Hey Guys,

My Recaro seat I ordered in March showed up out of the blue the other day. Was shocked to see a giant box on the back patio when I got home from work.



Was all set to start putting it in the car until I realized they sent me the wrong sliders. The correct sliders will be here on weds so I took the seat in the house for a test.



Very comfortable seat! After sitting in it my back feels better than it did when I sat down.

Since I can't install the seat yet I figured I'd take advantage of the extra time and get everything wired-up and ready to go.

The wires coming from the seat look pretty beefy (I'd guess 12 gauge) so I decided to run a power lead up to the battery and use a relay to switch it on with the key.

First thing was to find a good path from under the hood to inside the car. I spotted the hood release cable and thought I could just run the wire next to the cable.

Here it is in the driver's side fender.



Couldn't figure out how to get it in the car so I checked under "hood cable replacement" in the service manual. It said "remove fender liner as needed" Ahhhhh!



Poor car only has 800 miles on it. I actually had the seat on order for my '09 Fit but traded it in on this one.

I ended up running the wire from the inside of the car out. Somehow managed to poke a perfect hole through the grommet.



Wrapped some plastic conduit around the wire and the cable which worked real nice. The cable holds the conduit up and the conduit holds the wire.



Wrapped it the same way under the hood.



Attached at the battery.



Done with the underhood wiring.



Time to start on the inside. I removed the center console to get to the power outlet plug but it was unnecessary. The outlet panel just pops out.
(I spliced into this plug to use to trigger the relay.)



Harness for the new seat has the brown and red wires with a white plug. Red is power brown is ground.



Wrapped that with the conduit and taped it up.



Ran that over to the existing conduit over by the door and ran the seat wires through that.



Tight squeaze getting those big fat wires in there.



Finally made it to the end. Already have the relay mounted to the hood release bracket.



Next I installed the inline fuse that comes with the seat. Very geman looking with the brass screw.



Finished hooking up the fuse and grounded the seat harness to the hood release bracket. These relays are a really handy thing once you figure them out. The terminals are marked on the side there. The ones that show a hinge between them are where you hook your power line. The other 2 are the ones that trigger it to come on when power is applied.

For the trigger I just used an old cord with 2 wires. Stripped the ends and shoved them in female ends of the power accessory outlet plug and put the plug back together. Then just put spade connectors on the other ends to attach to the relay.

Here is the finished wiring at the relay.



Yay all done with the wiring!......almost..

Now comes the ticky part. Fooling the SRS computer into thinking everything is hunky dory with this new seat in there.

First thing is the 2 ohm resistor for the airbag. Ordered 10 of these for 10 cents but shipping was 4 bucks.



Carefully inserted it into the airbag plug so as to make contact.



Next thing was to extract the seat position sensor from the inside of the seat so it can remain connected.

It was a little tedious to get out. It's on the outside of the driver's seat. Here it is.



Tried to bend a wrench to reach it but the wrench broke so I had to use this little piece of a wrench and a pry bar to work the bolt out.



Finally got it.



I wrapped a piece of conduit around the sensor and taped it on so it can't make contact with any metal. Also wrapped the airbag plug with some tape. Here they are taped up.



Thought I was all set at this point so I turned the key on to see if it worked and of course the SRS light came on.

I didn't realize the seatbelt sensor needed to be plugged in as well. Tried the re-set procedure and it didn't work at all. I don't think the standard method will work on the GE because it didn't respond and there is nothing about it in the service manual.

Finally decided to call it a night as it was late and I was getting super frustrated trying to turn the light off. I even got on line and found out a way to blink out codes by jumping a wire on the diagnostic port. It blinked out some codes but the odometer also flashed the word no! over and over as if to rub it in.

Got up this morning, had some coffee and went out to put everyting back together figuring it was going to take a trip to the dealer to get this re-set. Then I half heartedly did the battery disconnect proceedure as outlined in the manual.

Waited a few minutes. Hooked the battery back up and NO AIRBAG LIGHT . Haven't drivin it yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully that did the trick.

Got everything back together. Wouldn't even know it was apart except for the recaro seat harness laying there ready to go.



I'll report back on the SRS light after I drive the car. Hopefully the rest of the install will be easy once the correct sliders get here.

