[detroitm2]

Not sure if that's the right word for it.

I'm looking for something I can plug into the OEM electrical harness that will fake the existence of occupency sensors, airbags, etc in the seats.

My goal is to be able to swap out fixed back seats for track days without having to code out all the warnings that are associated with this process.

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by PrinceCity

It's okay. And yes it does exist!

Where?

[AlexB77]

Originally Posted by PrinceCity

It's okay. And yes it does exist!

Yes, please tell us where?!

[chief1richard]

Originally Posted by PrinceCity

It's okay. And yes it does exist!

Yes, please tell us where this can be had. I have been doing my research on it and can't find anything!

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by chief1richard

Yes, please tell us where this can be had. I have been doing my research on it and can't find anything!

From what I can gather you can connect a resistor between a couple of the pins on the harness to fake the airbag. As far as I can tell, it's 2.2ohms.

What I haven't figured out is what wires it is, and if there's a ready built harness for it.

[madwheeling]

You could code them out and and in when you do the swap, shouldn't add to much time to the whole process.

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by madwheeling

You could code them out and and in when you do the swap, shouldn't add to much time to the whole process.

Ya, just another thing to do. I really need to get a proper coding/tuning laptop/tablet. I have all macs and the VM I use is a pain in the rear and temperamental.

[Davil]

Originally Posted by detroitm2

Ya, just another thing to do. I really need to get a proper coding/tuning laptop/tablet. I have all macs and the VM I use is a pain in the rear and temperamental.

Use this.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201468

Oddly enough I had to use this for my Fanatec setup. It works perfectly. Much better than a VM.

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by Davil

Use this.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201468

Oddly enough I had to use this for my Fanatec setup. It works perfectly. Much better than a VM.

Yeah, I know about boot camp. Just haven't taken the time to art it up. I'm just going to buy a cheapish 2-in-1 windows laptop/tablet.

[sprintamx]

There are many emulators for occupancy sensors and air bags. These are pre-wired black box units available on Ebay and elsewhere. I have yet to find a unit that is specifically identified as compatible with the F80 - F87. I've found one for an F30 and F10. Lots of applications for e36, e46 and E90x. If the connections and impedance ratings are the same, then they may work.

The effect is that the sensors will always register as on / occupied; no warning indicator.

Pricing ranges from $30 - $60.

[asciimike]

When I looked (late 2019) I never found an F8x specific one, and was told the usual companies hadn't made one yet. If I can find the right airbag wires, I'll measure it for you (newTIS being down has curtailed my electrical searching significantly). Guessing it's the blue connector, which is ~3 ohms. IIRC the seat occupancy sensor is also resistive and changes with occupancy--I can plug my seats in to a 12V power supply and try to measure it, but I'll definitely need the wiring diagram to see what I'm supposed to be measuring.

Unfortunately I don't think the plugs are going to be super easy to find, so you may have to splice your own connector into it: airbag on seat -> male connector -> female connector -> original airbag plug, such that it's easy to add an X ohm resistor -> male connector and plug it in.

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by asciimike

When I looked (late 2019) I never found an F8x specific one, and was told the usual companies hadn't made one yet. If I can find the right airbag wires, I'll measure it for you (newTIS being down has curtailed my electrical searching significantly). Guessing it's the blue connector, which is ~3 ohms. IIRC the seat occupancy sensor is also resistive and changes with occupancy--I can plug my seats in to a 12V power supply and try to measure it, but I'll definitely need the wiring diagram to see what I'm supposed to be measuring.

Unfortunately I don't think the plugs are going to be super easy to find, so you may have to splice your own connector into it: airbag on seat -> male connector -> female connector -> original airbag plug, such that it's easy to add an X ohm resistor -> male connector and plug it in.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like a diy solution is the way I need to go.

BTW, use the contact link on newtis. You'll probably find what your looking for if you ask them

[KHAP13]

Originally Posted by detroitm2

Not sure if that's the right word for it.

I'm looking for something I can plug into the OEM electrical harness that will fake the existence of occupency sensors, airbags, etc in the seats.

My goal is to be able to swap out fixed back seats for track days without having to code out all the warnings that are associated with this process.

https://shop.blshop24.com/ has them although they might not market it directly to F87.

To make it more plug and play you could buy another set of yellow stock seat wire harnesses that stays with your other seats. With the above air bag emulators and occupancy emulators, seat belt pretensioners (or swap them), and swap the seat modules you won’t throw any SRS errors. Without swapping the modules (or coding) you will still have SRS errors.

The electrical connectors that fit into the yellow harness are made by TE, but they are a customer restricted item so only BMW can buy them. White is the seat belt, blue is the seat air bag, gray is the passenger seat position sensor and black is the occupancy sensor. If you can’t find these plugs somewhere it would be easy to just pin in the emulators when you swap the seats. The black and gray plug layout and functionality is slightly different from US to Euro spec.

It would also helpful to have a code reader that can clear the SRS codes you will get from disconnecting the wiring harness. These won’t go away on their own. The other option is to disconnect the battery each time.

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by KHAP13

https://shop.blshop24.com/ has them although they might not market it directly to F87.

