Tony1M

This is my first post. Thanks for the opportunity.

My wife and I have been looking for a summer-only fun vehicle. Up until yesterday the vehicle we we seriously considering was a C5 Vette. For various potential reliability (combined with GM dropping the ball on period of parts support, IMHO) and practicality (road clearance, in particular) issues, we are considering other vehicles.

I am 6' 6" tall and have long legs, even for my height. When I sit next to a man of normal height, I look the same height, but when we stand up I "transform" into an amazingly tall person.

To me, to be brief, the greatest positive point about the Vette is its tremendous legroom. Acres.

Last night my wife and I test drove a silver '03 350Z coupe with auto trans. The driver's seat had two power switches on the right-side, top of the trim of the driver's seat and one manual dial on the left side of the seat that I think adjusts the tilt-angle of the bottom of the seat.

Before getting into the vehicle, I reclined/tilted the back of the seat forward to about vertical, adjusted the bottom of the seat all the way reaward, then reclined backward the seat-back to what's comfortable for me. I left the bottom of the seat about horizontal and got in the vehicle.

With my size 16 shoes off, I was able to put my feet under the pedals and rest them against the upward-sloping floor behind the pedals. My legs were bent up at the knee a bit, but with the steering wheel/gauge cluster swung all the way up, my knees could swing back and forth under the steering wheel. Although not as comfortable as a Vette, my legs were comfortable enough for a long highway drive. However, when I had to operate the accelerator or brake pedal, I had to bend my right knee upward more than I'd like, but it was doable if I splayed my right knee outward to the right, between the console and steering wheel.

I started driving and I managed to fairly easily operate the gas and brake pedals. (BTW, the head room is great in this vehicle.)

In short, my wife and I love the 350Z. It's a completely different animal than the C5 in just about every way, from sound to handling. Which is "better" tasting, an apple or an orange? When it comes to reliability, however, as far as I can tell from forums dedicated to both vehicles, the 350Z has the legendary Japanese reliability that was built into our beloved 1992 Accord (which we finally sold two years ago). Put as gently as possible, the C5 Vette does not, although most of its rather long list of potential issues can be fixed by a DIYr such as me.

Anyway, my wife and I loved the 350Z and have come here to ask a few questions about legroom.

1. Is there any difference between available legroom between power-seat vehicles and manual-seat vehicles?

2. When I moved the bottom of the seat all the way back, I noticed that to my eye there still was available another one to two inches of space behind the seat. Is it possible to do anything to the seat to get it back those one or two inches?

3. Is there any way to adjust the seat higher for my wife?

4. Finally, does the '09-'10, or '10-onward 370Z have more legroom than the '03-'08 350Z?

Thanks for the information and your great forum.

PS Does anyone other than me think that the '03 coupe exterior "lines" looks amazingly similar to the '90s Toyota Supra?

TaylorWhite

6' 6" '08 Touring owner here. I too ask myself the same question. We could always fab a bracket for aftermarket buckets to drop the seat height. Might help a bit. I am, however, very partial to the stock automatic/heated/leather buckets that come from the factory for my model. I guess we need to make sacrifices, hahah. I can't heel-toe because my knees are halfway up the steering wheel.

sportbiketed

iTrader: (11)

Aftermarket seat and side mount brackets will gain you a little room but the seating position will be fixed.

Tony1M

Thanks.

I just got back from one of our huge Nissan dealerships where I sat in a 2015 convertible and a 2014 370Z. Both had power seats. Understandably, I would say that the Vert was less roomy than the coupe in general.

More specifically, when my feet were under the pedals on the '14 coupe, I believe my legs were flatter than they were when in that position on the '03 350Z. But when my foot was on the accelerator, I believe that there is less room for my right knee between the steering wheel and console on the 370 than on the 350. So much so that unless some modification could be done, I could not live comfortably with a 370. The 350 I could, and maybe will.

FWIW, I spotted a 2012 Mit. Eclipse convertible on the way into Nissan's used car lot. When I got done sitting in the Zs, I asked the sales person if I could sit in the Eclipse. He said OK. I went through my typical initial seat adjustment that I mentioned in my first post. This is a 4 passenger vehicle and I noticed that the seat went all the way back to touch the frontmost edge of the bottom of the rear "seat", which was a good sign. I hopped into the vehicle and was pleasantly surprised to experience leg room almost as good as that of the C5 Vette. Too bad the US-made Eclipse has such pathetic engines. If the 350Z had this much legroom, I'd buy one in an instant. I wonder if the accelerator pedal on the 350Z could be adjusted to be at rest an inch or so further away from the driver?

sportbiketed

iTrader: (11)

Try a G35 Coupe

Tony1M

By "fixed" I assume you meant the the seat will no longer be adjustable. That would not be good for my 5'5" wife.

