmer to sit on in January and holds you a little better in a thin shirt.
The cloth seat comes in four colourways and they are all the same money: plain black, or black with red, grey or blue on the bolster edge. The vinyl has a diamond stitched panel option on top of the plain one, which is the quilted look you see in restomods, and that takes a single seat to £636.84.
Both come as a single seat or as a listed pair. Have a look at the prices before you decide which way to order.
| Trim | One seat | Both seats |
|---|---|---|
| Black cloth, four colourways | £282.00 | £540.00 |
| Black vinyl, plain | £282.00 | £570.00 |
| Black vinyl, diamond stitched | £636.84 | Ask us |
Same seat under every one of those covers. If you only need the driver side, buy the single.
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From £282.00 Incl. VATPayPal CreditSelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
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Original price was: £600.00.£570.00Current price is: £570.00. Incl. VATPayPal CreditKlarna ReadySpeed+ ServiceAdd to basket
Pick the colourway on the single seat listings at the basket. The R100 also comes in Martini Racing colours, and the rest of the range sits in the Sparco reclining sport seats category. Anything in there with the same 345mm by 271mm base mounts on the same bracket and the same runner, so none of the rest of this page changes if you pick a different one.
If you have been looking at BRIDE rails, stop
We list a lot of BRIDE Super Seat Rails for the R34 and they are lovely things. Search our site for your chassis code and they are most of what comes back, so this one comes up every few weeks.
They will not take an R100.
Our listings have those rails down as side mount, on a 290mm by 395mm pattern. A side mount rail gives you two upright plates and expects a seat that bolts through its sides. An R100 bolts through the bottom of its base, on 345mm by 271mm. Put the two on the floor in front of you and there is nothing to bolt to one another.
If you want a BRIDE rail then you want a side mount seat to go on it, and that is a different conversation and usually a dearer one. Cameron is happy to have it. Ring him.
How high you end up sitting
A bracket, plus a runner, plus a seat, puts you higher than the seat that came out. That is true of every aftermarket recliner in the shop, and it catches people out, because they expect a sport seat to drop them and it does the opposite.
Cameron does not think it matters much on an R34. For most drivers he is right. There is decent room in there and the R100 is not a tall seat.
Garreth wants to know how tall you are before he will let the order go. He has had six foot three customers buy the full stack, fit it on a Saturday, and sit there with their hair against the lining. If that turns out to be you, leave the runner out and bolt the seat straight onto the bracket. You lose the fore and aft adjustment and you get the height back, and on a car that one person ever drives, plenty of people take that deal happily.
So Cameron’s first question is which seats. Garreth’s is how tall are you.
Measure it before you buy
Sit in the car as it is, put a flat hand on your head, and see what is left between your knuckles and the roof. Whatever that gap is, that is what you have to spend on seat height.
Bracket only is a real option
Seat bolted straight to the bracket, no runner. Lower, cheaper, fixed in one position. Tell us that is the plan and we will check the holes line up before it leaves us.
Say who else drives it
If two people share the car then the runner is not optional and the height question gets answered differently. One line on the phone changes what we send you.
Which R34 have you got
There are more R34s than people who have not owned one tend to think. ER34 is the GT-T and the 25GT, in coupe and in saloon. HR34 is the GT. ENR34 is the four wheel drive 25GT-4. BNR34 is the GT-R, and it is the one everybody pictures when you say the words.
Planted list the bracket as R34 chassis, 1998 to 2005, which takes in the lot.
If yours is a BNR34, Garreth will say the same thing he says about an R32 GT-R. The money on these has gone somewhere serious and originality is starting to count for real. Nothing in this job is permanent, the bracket bolts to holes Nissan drilled, and your standard seats will go back in one afternoon. Keep them. Bag the bolts up with them and put the lot somewhere dry.
Common questions
Can the seat bolt straight to the bracket without a runner?
Usually, yes. Our bracket listing says it suits Sparco base mount recliners and an R100 is exactly that. You lose the fore and aft adjustment and you sit lower. Tell us that is what you intend when you order and we will check the holes line up before it goes out.
One bracket or two?
Two, and they are different parts. SB436DR for the driver side and SB436PA for the passenger side. Ask for both by name or you can end up with a pair of the same one, which is an annoying afternoon.
Is the pair listing cheaper than two singles?
On the cloth seats, yes. On the runners, yes, by about six pounds. Check the vinyl prices in the table above before you decide, and if you are only doing the driver side then the single listing is what you want either way.
Do I keep the standard seat belt?
Yes. The car keeps its own belt and its own buckle, and the bracket has a space cut for the buckle. Check where it actually falls with the seat in and somebody sitting on it.
Will it be alright for an MOT?
A tester wants the seat secure and properly mounted. Bolting a purpose made bracket to the car’s own floor points is the straightforward way to get there. What causes people trouble is homemade brackets and fresh holes in a floor.
Can I run a four point harness in it?
The R100 has the shoulder slots for one. The harness itself is its own job, because it needs proper anchorage points and a road car has opinions about where those go. Ring us and we will go through it separately.
What about an R32 or an R33?
Different bracket, same idea. Planted do SB119 for the R32 and R33, and an R33 specific SB119-R33 on top of that. Send the chassis number and we will tell you which of the two yours takes.
Send us the chassis number
Cameron takes a few of these a month and the seats are almost never the hard part. What slows people down is buying a rail that suits the car and a seat that does not suit the rail, then finding out on a Saturday with the carpet up.
Ring the showroom on 0115 9893488 with the chassis number and roughly how tall you are, and we will put the brackets, the runners and the seats on one order so the whole lot turns up together.
