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Drz aftermarket seat?

By Tom on a DRZ,
in DRZ400/E/S/SM

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lucas302

Posted
Posted

I don't have any specific suggestions but I've been researching aftermarket seats myself. There seems to be two options:

1) a rebuild kit which includes a cover and foam. You use your existing seat pan and rebuilt it with the new stuff. This tends to be more economical than...

2) a complete seat. The pricier option but plug and play.

I have not decided which way to go but I'm leaning toward a complete seat as all my other attempts at any kind of upholstery work was mediocre at best.

But in reading the trials and tribulations of others with respect to finding the right seat for them, learning to rebuild may be an advantage as if you don't like the foam you can break the seat back down and replace only the foam with another density at the cost of only the foam.

Wheeling has a complete Seat Concepts that I may go with.

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JoeMongo

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So, I recently installed a Seat Concepts kit.  It turned out WAY better than I expected (considering my complete incompetence), although the install was not without some challenges.  In the end, I do not believe that there can possibly be a better seat upgrade for the DRZ.  I spent less than an hour doing this, including pulling and installing the seat and taking pictures.

 

I spent over 8 hours each day this last weekend sitting on this saddle, and I never thought once about it.  I just rode the heck out of the bike on twisty mountain roads with brand new asphalt and others with broken and trashed pavement, on tricky offroad singletrack trails with boulders, roots, cliffs, steps up, and steps down, deep and shallow sand, etc . . . 

 

The gripper cover kept me attached when I wanted to be, but didn't ever cause me any trouble moving around on the bike such as when sliding off to the inside to put a boot down while powering around sandy berms in tight turns or moving my weight in and out on the tight paved switchbacks of Ebbets Pass.  I give the Seat Concepts kit two thumbs up!  I recommend that you buy their kit and install it yourself, because if I could do it, almost anyone else can too.  On the other hand, if you take your DRZ in to a dealer to get the oil changed, this job may be too much for you.

 

Take your time, follow their instructions (almost) exactly as written, and watch one or more of their Youtube videos.  No links from me, just search Youtube for Seat Concepts.  The video I watched was for a KLR installation, done by a SC (Seat Concepts) employee. 

 

Here's what their cover looks like next to my old seat:

20131011_165126_zpsa39d93cf.jpg

 

 

They recommend a pneumatic stapler, but if I decided I wanted to use a manual one.  In this case, I bought the de facto industry standard Arrow T50 stapler.  Works good.  Dirt cheap.  Note: I also bought the SC recommended S.S. staples, even though the stock seat staples sure as heck weren't S.S.

 

 

 

The cheezy stock seat pan on the left, the hard stock seat foam and the new SC foam.  The SC foam is only slightly softer, but just enough to feel better.  It is also obviously a bit wider.  I found that this helps support my weight without having the firm corners of the original saddle digging into my butt cheeks.

20131011_171201_zps2325425f.jpg

 

 

The "standard" height saddle felt about an inch taller than stock when I first sat on it, but it's not.  In fact, I don't think it is any taller at all.  The slightly wider shape just means that you slide your butt over a tad more when putting that one foot on the ground at stops.  My inseam of 32 inches means that I have never even tried to put down both feet at stops.  I put down the foot on the side that my bike leans over to when I stop.  Y'all probably do the same thing.  Out in the dirt, I had no more trouble with the bike after the install, than before.

 

 

 

This is the terrible job that the OEM saddle manufacturer did stapling the cover on.  Look at all the loose material and unsecured bulky folds.  How could I do worse?  Sheesh.

20131011_165815_zps0496ce6a.jpg

 

 

 

In fact, although this was my first time ever doing any upholstery work at all, and I refused to shell out the bucks for a pneumatic stapler, I still did a much better job than the OEM.

 

Here's where I didn't follow SC instructions though.  I was having a heck of a time stapling the cover on, using the SC recommended 1/4 inch staples.  The suckers just wouldn't penetrate the seat pan.  My stapler was too wimpy, or so I thought. I was ready to start throwing tools around my garage, when I took a closer look and found that actually they wouldn't stay in the seat pan.  They were bouncing back out of the thin plastic of the CSP (cheezy seat pan).  Hmmnnnnn . . .  WTF?  How do I deal with that?  I tried different techniques, with marginal improvements, when I finally decided to try using 3/8 staples.  I looked over the locations for angle of the CSP and for foam thickness to ensure that the staples were not going to be pointing towards my wimpy a$$ with only some foam compress and then allow the staples to pucture my new seat cover.  I ended up using 1/4 inch staples where depth with marginal (requiring me to follow up with a punch to make sure the short staples stayed seated) and 3/8 inch staples wherever I could.  The 3/8 staples worked great with my mechanical staple gun and the CSP.  For all I know, the hizoot pneumatic stapler would have worked fine with the short staples, but that's not what I brought to this fight.  Results may vary.  YMMV, I do not recommend that anyone else do this yada, yada, yada, . . . .  In fact, doing anything the way I do it is probably a bad idea for anyone else to attempt.  This is what I did.  It worked for me.  My seat looks great and feels great.

20131014_124129_zpsc67473c7.jpg

 

 

 

All of the stitched seams line up perfectly with the seat foam.  The new seat looks like it was expertly designed (true) specifically for this bike (go figure) and professionally installed (WAY false).  I'm a happy customer.  In fact, I'll be putting my spare nearly new (SM?) seat up for sale in the classifieds as soon as I take a picture of it.

20131014_124209_zps66173a4f.jpg

 

 

J.

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mako13

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Posted

Really...what you are wanting from your seat and what you don't like about your current stock seat is what will help you decide what seat to get everyone has their own opinion on what is comfortable to them.  as you can see from all the different brands everyone posted up.  If your not wanting to spend some boo koo bucks then check out some sort cover for your stock seat.  some of them are not exactly made for the DRZ seat but you can make them fit and are very cheap and comfortable(IMO)

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George 99

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Posted

Gotta say I'm happy with my new Seat Concepts foam 'n cover on my stock E pan. Sent the seat to Spencer's Seats in Florida; he did all the work and added his little bit of extra to. So, I've got about $300 in mine but it works. Maybe a little overkill, but I've got Spencer's mods on both my street bikes and luv it.

My DRZ is gonna get big miles too, might as well be comfortable. :D

http://greatdaytoride.com/Home_Page.php

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