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After 15 years with a Ferrari 355 I come back to Porsche (my first and only 911 until then was a 930, I was 25 at that time) because we are now three in the family... I want to buy a 997.1 GT3 and add seats and seatbelts. Why do I complicate things with a GT3 if I need rear seats: Metzger engine in its naturally aspired version, high revs, sound, two wheel drive, lightweight, "pure" driving experience.
This thread and some others on rennlist are very useful but I don't understand why is it difficult to install the seats. According to several posts the "brackets" are missing and it makes seats installation difficult. But according to the Porsche diagrams all the required parts present on a Carrera are also present on the 997.1 GT3:
You need the following brackets. These are not sold individually as they are welded from the factory to the wheel well. You will have to get them from a wrecked 996 or 997 that is not a gt3 or convertible.
Thanks for your answer. When you say "wheel well", do you mean the wheel housing (which is sold individually, see part 6 here) or the body ? I am asking because I will have to submit a request to the insurance and the more I can use new original parts the better it is.
Thanks for your answer. When you say "wheel well", do you mean the wheel housing (which is sold individually, see part 6 here) or the body ? I am asking because I will have to submit a request to the insurance and the more I can use new original parts the better it is.
Yes that would likely be the part. That being said I have never heard of anyone buying that and using that before.
it’s probably cheaper to buy the junkyard upright for a few hundred and weld those vs buying #6 and welding a whole wheel housing.
I completely agree, cheaper and easier and even safer since factory welded parts stay in place.
It is funny to see that now the parts are the same for the Carrera and the GT3. It must have been different in 2007. So someone who brings his car to a Porsche dealer after an accident that requires a wheel well replacement get a car with brackets officially installed (while in the same time Porsche dealers usually refuses to install anything that is not genuine to the car).
Another question: I want the installation to be reversible so I will buy a second hand 997 Carrera carpet instead of making hole on the GT3 carpet. But what about the trim for the top seat belt anchor ?
According to this picture (of the 997.1 GT3 I just bought but I am abroad so I don't have much more than a photo) the hole is covered so I guess the cover must be replaced by a part picked in the Carrera catalog.
That cover where the seat belt comes through, it does not have the hole/slit on a GT3. And it pops off and can be replaced with a standard Carrera part. That’s what I did for my car
@Gengis More importantly, if you want the installation to be reversible, you need not just the carpet but also the main side pieces (where the rear speakers are mounted) as the GT3 is missing a hole where the upper part of the seat latches to. (see blue arrow)
Yea what i did was look for the cheapest coupe rear carpet on eBay. And swapped out my gt3 carpet for the cheap one with the hole cut outs in it. Found mine on eBay from a UK car parts recycler. Just over $100 or so shipped.
Thanks Mr.TT ! My boy is only 1 year-old so I think I'll do the installation in two steps: seatbelts first with second hand carpet and seats when my son won't need the baby seat. So I can take my time to find the brackets and second hand side parts.
I bought the car 2 days ago ! Arctic gey, one owner, 26000 km, sunroof, full history, superb condition.
Quote from a previous post that summarizes what Andreas Preuninger said to the author of the post: "They will never produce a GT3 w rear seats (as they have to then change car set up quite markedly, higher load tires etc for a situation where there is potentially another 160 lbs in each corner). ( I had asked the same question of their head of the non GT 911's the day before and got the same answer. GT3's are set up as 2 seaters.)".
I think it is possible to put weight behind the front seats without exceeding the specs limitation. The max weight is 1680 Kg, without passengers the car weights 1395 Kg. So the max payload is 285 Kg. It is less than a Carrera but enough for a real life occupation of a 2+2 car. Assuming 2 persons at the front weight 150 Kg (total), it leaves 135 Kg for whatever you want. 10 Kg of luggage in the trunk, and then ? By allowing a max payload of 295 Kg I don't think that Porsche had in mind two heavyweight judokas at the front. I am not saying that they thought about rear seats, but I think that the car architecture allows adding lightweight passenger(s) behind.