Tony1M

Good idea. Will do.

monztr

I'm 5'6", I have acres of legroom

monztr

Oh yeah, DO NOT try driving a Viper. Tiny offset pedal box.

Tony1M

Good for you!

I've also read that the Viper's legroom is nothing to write home about.

My wife is still raving about her experience driving the Z last evening. Strike while the iron is hot -- that's my philosophy. The irony is that for me the legroom in the 350Z is very close to being comfortably acceptable. I'd like to somehow make it that way so that I can strike, etc.

Could someone whose vehicle has power seats please make a quick observation for me? Tilt the back of the driver's seat to vertical, or even forward of vertical (the top of the back of the seat tilted toward the FRONT of the car, rather than the rear), and then move the seat all the way back. Then, looking downward, do you see any remaining space between the rear edge of the bottom of the seat and the sloping wall of the chassis?

(I seem to remember that there was some space and if there is, there's a good chance that I coiuld modify how/where the seat attaches to either the seat rail/bracket, or whether an adapter could be fabricated that would bolt to the OEM holes in the floor and then the seat be bolted to the adpater a bit to the rear. The goal of either method would be to have the seat being either right up against that sloping wall or very close to it, giving me that much more legroom.)

Thanks.

RUNWDVL

iTrader: (10)

I'm 6'4" I usually put the seat back as it goes then lean the seat even further back. Not sure if that help or not.

Jennifer 2

Tony, the seat rail assembly sits on 4 tabs that are bolted to the floor pan (seat is then attached to the rails). If you only need an extra inch it is possible to relocate the 4 tabs to provide it. Don’t get your jack-of-all-trades buddy to do this after he has guzzled half the beers you brought for payment though. You need the fabricated tabs to sit square and level so as to not warp the threaded area of floor pan. Also read the instructions in the manual (unhook the negative terminal of the battery before disconnecting the seat’s electrical plugs etc.)

The gas pedal hangs from a malleable steel rod. I had mine bent and realigned to bring my gas pedal closer to the brake pedal. I would guess what you want is feasible, even if you had to cut a small slot in the carpet and underlay or maybe put a tiny ‘clearance dent’ in the sheet metal.

jg021v

Infinity Q60





LEG ROOM





Carmax.com

Tony1M

Thanks for those good suggestions. If the seat can somehow be coaxed back only 1" and the accelerator moved only 1" toward the front of the vehicle, if my advanced math is correct, that would give a total of two additional inches of legroom (when the accelerator is being used, anyway), which I believe will make the vehicle quite comfortable for me. My wife can simply move the seat forward another couple of inches to be comfortable.

And as far as my wife is concerned, having the vehicle's accelerator pedal somewhat handicapped in downward travel would be a built-in top-speed and acceleration-from-stop-light limiter. "Flooring it" might take on a whole new meaning. (OTOH, you know the old saying -- where there's a will, there's a way. I have a pretty strong right quad and maybe the carpet, underpad and floor-pan have a bit of "give", if you know what I mean. )

Edit. Below on the left are two photos of an '03 to '05 350Z accelerator pedal assembly that's being auctioned on eBay.

The rounded-rectangular ring/stop on the back of the pedal itself looks to me like what hits the floor when you "floor" the accelerator pedal. If that is true, it looks to me like it would be a relatively easy matter to bend the shaft from which the pedal "hangs" so that the pedal is 1" closer to the floor "at rest" and then reduce the size of the rectangular ring so that the pedal is allowed to get 1" closer to the floor when fully depressed. The net result would be that the pedal would be 1" closer to the floor at rest, but still travel the same distance before it "hits the floor".

A similar thing could be done with the brake pedal, shown in the lower right photo, although the shaft of the brake pedal would likely have to be cut and re-welded to position the pedal closer to the floor. I believe that the part of shaft just behind the pedal could be easily altered to position the brake pedal surface 1" closer to the floor while possibly not moving the support shaft itself any closer to the floor.

NiLL

Im 6'6" 350#s I have the cloth seats and while a little cramped I don't have most of the issues you describe. My main issue is the left side bolster poking my butt. Heel toeing is even 100% doible.

