A few bits and pieces and a trip to Spa - New Windscreen

[Mikey_Boy]

Thanks Tom - I've been doing a bit of digging and I *think* both the seat belt alarm and passenger occupancy can be coded out via the ACS or ABG module? Shoot me down in flames if I'm on the wrong track - I had a quick look in NCS dummy for the modules so could be way off there. I'm going to buy the bypass widget anyway and see how that goes as well to have all bases covered.

I'm worried about the seat buckle alarm because I'm removing the seat belt pre tensioner mechanism as it probably won't fit the race seat without removing all the wiring from the existing seat?? I'm looking to sell the M seats as complete as I can... The widget kit comes with a seat belt connector as well so hopeful that will be good to sort the issues?

I definitely hear you on the width of the seat!! I'm using Recaro SPGs which are amongst the narrowest of the race seats so fingers crossed there will be room - I'm sure it's going to be tight!

I used a trimmer called Cheshire Auto Trim based in Warrington - I also had heated seat pads fitted - these are going to require some thought to get wired in and honestly they may not work, but I'm determined to find a solution for that one - it's about a bag of sand to get the seats retrimmer with the heated seats on top of that. I got a couple of quotes and that seems to be the going rate - race seats a tricky to do it seems for a variety of reasons...

If Tom or any other NCS wizards out there can point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated!!

[TomK]

Thanks for the info about trimming mikey, seems like they've done a decent job too.
I never used the heated seats option so not fussed about that, but now you mention it.... let me know how you get on!
As for the coding, I'm no 'expert' but I think you're entirely correct that those features can be coded out. If you're going to get stuck in doing the seat belt you might as well do the lot, it's really not hard. On the other hand that gizmo will probably do both on the passenger side but you'll need another for the driver side seatbelt right? I've used the pre-tensioners off the oem seat affixed to my bucket as I run without harnesses on the road, I suggest you just find another of those to use perhaps?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-X5-E53-Z4 ... Sw3ydVllYk
Good luck with the fitting

[Mikey_Boy]

Thanks again Tom

The emulator unit is on the way - let's see what options that brings me - fingers crossed! I'll keep digging on the NCS Expert side - learning as I go, expert I am not....!

[Mikey_Boy]

Time for another update…

So, here goes – I’ve managed to get my Recaro SPGs in the car!

I do like the M seats, but I am a real fan of Recaro SPG seats having used them in other cars both on the road and on track and I really wanted them in the Z as I felt after all the other mods that I was just hanging in there rather than concentrating on lines..
So, old seat out and good chance to have clean up under the seat after close to 10 years, with some VAC seat mounts shipped over fresh from Uncle Sam:



Now, of course, the issue with removing BMW seats is that they have an occupancy sensor and sensors for the seatbelt buckle as well. Here, ebay was my friend and so I bought a couple of gizmo’s to fool the car into thinking that everything was good:





Trouble is, that didn’t quite work out…

When I fitted the seats, the airbag light stayed on so I decided to investigate further – using INPA, I could see that 5 error codes were coming up that would not clear:

Driver seat belt buckle
Passenger seat belt buckle
Driver seat pretensioner
Passenger seat pretensioner
Passenger seat occupancy

Looking a bit deeper and using NCS Expert, I downloaded the file from the airbag ECU and using my (patchy) German and a bit of help from t’interweb, I *thought* I could code out these by changing a few parameters.

Bottom line? No joy.

I joined the BMW Coders forum and got no replies back to my problem. Quite understandably, I’m guessing no-one wants to put their neck on the line for what is a safety critical system…

So, time to think laterally – could I put the existing seat belt pre-tensioners onto the Recaro set up? I started by buying an M10 threaded bung and hole cutter:



And this was duly welded up and painted:



The holes are for holding the pre-tensioner body in place with a stainless steel tie wrap and a channel underneath for the wiring from the pretensioner. Here it is installed in the car:



And some shots of the final installation of the seats:





The eagle eyed amongst you will also spot I have installed the carbon trim I bought a while ago to replace the piano trim..



And as stated before, the seats are indeed a tight fit!!



And so, with the seats fitted in this configuration, the airbag light fault code could be cleared - fantastic!

I took the car to Spa with this set up and I have to say the seats are FANTASTIC…………! I really like this shot from Eau Rouge:



So what’s next?

