I have a Status racing ring GT seat (Carbon fiber shell, leather, with alacantra cushions) that I bought off of a member on here. I installed it and tested it out for a week in the summer while I was home on leave.
No track time with it yet, just some aggressive driving.
Initial impressions:
Comfort:
The seat is quite comfortable however in a different way than the stock seats. It is obviously much firmer all around, but the posture you are sitting in seems to be perfect, once I adjusted the slider to my liking all of the controls were in a nice natural spot for driving. It actually feels more natural for driving position than I could ever get my stock touring seats adjusted to, and that is with 8 ways of adjustment! The only minor complaint in the comfort department is that after a couple hours of driving, your @ss kinda gets numb as the bottom cushion is not all that plush. Overall though, much better in the comfort department than I expected from a racing seat.
Support:
The ring GT seat is the larger version of the ring seat, gives slightly more shoulder room and room for hips/thighs. I am 5'11" and 170lbs, and I could probably use the smaller seat. That being said, the support this seat provides is excellent, almost zero movement even under very hard cornering (Street), quick lane changes and several 360 degree spins lol. If I had the smaller version, I am certain the body movement would be zero. The support this seat provided even for DD is the biggest improvement over the stock touring seats (that and looks).
Looks:
This seat is gorgeous. The carbon fiber work is exceptional, and the black leather w/ black alacantra cushions and white stitching matches the Z perfectly. Nice large white Status logo on the top of the seats too. (I always wished the touring seats had something embroidered on the headrest, even a big white Z, it looks cool through the front windscreen! lol) Of course the seat can be totally customized so looks will vary depending on tastes.
Accessibility:
This is the one area where I was not overly impressed, however it is due to the design of the car and racing seats of this style in general and not the specific seat. It was a fairly big PITA getting in and out of the car. And this is on the drivers side where you can use the steering wheel to help drop into the seat. This is mostly due to the very high side bolsters of the seat, you cant just slide into it you have to get up and over the bolster then let yourself down into the seat. Because this involves holding onto something, and there are no 'oh sh!t' handles in the car, plus i don't touch the exterior of the car with my hands (fingerprints on black!
), the steering wheel is the only option. I can see the passenger side potentially being even worse for this reason, granted the steering wheel wont be in the way either. Maybe some others will not find it as difficult however I'm not a big guy and am fairly agile. I thought it would get easier over time however after a week I was still finding it difficult getting in and out quickly/smoothly.
Final impressions:
I was very impressed with this seat, and I will probably be ordering a matching seat for the other side. Well actually, I'll probably get the smaller Standard Ring seat for the drivers side and put the GT on the passenger side. Not that I need another racing seat, as it's just me at the track, but it sure would look nice to have both sides match
I do plan on keeping my stock touring seats for long road trips and potentially for the early/late part of the (short) season in Canada where seat heaters are almost a must have item. Plus it's no big deal switching them out, 4 easy bolts and some careful finessing. On a side note, I weighed the complete stock touring seats and the complete Status seat assembly, and while I don't remember the exact weights on both, the Status setup was 19-20 lbs lighter. All in all, I can confidently say that you will not be disappointed with Status seats if you decide to go that route.
EDIT: I bought the seat off Reaper42 whose install is the link above my post
