Review: Cobra Nogaro seats (uniquely street friendly fixed back bucket seat)

[Obioban]

Obioban - I realize this thread is about the Cobras but I had a question re the BK hardware and I’m hoping you may be able to clarify something.

I am close to pulling the trigger on a set of Sparcos QRT Performance seats, and I happen to find someone who installed the same seats on his car. The only difference being he went with power sliders whereas I plan to go with manual. But he noted one small issue where he was unable to use any notch other than the highest setting on his side mounts for the rear of his seat. If he tried to go even one notch lower, the seat bottoms would bottom out and come in contact with the OEM rails. And so the net result is a seating position that’s too level; ideally the rear would be positioned lower relative to the front.

Do you know what the workaround for this is? I have a note out to BK but figured I’d try my luck here as well.

FYI here’s another thread (different from above) but I think they encountered a similar issue despite using non-BK hardware, and thus had to switch to Sparco specific side mounts.

Different seats have holes in different locations— if they’re unusually high on the seat sides, only the top holes, if any, will line up.

[Nardo S54]

Different seats have holes in different locations— if they’re unusually high on the seat sides, only the top holes, if any, will line up.

Right but being limited to the most upper holes only results in a non-ideal searing position. So I guess you’re saying there’s no workaround to that.

[Obioban]

Right but being limited to the most upper holes only results in a non-ideal searing position. So I guess you’re saying there’s no workaround to that.

Yep.

[SQ13]

Yeah I remember the side mount holes on my Sparco Circuit were higher than the old Oreca Start FG (Sparco Evo), so the Circuit sat lower to the floor and very close to the sub strap bar. This was with the fixed BK mounts.

[Avedis]

Has anyone used (or has opinion) on these mounts for the Nogaro? Pros, cons?

https://machtschnell.com/macht-schnell-clubsport-seat-mount.html

[OldRanger]

The project to setup and install Cobra Nogaros with BK mounts on OE power sliders urned out fairly well. There were some surprises during install, especially learning the seat is not precisely centered on the steering wheel. I've already grown accostomed to it. I think I will start up a new thread with only information on the install. This one was so long to review I lost track of the details.

[repoman89]

Just switched my driver side seat over to manual rails today. Seems nice, just a little “sticky” and not quite as easy to get it to slide as typical OEM seats. Is this typical? If not any suggestions for getting it smooth?

Waiting on the passenger side release handle to do the other side since ECS decided to send me a used/repackaged one without the springs. Replacement on the way.

The non-motorized slider piece is noticeably lighter … has to be a couple pounds per side

[heinzboehmer]

Just switched my driver side seat over to manual rails today. Seems nice, just a little “sticky” and not quite as easy to get it to slide as typical OEM seats. Is this typical? If not any suggestions for getting it smooth?

No good solution . The BK mounts seem to push the rails out of position a bit, so they're no longer parallel and become sticky. See my post above: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...620#post218620

[repoman89]

No . The BK mounts seem to push them out of position a bit, so they're no longer parallel and become sticky. See my post above: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...620#post218620

Nice, thanks for the confirmation. I’ll loosen them up and try your procedure to see if I can get a slightly better positioning. I kind of expected this tbh based on how difficult it is to install the seats in the car. I find it impossible to tighten the rail to chassis bolts down unless the seat itself is loosened. The fit is definitely far from perfect.

At least this time around I figured out how to keep the little yellow plug holder, always bothered me that the plug was just floating around under there.

[Obioban]

Loosen all the bolts, bolt the seat into the car and down, slide the seat back and forth, and then doing final tightening in car with the sliders fully bolted to the chassis. took mine from sticky to stock like.

[Cubieman]

Just switched my driver side seat over to manual rails today. Seems nice, just a little “sticky” and not quite as easy to get it to slide as typical OEM seats. Is this typical? If not any suggestions for getting it smooth?

Waiting on the passenger side release handle to do the other side since ECS decided to send me a used/repackaged one without the springs. Replacement on the way.

The non-motorized slider piece is noticeably lighter … has to be a couple pounds per side

My seats slide rather easily, are not notchy and my manual seat rails are most definitely not parallel, I had to fight to get them bolted down as they were way off due to the BK mounts.

Before installation I used a ton of brake cleaner/random tools to get as much of the old grease/debris from the tracks as possible and then used a 10ml syringe with an 18 or 20gauge needle to apply sunroof grease where needed and ran them back and forth numerous times.

[nyc951]

Nice, thanks for the confirmation. I’ll loosen them up and try your procedure to see if I can get a slightly better positioning. I kind of expected this tbh based on how difficult it is to install the seats in the car. I find it impossible to tighten the rail to chassis bolts down unless the seat itself is loosened. The fit is definitely far from perfect.

At least this time around I figured out how to keep the little yellow plug holder, always bothered me that the plug was just floating around under there.

I see you’re in the Boston area as am I - maybe we can meet up at a cars and coffee so can check out the seats? I sat in the Nogaro at HMS a few years ago, but have yet to try them in an actual e46 m3.

[repoman89]

I see you’re in the Boston area as am I - maybe we can meet up at a cars and coffee so can check out the seats? I sat in the Nogaro at HMS a few years ago, but have yet to try them in an actual e46 m3.

Sure, shoot me a PM. Probably won’t find myself at any c&c or track days this year but I’m around and have the E46 out of storage at my house right now.

[repoman89]

Loosen all the bolts, bolt the seat into the car and down, slide the seat back and forth, and then doing final tightening in car with the sliders fully bolted to the chassis. took mine from sticky to stock like.

Any particular grease you used on the rails like Cubieman? Do you tighten the outside seat bolts last after torqueing down the chassis bolts?

[Obioban]

Any particular grease you used on the rails like Cubieman? Do you tighten the outside seat bolts last after torqueing down the chassis bolts?

The sliders I sourced looked brand new, so I didn’t add any grease.

I’d go in this order:
tighten side mounts to seat
tighten sliders to floor
sit in seat. Slide back and forth 10-20 times, full range of travel
tighten side mounts to sliders.