Well, I *do* have 2 M seats to sell………! Expect an advert soon…

Plus, I need to work out how to wire in the heater elements I had fitted as part of the retrim

[Beedub]

gorgeous seats man.... really nice,

[NeilP]

They look stunning.

Love the fact they're so factory looking.

[beanie]

They look really nice in leather, much more in keeping with the car and considerably nicer than the standard fabric.

How do you find the fit of the belt by the seat buckles? I've got a similar situation with the pole positions in my old golf (belt going over the seat by the buckle rather than my leg/hip) and I've always thought it to be less than ideal. To get the belt to be snug over the hip I'm going to try and fit some buckles with a strap so I can route it through the seat holes-i don't know if this will work with the pretensioner system but it might be worth looking at if you're at all concerned with the fit of the belts as they are.

[Vanne]

Mikey, thanks for a great read. love your progress with the car. Some really nice and well thought out mods, esp the brakes and the seats.

I gotta ask though why the pax occupancy emulator and the seatbelt emulator didn't work? that worries me a little as its what i am working on when i get my car back from the roll bar installers.. was it wired up correctly? there are a couple of dip switches on the pax occupancy emulator, did that have any effect at all? the drivers seat pre tensioner and pax seat pre tensioner, are there any way to code those out?

love the seats mate

[Viren]

Those are some crazy cool looking seats! Excellent job, they look like luxury supercar type seats. Can I ask how much these would cost fitted?

[maxman]

When and if you sell your old seats I would be very interested in buying them.

[Mikey_Boy]

Thanks for all the kind words!

To answer the questions - the cost of doing this depends on who you get to trim them and where you get the seats from. As a ballpark number, I'd budget on about £1000 for a decent retrim - as the standard Recaros are fabric, the foam will need to be changed for the leather - if your trimmer suggests otherwise, walk away! Add the price of your seats and you have your ballpark price - I'd look for second hand Recaro SPGs if you are looking to retrim. The other expensive bits are the seat mounts - both VAC and Machtschnell have items and I can see why they are pricey - lots of precision threaded holes! The side mounts from Recaro are fairly reasonable for price as are the slider kits - again, depends on where you buy them from.

In terms of the seat belt routing, I'm with you all the way and in fact, I'm looking to route the buckle through the harness hole. Trouble is, the seats are narrow and so I'm not sure my fat backside and the buckle will fit!!
Let's see how that pans out...

The seat mat emulator supplier was very supportive with the issues I had - the unit was wired in right with the switches in the right place - there is always the chance of codes being there if you don't disconnect the battery and so on - eventually we concluded that the battery being low on charge probably caused the issue - with a full charge the code has stayed away so far. I am going to look at coding out the seat mat emulator, I just needed a quick fix to get through the MOT, so I'll keep this thread updated.

@maxman - drop me a PM and let's see if we can do a deal!

I really can't recommend these seats enough - very comfy on a run and awesome on track, you can 'feel' the car beneath you so much more - but that's me, seats like this are a personal thing!

[monaco_blue]

Do you find you sit lower in the car with the SPGs than the stock seats? I'm 5' 11" but have a long torso so sit quite high in my coupe - I would love to sit lower in the car.

[Mikey_Boy]

With the correct recaro side mounts on, I'd say yes, your bum and base of spine is definitely lower than the stock seat. More important (for me) is that your legs are better supported from hip to knee - whilst this is adjustable with the stock M seats, I could never get it quite right for me - I was always adjusting the seat!

[Barrie.]

Those seats look epic
Quick question, how did you go about fitting the mesh behind the front grills? Looks like a really nice simple mod that tidy's the front end up nicely

[Mikey_Boy]

Thanks Barrie

The mesh mod was fairly straightforward. I bought some aluminium mesh from Demon tweeks and cut some pieces a little larger than the size of each 'kidney'. Then I just pushed the mesh into place so it makes the correct form for the grill. In fairness, it took me 2 goes to get the method right but once I'd got my eye in, it was pretty easy. From there, I removed then and used some fairly rubbery high strength glue to hold them in place along the edges and also down the ribs of the grill - Evo stick strong glue I think from the top of my head.

A nice easy mod that really works! Great for trackdays...