James, You have a set of original CF for 355 selling here on Fchat http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/ferrari-parts-collectibles/546056-org-355-cf-seats.html
Yes I know of those seats. I would need to have them reupholstered before installing which makes the total cost eye watering. (The inserts are patterned rather than leather which wouldn't match my car)
Making a little progress on these. Had to move the rail mounting in .875 on each side to match 355 mounting width so I made little brackets double countersunk to shift them inboard. I'm going to move the hardware over from seat to seat to switch passenger side to drivers side and vice versa so the small amount of wear they have will be on the insides of the seat and now the 'wear' part of the bolsters will be pretty much new. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The nice thing about these seats is the carbon fiber weave is in 'plain' weave, which is the 'correct' weave for Ferraris... especially modern Ferraris. However, the 355 buckets seats were oddly made in 'twill' weave carbon, which does not match any carbon made for the car by Ferrari (center console, radio surround, kick plates, cluster surround etc...)
Thanks guys. Ken, I didn't know that. I was actually going to ask if someone could identify it so I could be sure of parts matching if I bought some other interior stuff. Good to know!
Trust me. There is. I have an eye for this sort of stuff. Twill weave carbon sort of has this diagnal pattern. Plain weave looks more straight, tighter, and subtle. All 355 carbon sport seats are in Twill weave. James' seat is not twill or at least the bottom portion as far as I can tell. One of my pet peeves is mismatched carbon weaves on a car.
2001 Ferrari 550 Maranello With better pics you will clearly see the carbon pattern. It is 3k plain weave, which is the weave Ferrari strictly used 360 and newer. I'm 100% certain. All Serie Fiorano cf parts are in plain weave. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes Ken your right i just looked at mine and the pattern is different. Image Unavailable, Please Login
F355 carbon seats... (in twill weave) Pics just in case anyone wanted to see the difference Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I actually like the twill weave a lot. Very 80s F40 kevlar-ish. That is not to say the 550 seats suck at all--just that I like the twill. I prefer the F40/348SS seats to the 355 versions too. Call me weird. Still a great project here.
I too prefer the F40/348 GT seats but those are out of reach. Most people prefer twill from my experience. I personally, prefer plain weave. It's subtle. Plain weave laid in a 45 degree angle is where it's at. Ferrari started doing this 16m and up. My lateral engine bay covers with 45 degree plain weave.. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
My Serie Fiorano carbon side kick plate... shown in plain weave of course . The main problem with Twill weave is nothing else made by Ferrari or even after-market from MaCarbon, Valence, etc... will match unless upon special request (im assuming). However, there are ebay sidekick plates in Twill. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Its kinda funny but for me I like the twill for the seats and plane for everything else. Do the twill have some kevlar interwoven as well or the yellow just the lightling??
There is Twill weave carbon-kevlar on the market which is hybrid carbon (black) and kevlar (yellow) mix. The carbon you're seeing on 355 seats and on F40 door panels etc have no kevlar (some parts on the F40 do have kevlar). The yellowing is simply from inferior 80's and early 90's grade resin that was developed strictly for structural integrity and not aesthetics in mind. Nowadays you'll only find cheaply made carbon stuff from China/taiwan yellowing over time.
Haha!! The problem is in the US it's been half ass adopted. All of our gages (aside from digital) are SI. I think in thousands not microns. Any fraction of a millimeter still contains a decimal point so I have no issues with SI units and I'm just happy using them.