To me personally, the seat was spongy and I always felt like I was in a slight lean forward. After an hour of riding, I then felt like I had sunk to the bottom of the foam, all the rebound was gone and it was very uncomfortable. Typically the first thing I do on any new bike is the seat right away but since this one isn't a cruiser-type bike I wanted to see if it was something I would adapt to or if I actually needed to modify the seat. After Sunday's ride, I knew I had to do something. Rubbing your hand across the sitting area you can feel it is crowned(meaning the center is higher than the sides, the cover's design with the padded inserts don't help this either and seemed to exaggerate how much crown was actually in the seat because when I checked the crown with the cover off it was right at a 1/2" so you have to sink a 1/2" into the center of the seat before you get support from the sides of the seat which never works. The Passenger seat has the same feel but I haven't done that one yet but it will be done this week.

So first thing I did was cut out 70% of the foam in the driver's seat, then reshaped what was left in there to have a concaved shape which provides much better support across the sitting area. Then I started rebuilding the seat with 1/2" layers of memory foam that is designed for my fat 240-pound ****. I covered the sitting area but also went over the sides of the seat to widen it. The shape of the looks like someone cut the top off a pyramid and I just saw where Harley released the Sundowner seat and they did that seat very similar to what I have done. The side goes straight up which makes the seat about an inch wider, throw in the concaved shape versus crowned shape I am speculating that I have made my sitting area three inches wider overall. The next thing I did was reshape the thigh area of the seat, I am guessing they shaped the original design in hopes it would help vertically challenged riders or short inseam riders like myself have a little better footing. I took off one inch on both sides of the thigh area doing this and how I measured it was laid the original cut-out piece of foam on top of the finished seats and the seat was one inch narrow in each thigh area. The big test came when I finally had it back on the bike and got to sit on it the first time. Not pitched forward anymore, definitely can tell the seat is wider, not sinking in and the big test was when I put my left leg down to the ground. I was flat-footed with the bike upright in tennis shoes, I could only do this before with my riding boots on. Big test will come when all this rain gets gone and I start logging some serious miles on it and break it in. Part two will come in the next day or two when I modify the passenger seat and I have some really high expectations for it. If it goes as planned the front of the passenger seat is going to act kind of like a backrest for support and I know that seat is going to come out wider than it is so the wife will be Cadillacing on the back when she rides with me. Here are a few pictures of the seat.

Before

Measuring the crown

And the after. Just look at the front of that passenger pillion saying "Reshape me to give you support"

 

I'm just gonna get myself a Corbin over the winter. I put them on all my bikes and love em.
Nice work though. You must have a lot of time on your hands. LOL

 

Nope motorcycle seats is what I do for a living so I was just doing a little R&D today

 

I can tell. Nice reshape.

 

Got the passenger seat modified, reshaped the sitting area to remove the crown and widened the sitting area by two inches. Reshaped the front of the passenger seat so that it gives very good support for the rider and you can really feel it under heavy acceleration. Now to get my passenger on it to make sure everything was done correctly. After riding on the driver's seat I did have to make one small change to the front of the seat. Sitting on the center stand the seat felt very good but after I took it for two rides I decided I needed to add just a little more foam to the front of the sitting area and raised the front up a half inch and after a good 2 1/2 hour ride yesterday I am very happy with the results. Here are a couple of pictures of the seats, driver's seat cover works great but will have to make a new cover for the passenger seat, it didn't want to adapt to the new shape as well as the driver's seat did.

 

Nice work Alan. Keep us posted.

 

Thanks for posting your observations and the changes you've made. I've already taken the electric carving knife to a portion of the ridge on the side of the seat, but did not notice the crown in the center. Will try to level that slightly and also try to get a little better fit with the cover. I find the stock seat to be all day comfortable but would like to get a little better boot sole purchase at ground level.
Thx again for the ideas!

 

Nothing wrong with doing it yourself but I would recommend using a grinder to smooth the edges off after carving the foam. The foam in the PA seats is very soft and a small edge probably wouldn't be that noticeable feel wise but with the material they used to cover these seats will be unsightly.

 

Update, I've been riding the bike every day to and from work, and typically on the way home, I will take the extremely long way home. The usual 20 min ride has turns into an hour and a half ride home. I have right at 500 miles on the seat and it is working exactly the way I want it to and am very happy with the results. I did take the wife for her first ride on the PAS yesterday and she got to try out her modified seat. She is extremely happy with the comfort of the seat and was amazed at how smooth the bike is. She was on the back about 2 hours straight yesterday as we just rode around locally on back roads. Her only complaint is the backrest pad on the trunk is very hard and it has her pushed right up against me which I could tell with her on the back I had to sit more forward than when solo. Looks like I will be working on moving the trunk back and making a new backrest pad for the trunk. I figure the backrest pads on the trunk are designed for a passenger wearing an armored jacket with a back pad but if she would have been she would have been at least an inch more forward than she already is. I do not plan on her being on the back during any off-road excursions but do plan on her being on the back of some dirt/gravel roads rides.

 

Seat is still doing great and decided to update the covers late last year. Did a simple front-to-back roll pleat type cover with semi-perforated vinyl and carbon fiber sides. I like the look and get a lot of compliments on the seat.