A very common complaint from Diablo drivers is that the seat is too narrow. This is particularly so for the recent 6.0L models. In these cars the seat and seat back are separate allowing one to be adjusted independently of the other. This is a long overdue requirement. However for many of us these seats are actually more uncomfortable than those of the earlier one piece molded early models because the actual sitting area within the seat is too narrow. One needs to widen the horizontal area for your butt! This can be done but it does require a stomach to distort the seat structure.

First the seat must be removed from the car.  Unlike seats in most recent current cars there are no electrical connections to the seat in Diablos. The seat is simply attached to the car via four bolts to the floor of the car.  These bolts require a rather large Allen wrench. The seat then lifts up and comes out easily from the car. Be sure to cover the door sills with tape before pulling the seat out.  It is quite heavy and can easily scratch the car.

      Figure 1 The Seat of a 6.0L Diablo

Now comes the hard part!  We are going to strip off the leather and cushion padding and bend the metal of the seat frame.  This is not for everyone, but it can be done in a manner such that it can later be bent back if you later wish to sell the car.

Having pulled the seat from the car, the first ting to do is remove the side shield at the base of the seat. It's just a piece of carbon fiber material covered with a layer of leather. It's function is just to hide the frame sliding mechanism of the seat. It is held in place with two small screws.   One then needs to carefully peal back the leather side padding of the seat. This is shown in figure 2. Extreme care must be taken not to rip or stretch the leather. It actually comes up much easier than you would think. Under the leather is a layer of white foam padding. This too needs to be peeled back.  You should then have exposed the metal side arm of the seat. These thick steel arms are welded to a tubular base frame as shown in figure 3.  To widen the seat you must cut these welds with a small circular saw and rather forcefully bend the side frame out with a crow bar.  It sounds and looks worse than it is!   Do this on both sides. You will find however that you can bend the door side frame out further than the inside one. This is because there is little room between the seat and the central gear box housing cover inside the car.   Sit in the seat until you feel you have forced enough width.

Next you must reassemble everything.  Use rubber cement to re-attach the foam padding (figure 5). Then likewise stretch the leather covering over this foam Figure 6.  Figure 7 shows a modified seat before the side shield is re-attached. Figure 8 shows the seat back in the car.  Note the extra foam I have inserted under the center of the seat. This is a personal preference (I like a softer seat). I will be later covered a black leather cover to improve appearances.

Fig 2.   Seat with side leather peeled back	Fig 3.   Seat steel side arm	Fig 4.   Steel side arm bent out
Fig 5.   Re-attached foam padding	Fig 6.   Re-attached leather cover	Fig 7. Seat before side shield is re-attached
Fig 8. Widened seat in car.