Hey guys, I'm still on the fence about picking up some OEM Recaro seats, or getting some aftermarket seats for my FE. I've been doing a lot of research, but still have a question that I'm just not finding a straight answer to...

I know that you can trick the ECU into seeing the airbags with a resistor, so I'm not concerned about that. There seems to be a lack of concise/current information on how to handle the weight sensors however.

How do you guys handle the weight sensors when swapping out seats? Do people usually fabricate something and mount them under the seat? Do people use the programs that let you to disable it in ETACS? Do people just not care because typically the cars aren't used as a DD at that point?

If you do disable the sensors, does this cause any issues with inspections or anything like that? Does the car throw any codes, or is the only downside at this point the lack of seat airbags?

I really like how a lot of the aftermarket seats look (black w/red stitching), and I like that I can get them new, however if I'm going to screw up my ability to DD my car, I'll just stick with the factory seats, or keep looking for some OEM Recaros.

 

Don't have an answer, but I too am looking for something that holds me a bit better. Seems Evo 9 seats are all over eBay, and reasonably priced too. Wonder if they fit properly....

 

I don't have the answer either but......I can tell you as a 2008 GSR owner I don't like the Recaros especially after being in them after an hour. Try sitting in them 25 hours haha.

Id like to ditch them if it weren't for the airbag issue so maybe I'll take them to a coachworks instead and have them improved for comfort

 

I researched this a bit before swapping my 2013 MR seats to my FE. The passenger seat appears to have a weight sensor, a position sensor, and the airbag. With all of this, I think your best bet is to find some used Evo X seats since they are almost plug and play. Fooling the computer into thinking there's an airbag sounds risky (especially if you ever sell your car). If you just swap the seat and keep the weight and position sensors, that might be ok.

No matter what you do, you'll probably need Mitsu to recalibrate the sensors. They did this for me in about 5 minutes for free.

This also might help:
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ult-codes.html

Find someone like this below and do a swap.
Trade them with an Evo FE. Both have airbags in them and you'll get some money for your Recaros in addition to the new seats. The FE seats are comfortable but don't hold you laterally.

 

Do you have pictures of your Recaros?

 

I won't lie, I'm very surprised that after almost 400 views, not one person who had information about aftermarket seat installation actually replied lol. I know that tons of people have them in their cars... I expected at least a couple replies!

 

They aren't for sale

 

That's because when you switch to aftermarket seats there is no way to defeat the sensors that I know of.

Sometimes you're just better off calling a tuner or mod shop and asking them-

 

You just live with it. I have Cobra Suzuka Seats and an OMP AM Steering wheel. My Airbags are pretty much disabled. Probably just going to remove the rest of them for a little weight savings. I don't have a back seat anyways and I rarely have a passenger. I tried rigging the weight sensors to detect weight but I never got it to work so just took them out. Between the Air Bag lights and the no TPMS sensor light my dash is lit up like a Xmas tree but I don't even notice it anymore.

I am not sure what inspections would be. At least here in CA we don't have them. And it isn't illegal to remove your airbags.

 

I've been told that you can completely remove the sensors and the OCM (Occupant Control Module) from the car, then use ETACS decoder to shut off the OCM to avoid any codes or lights, but I don't really know how to go about doing that.

I'm also not sure if there are any negatives that go along with doing something like this aside from not having airbags in the seats. I don't know if the dealership can see that you've changed something, if they would flag the car as being "modified", etc.

I'm not thrilled with voiding my warranties, so I'm probably just going to be sticking with OEM Recaro seats, as there will be less headaches involved.

 

I too was looking for a solution for this problem, i was looking @ getting the LG1 wide racing seat from Corbeau. I did email them about the airbag problem and they do not have a fix/solution. They told me to get in contact with a shop that does custom work.

 

I'll just leave this here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ult-codes.html

My posts (specific to 2015's) start here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...l#post11455111

It's no too hard. The hard part is finding nice used OEM Recaros. New from the dealer is over $15 grand and Recaro doesn't sell them direct (I tried).