 

Ok drove to work and back for lunch. No issues with the SRS light with the 2 ohm resistor in place of the airbag and the position sensor disconnected from the seat (but still plugged in).

Looks like the rest of the install should be a breeze......hopefully.

 

i'm very excited to see your project starting. your recaros look SO comfortable. i'm jealous. i'll hopefully get done w/ a few current projects soon so i can start with my recaro project, too.

thanks for the write up/pictures and i hope you don't run into any other snags.

 

You have the Golf Recaros right? How were you planning on hooking them up? You could probably do it plug and play if you buy a base like I show in the pics there and maybe some sliders to fit.

Here is the bottom of mine if you want to compare.



It might look different because this one has power adjustment. and heat and a cooling fan in it. Muahahahahahahaha. Sorry getting a little excited about the seat.

You could always just have some brackets made up out of the stock seats too.

I'm only doing the driver's side seat at this time for a few reasons. First is cost. I decided rather than buy 2 seats I could afford why not go hog wild and get the ultimate driver's seat?

2nd is the airbag. It's one thing to bypass it on my seat but I'd feel weird having someone on the pass side with a disconnected airbag. More potential liability there.

3rd is there is a lot more complexity to getting the computer not to notice that pass side seat missing.

Most of the info is on here for the airbag stuff but I thought it would be nice to show what all the stuff looks like and report that it actually works.

Only snag so far was me turning the ignition on without re-connecting the seatbelt sensor plug. Luckily it was solved with the battery disconnect.

Sliders should be here on weds so I can post the final results and seat impressions then.

 

Do you worry about your insurance if your insurance denies your claim after an accident?

 

That was one of the main things that pushed me not to do the pass side seat. Now it's only the driver (me) I have to worry about.

I suppose if I got t-boned on the driver's side and made a huge bodily injury claim I could be denied if somebody figures out I had an aftermarket seat without an airbag.

Japanese and Euro Fits do not have the side airbags. Not sure about the canadian model Fits. The only airbag I'm losing is the one in the seat. Still have all the side curtains etc.

Probably won't do the passenger side for that reason though. That and it's a real nightmare with all the sensors that are on it.

TO me it's a worthwhile trade-off losing the side airbag compared to living with an uncomfortable seat every day.

Most japanese cars have terrible seats. The Fit seats are really bad though. I've had a few cars that came with recaros and they are amazing.

 

We will not cover an act by the insured which 'would resonably be expected to cause an increase in hazard'. In practice this clause is never utilized. Nobody denies a claim because you were speeding as an example. Same thing, no sane adjuster would ever deny a claim due to modified seats. He just wouldn't get paid the replacement value of the seats, merely the actual cash value of the OEM seats.

 

mine are the OEM recaros that came on the mark4 jetta GLi. i'm planning to take off the pass seat from my fit to see what the brackets look like. if it's not an easy "mating", i'll have to seek a professional to fabricate some brackets/sliders. where did you get your seat base/sliders?

i've never owned a car w/ heated/cooled heats so i guess i don't know what i'm missing.

my recaros do have side airbags and i'm going to do some research to see if it'll be functional on our cars. i don't see why they wouldn't be.

i can't wait to see your finished setup.

 

If the seats have standard recaro mounting holes you might be able to just buy a recaro base and sliders to fit. I got all my stuff from Motorsport Seats - Race Seats and Car Seats - Corbeau Cobra Sparco Recaro and Race Harnesses

The mounting base came from wedge engineering via motorsportseats.com. The sliders are from recaro also via motorsportseats.


It's possible they would hook up. Scary stuff to be experimenting with though.

Do some research before you disconnect that passenger side seat too. There is a sensor in there that detects if a passenger's arm gets in front of the airbag. This thing supposedly has to be re-initialized every time it's disconnected and can only be re-initialized with the honda dealer diagnostic equipment.

Sorry I don't know all the correct jargon for all that stuff but the passenger side seat sounds like a big pain to even unplug.

Me too! Getting so close now.

 

You look like a genius doing all this by yourself. Do you know if any garage or car dealer could do the same at a reasonable price? Recaros seat look so comfortable... but it seems difficult to install them.

Lyon[Nightroad]: Are you sure about this?

