“My Girlfriend’s” Miata: Part 3 – Lotus Elise Seats and Flipside Customs Brackets

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Designed to work with the stock slider, Flipside had received excellent reviews on fitment, construction and, most importantly for me, being as low as freaking possible on the stock rails. The pictures on the interwebs looked good, but there were precious little specific details on the installation process. A phone call was placed to Rob Hancock, proprietor of Flipside Customs, where he addressed my questions and informed me that a set of brackets was in stock and that if I wanted them, I should jump, because they go quickly!

Flipside Customs provides two side mounts per seat, a single front mount and all the required hardware to install Lotus Elise seats in your Miata. The front mount is constructed of 3/16″ steel and the side mounts are 1/8″ steel. Both are manufactured from cold rolled sheets that increase the strength of the finished product as much as 20% over standard, hot rolled sheet steel.The weld quality and detail work on the brackets is apparent from the moment you get one in your hands. Flipside Customs' years of experience really show in the small details of the brackets.All required hardware is provided and all top notch, class 12.9 rated. Of note, we switched to washers with more surface area to further spread out the loads in case of an accident.The welds look great under the very tough powder coat. I did my best to scratch through on a few occassions and the powder coat held on strong.

The arrival of the brackets corresponded to a greatly improved mood on my part. First the construction really stands out as well made and with great materials. The steel is 1/8” thick for the side brackets and 3/16″ thick for the front bracket. The hardware provided with the brackets is all rated at class 12.9. The powder coat was thick and tough, all whilst good looking. A few things to note though. When I had the big crash at Road Atlanta in the Professional Awesome Evo, one of the bolts ripped out of a mounting tab on the seat bracket. The hardware included with the Flipside Customs’ bracket may be perfectly adequate, but after some discussion with the team, a decision was made to upgrade to larger washers that would better spread out load along the rails in case of an accident.

Removing the old seats from the car is an easy task with four bolts to remove and then one wire harness needing disconnecting. After that, there are four bolts holding the rails to the seat bottom. In ten minutes you end up at this point and are left with two options for seat installation. As you'll see, one is better than the other.

Removing the old seats from the Miata is quite simple. Four main bolts on our early NA model, along with one wiring harness needing to be unclipped. Once the seats are out, the rails unbolt from the stock seats with four bolts per seat. From my previous research, word on the street is that the early NA seat belt buckle receivers can be annoying with the Lotus seats, but luckily we had a set of later model receivers sitting around that bolted directly to the rail. The buckles are easy to remove with one bolt per side and one wire harness on the driver’s side buckle receiver.

This is the wrong way to install the seats, but I thought I should document it regardlessly. Initially I put the brackets in the car loosely so I could position the seat before tightening everything down. This would ensure the rails are aligned to the car properly. Turns out, it's really difficult to access all the nuts and bolts to tighten everything down.