I have a base though so its not power and its not leather.

Tony1M

You still may not have legs as long as mine, but before doing anything else, I've got to sit in a vehicle whose seats are like yours. Maybe no modifications whatsoever would be necessary.

I notice that the G35 coupe seems to be very similar to the 350Z, except that it has rear seats and is about 8" longer wheelbase and seems, around here, at least, to be less expensive, year for year. Are there any significant "downsides" to the G35 relative to the 350Z?

Thanks.

Jennifer 2

Tony, you have very clever research skills to bring up those great pictures of the Z pedal assembles, I sold my Z a couple of years ago and forgot the exact look of the pedals.
Note the accelerator is a drive-by-wire unit so be careful not to manhandle the control box. If you want to look at a diagram of what the seat rail mechanism and associated parts look like check the catalogs of the online Nissan parts retailers, Courtesy Nissan is a good one.

Regarding your wife being able to raise the seat higher, the 2004 and later Z had a seat base with two tilt ***** unlike the 2003s, which only had one. I owned a 04 roadster and with the top up rear visibility was in short supply especially when backing up. By working both seat ***** to their limits the seat would raise up substantially giving me a better angle out the rear window. Fine tuning the ***** would still give me some control over the lower seat cushion tilt.

Tony1M

Thanks for the comments, Jennifer -- particularly the one about the '03 seat height (non) adjustment versus '04 and newer.

I haven't yet had a chance to sit in a cloth manual seat, but I have found a few eBay examples on which to examine how the seat attaches to the vehicle and some pretty good photos of the seat track (which is upside down in the one photo below). I already have a couplle of ideas on how to modify the track to go back just a bit. Of course what's most important is whether there is any available space between the rear-most edge of bottom of the seat and the sloping wall of the chasis behind it. I noticed on the 370Z that there is none. Again, I seem to remember that there was on the 350Z that we drove, but I'm not positive.

Toneloc

Need more leg room? Drive barefoot

Tony1M

Today we test drove a 2006 G35 auto coupe, a 2011 G37 IPL-trim auto coupe and sat in, but did not drive, a 2004 G35 coupe that had a manual transmission.

To sum up, the legroom on all these vehicles was much better than the '03 350Z that we drove the other day. My long legs were not cramped at all. The '06 and '05 Gs even had power tilting and telescoping steering columns and these are really nice features, I must admit.

Also, the G's legroom is so good that I would have no problem whatsoever driving the MT vehicle, but my wiife is dead set against driving a MT, so I will have to give in on this issue.

Something I learned today is that in the case of the Gs we drove today, tilting the front bottom of the seat all the way upward, and the back of the bottom of the seat all the way downward, helps increase the distance my legs must "travel" to reach the pedals. As long as the back of the seat can then be tilted back back adequately so that my entire body is in a sort of semi-reclining position, this increases the comfort of my legs dramatically.

Therefore, before making any final decision above Z versus G, I have to go back to that Z we drove the other day and try tilting the front of its seat bottom all the way upward and maybe the back of the seat further backward. Maybe this alone will make the car comfortable enough to drive without modifying anything, because the funny thing is that I still like the look (the exterior "lines" and overall shape) and handling of the 350Z more than its G countgerparts. The Z is a true 2-seater sports car like a Vette, although I think it's fair to say that by virtue of its greater road clearance and overall height, the Z is a bit less, shall we say, "extreme" than the Vette, but only a bit. (But I'm putting on my flame suit anyway, just in case, so go ahead a blast away.)

To me the Z's driving experience is more "sports car" like than the Gs, although the '11 G37 IPL gives its driver a high performance handling experience that I think might be a close match to that of a Z, although I must say that I did not push either the Z nor G to anywhere near its limit. However, I can say that the IPL's side-to-side response is both very flat and very FAST! It acts "like it's on rails".

The irony here is that to my eye the G37 has the least attractive exterior "style". It is so long and high that it looks to me like a sedan that had its rear doors removed and the opening sealed up with body filler. During part of our drive, my wife sat in the back seat and, looking back at her from the driver's seat, I could have sworn that we were driving a big sedan rather than a "small" coupe. (She was very comfortable back there, too!) What we want is an exciting summer fun toy vehicle, with practicality of very little importance. Neither of us feel that way about the Gs -- at least, not yet. They're just too damned practical! Am I making any sense here?