change full electric seat to race seat

I have not done this to my 458 and to be honest I have no clue why anyone would.

I do know a little about manufacturing and Engineering. I would suspect it is a easy trade of parts to do this. I see no reason why it would effect the steering wheel. If you do this yoursolf I suspect you remove the stop at the rear of the seat and the electrics unplug and the seat comes out in the back.

The race seat does provide more side support for high G turns and has side support which is nice. I would not go this way because I like the comfort, but hey I'm old

Good luck

Lee

 

Some people did it and it seems it created a few (very few actually) issues.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/458-italia/420013-replace-standard-seats-458-carbon-racing-seats.html

 

Last I checked, the seats were about 20K before any discounts per seat. 40K for the pair is it really worth it? You can sell your car, and buy one with the carbon racing seats and save some money.

 

I cannot answer your specific question. Not sure related for a 458, I wanted to order a 991 GT3 for street and track, and currently the NA 991 GT3 does not have a factory option for sport seats to use a 6 point harness. Told the dealer, I would switch out seats with aftermarket racing seats - their response was if switched out the stock seats, Porsche will cancel the factory warranty. Long story, you may want to check if have 458 warranty is impacted if switch out to non OEM Ferrari seats.

 

Seats in question are a factory option on the 458's, all modern Ferrari's for that matter.

 

I did a swap from el. seat to carbon racing seats. I do not have the memory option, but el steering column and int/ext el.chromic mirrors. With just a plain mechanical swap of the seats everything works except the steering column. This is because the power connection to the steering is done inside the el seats.
For my car Ferrari have a new connection box (ECU) to replace the ecu´s inside the el seat.
Simple fix with no SW.

I do not know if this is feasible for a car with memory.

By the way.
I bought both my carbon seats on ebay for 15K USD. 50% discount as from Ferrari. I guess i was lucky as the color and stitching matched 100% and the seats was brand new.

 

midengine: see my answers in between