To make it more plug and play you could buy another set of yellow stock seat wire harnesses that stays with your other seats. With the above air bag emulators and occupancy emulators, seat belt pretensioners (or swap them), and swap the seat modules you won’t throw any SRS errors. Without swapping the modules (or coding) you will still have SRS errors.

The electrical connectors that fit into the yellow harness are made by TE, but they are a customer restricted item so only BMW can buy them. White is the seat belt, blue is the seat air bag, gray is the passenger seat position sensor and black is the occupancy sensor. If you can’t find these plugs somewhere it would be easy to just pin in the emulators when you swap the seats. The black and gray plug layout and functionality is slightly different from US to Euro spec.

It would also helpful to have a code reader that can clear the SRS codes you will get from disconnecting the wiring harness. These won’t go away on their own. The other option is to disconnect the battery each time.

Yeah, I somewhat already went down that path. The yellow harnesses are easily found. Some used ones on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Front-Seat-...M/293163981780

OEM Part number: 61129339312

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/par...&q=61129339312

Which can be found new at several places. Not sure why you think its customer restricted?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...i/61129339312/
https://parts.bmwnorthwest.com/t/BMW...vers-side.html

Either way, thanks for the tips. This is likely the route I'll go down. Get the yellow harnesses, figure out what wires I need to tap into (Thanks for that above!) and add a few resistors to them to simulate the seat functions.

[KHAP13]

Originally Posted by detroitm2

Which can be found new at several places. Not sure why you think its customer restricted?

Correct, you can easily source the harness, but not the connectors.

The white, blue, gray, black connectors cannot be bought from the manufacturer. If you look close on them, there is a part number and here is the website https://www.te.com/deu-de/home.html

For the driver side you only need the blue (seat air bag) and white (seat belt). With spare connectors you could keep the extra yellow wiring harness with these connectors on your extra seat which would especially be useful for the passenger side. Otherwise you will have to use the stock connectors and swap them every time.

Depending on your mounting set up, having another seat belt pretensioner would be ideal so you don't have to reuse (or buy more) of the one time use bolt that secures it.

[chief1richard]

Originally Posted by KHAP13

https://shop.blshop24.com/ has them although they might not market it directly to F87.

To make it more plug and play you could buy another set of yellow stock seat wire harnesses that stays with your other seats. With the above air bag emulators and occupancy emulators, seat belt pretensioners (or swap them), and swap the seat modules you won’t throw any SRS errors. Without swapping the modules (or coding) you will still have SRS errors.

The electrical connectors that fit into the yellow harness are made by TE, but they are a customer restricted item so only BMW can buy them. White is the seat belt, blue is the seat air bag, gray is the passenger seat position sensor and black is the occupancy sensor. If you can’t find these plugs somewhere it would be easy to just pin in the emulators when you swap the seats. The black and gray plug layout and functionality is slightly different from US to Euro spec.

It would also helpful to have a code reader that can clear the SRS codes you will get from disconnecting the wiring harness. These won’t go away on their own. The other option is to disconnect the battery each time.

If you disconnect the wiring harness, are you saying it will have a code that has to be cleared with a Code Reader? But if you disconnect negative battery cable there will be no Code?

[M2guru]

Sorry to maybe (but hopefully not) hijack this thread...anyone find anything (codes or otherwise) that will remove the errors after removing the seat belts from the car?

[KHAP13]

Originally Posted by chief1richard

If you disconnect the wiring harness, are you saying it will have a code that has to be cleared with a Code Reader? But if you disconnect negative battery cable there will be no Code?

Yes, if you unplug the yellow harness under the seat you will get an SRS error message, and it will need to be cleared if you don’t want to drive around with the error message. The codes will only clear if everything is plugged back in and functioning properly.

Alternatively, you could disconnect the battery before removing and replacing the seats, but if all the proper systems were not reconnected (ex aftermarket seat) then you will still get an error once the battery is connected. I have not done it this way because to me this method is a lot of extra hassle, (probably need to reload your iDrive settings etc) although I believe this is the recommended method when working on airbag components.

I opted to just get a universal code reader for a few hundred bucks that I could use for many vehicles reading/clearing codes and for DSC brake bleeding on the M2 and many other features. It makes removing these SRS errors related to disconnecting the harness a 30 sec job.

[KHAP13]

Originally Posted by M2guru

Sorry to maybe (but hopefully not) hijack this thread...anyone find anything (codes or otherwise) that will remove the errors after removing the seat belts from the car?

Completely removing them and never putting them back? Maybe one of the professional coders could VO code that function out.

If they are connected and the belt buckle isn’t plugged in you could use an emulator or a universal buckle to plug into the red latch say if the seatbelt chime is sounding.

If you plugged the belt pretensioner back in and you get an SRS error you could clear it with most OBDII scan tools that can clear SRS errors.

[Recker81]

Originally Posted by KHAP13

I opted to just get a universal code reader for a few hundred bucks that I could use for many vehicles reading/clearing codes and for DSC brake bleeding on the M2 and many other features. It makes removing these SRS errors related to disconnecting the harness a 30 sec job.

What code reader did you get??