 

Ha ha Thanks! The seat install seems complicated but it's not really. There are basically 3 parts to it. The base, that mounts to the floor, the sliders which go between the seat and the base and then the seat itself.

I added some complexity by going with a power heated seat. For a non-power Recaro all you need to do is jump a 2 ohm resistor across the airbag plug and pull the seat position sensor out of the OEM seat so it can remain plugged in.

As far as getting one installed I would think any place that sells recaro seats would be able to install it for you.

 

Thanks. I think there are no place selling Recaros in Canada. I would have to buy them online... Is the base similiar to the Fit?

And as someone else stated... weren't you afraid about insurance problems?

 

The base is the metal frame in this picture. It mounts to the floor and the seat mounts to it.



Not worried about insurance problems. Was worried about liability with removing the pass side airbag but I'm only doing the seat I will be sitting in.

My 1986 Omni has no airbags and is cheaper to insure than the Fit. Japanese Fits don't have the seat airbags either.

I just had to have a recaro seat in my Fit. I've had 3 cars with recaro seats and there is nothing like them.

 

Yay!! I now have a 2011 Base Fit with a Recaro heated power seat!

The rest of the install wasn't quite as easy as I'd thought it would be but wasn't too bad since I had all of the electrical work sorted out.

Here's the remaining parts I had to deal with. The mount bracket, sliders and hardware.



Here's a tip for anybody that does this install. Put the slider handle in the sliders first. The sliders snap into the handle from the side. Instructions say to bolt the sliders to the seat first.



Here are the sliders mounted to the seat. I ended up having to cut off the bottom 2 holes of the front slider mount tabs.



Next thing I did was install the mounting bracket in the car. Bolted on the seatbelt buckle (didn't even unplug the seatbelt sensor this time) and tied up all the loose wires.



Also drilled 2 holes for the power plug to mount on the under side of the new seat.



Had to cut the front tabs of the sliders like I said earlier. Still had trouble getting the rear bolts lined up. Then I realized the sliders were out of whack so I pulled the release lever and they fell right into place.

So after all this here is what we have.





Here are the controls...power tilt, backrest angle, heat, cooling fan, lumbar inflater and lumbar deflater button.



So the question is: Is it comfortable? Words can't describe how comfortable this seat is. It's not a cushy sink in it comfortable but it is firm and pushes on you in all the right places.

Look at where the lumbar support is on the recaro. That big lump in the middle of the fit seat is not lumbar support.

It wouldn't cost Honda that much to design their seats to be comfortable. I think it's just benifits them more to make them comfortable for crash test dummys.

Anyhoo..don't want to get ranting about the crappy stock seats. It's something that plauges just about every japanese car.

But if you have the means to install a recaro seat I would highly recommend it.

 

that really does look fantastic Chad. please keep the part numbers handy for the sliders and base. I'll be asking for them if my mounting holes look the same as yours.

 

Now I'll have to figure out what part numbers were for the right parts.

Should be what you need though. If your recaros still have the sliders on them you might be able to get away with just buying the base which is part # 2148T for the driver's side and 2149T for the pass side.

The silders I'm not sure on the number but they are called "inside sliders with tabs" They sent me the ones without tabs at first.

 

Dif you need to drill new holes to put the frame?

Do you feel secure without the seat's airbag?

P.S. If I could give you a million points of reputation for your work, I would.

 

No drilling at all. The base mounts in the stock location with the stock bolts.

I'm fine with not having that one airbag but that's a personal desicion. May not be fine for everybody. One of the main reasons for only doing one seat.

All of the original parts are stil intact and the factory seat could be back in there in a matter of minutes.

The resister across the airbag plug was succesful so the rest of the system is working fine. That was my biggest concern with the airbag.

Thanks!

 

+Rep to you for doing something different and for making it look OEM. The cloth pattern is similar to the Mitsu Evo's stock Recaro's, but the seats aren't overly aggressive for the Fit.

 

I would like nothing more than to have comfortable seats in my fit. My husband is afraid we'll void the 36,000 mile warranty if we switch the seats out, though. We only have 5,000 miles on our 2011. It's a big problem for me because I'm only 5'2" and the headrests push my head down when I'm driving. Makes me insane on long trips!