I didn't take many pictures, but I'll do a quick write up and answer any questions.

The install was far easier than I thought it would be.

YES - there is welding, very very minimal.

YES, the airbags all work and so does the OPDS (passenger side weight sensor).

it's 99% plug and play.

REMOVE THE NEGATIVE TERMINAL FROM YOUR BATTERY BEFORE DOING THIS! (Since you'll be playing with Airbag wire harnesses!)

For my fit - the airbag and seatbelt buckle both used the same 2 pin plug!!!! DO NOT mix up which is the seat belt and which is the air bag. My fits seatbelt harness had grey tape wrapped around it. for safety reasons, put a mark or a zip tie around it so you know which is the seatbelt plug when it comes time for reinstall.

i took both seats from the fit out and noticed the passenger side front feet are only bolted on. so unbolt those.

the front feet on the drivers side are on with rivets - drill those out and keep the feet.

the rear bolts for the Si seats do line up perfectly! (hence why you harvest just the front feet).

The Si seat feet were riveted on. drill those out too.

just behind the feet of the Si seats is these "square" pieces that are on with 2 rivets. cut the square piece off or drill out the rivets (or the seats wont sit right and line up in the fit as they prevent the seat from sitting low enuff)

There's also a bar on the middle under side thats held on with 2 nuts per side, take that bar off and knock out the carriage bolts.

so, once you have all the front feet off the fit and Si seats, remove the seatbelts off the Si seats (there's 2 harness plugs, as the Fit only has one for it's seat belt), put the fit seatbelt buckles onto the fit seats (one bolt).

THIS PART IS CRUCIAL!

The fit passenger seat has a zipper up the side. unzip it and you'll see a white plastic housing. remove that to expose the OPDS unit. 2 10mm bolts hold it in, and 4 wire harness plugs.

for the Si seats, the back of the seats is a hard plastic. pry from the top back, it pops off (dont pop it completely off at the bottom is 2 white plastic rivets that will break - but you dont want that to happen...).

There is white plastic wrap arounds that hold the left side of the fabric for the seat in place. pull those around to expose the Si's OPDS.

2 10mm nuts and unplug the OPDS.

Put your OPDS in place (only one nut will line up! keep it as flush to the seat side as possible), plug in the 4 harness plugs).

put the plastic seat backing into place.

to mount the feet from the Fit seats onto the rails of the Si seats, we used 1" long grade 8 carriage bolts and nuts.

only 1 bolt at the very front will line up (as there is 2 holes from 2 rivets). so you'll want to use a VERY good quality carriage bolt, then also weld the feet to the rails for extra strength.... you can get away with not welding it - but I did, as safety is key! We did put a spacer (one small nut) between the foot and rail to lift the seat up a bit. we did this because with it lower, the slider bar would hit the floor of the fit when all the way forward. lifting it a bit gave it just enough clearance.

the passenger side wireharnesses all line up for the airbag/opds.

driver side: the right side foot will use one bolt thru the front rivet hole. also weld the feet to the rails (we did the welding IN the car once the bolts were tightened, just to make sure it was center and lined up...didn't want to weld it then find out our feet were off center).

the front left foot for the driver side however, NO carriage bolts could be used. the rail was just a bit too short to have the holes line up. so we welded the foot to the rail, then welded 1/8th steel plate to each side of the foot and one on the underside/back of the foot to the rail. (yes, i am picky about safety).

you could probably do a piece of steel with 2 holes and 2 carriage bolts - we decided welding was far safer.

The driver side harness was not %100 plug and play. the Fit harness and Si seat had one plug that was different - we harvested the plastic plug from the fit seat and repinned the mismatched plug on the Si seat. (hope I worded that correctly). The seatbelt and yellow plug were fine, it was the airbag white coloured plug that needed to be repinned. only 2 wires.

so, once everything is wired up, seats are in/welded and secure, reconnect the battery, start the car.

if your repinning and OPDS gets detected, you should have no lights.

I made an error during my install - The Si OPDS has an ID number - my computer detected it wasn't the right one and I threw an airbag code.

My local honda dealer did the code scan to find out it was the ECU warning the OPDS was "malfunctioning" due to code mismatch. I had to do the OPDS unit swap, then have them reset the OPDS (they had to do the full reinitialization of the OPDS system). LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE - do the OPDS swap before hand.

It took us about 2-ish hours to do the seat swap. It's basically harvesting the OPDS, swapping front feet, repinning one airbag plug.

I hope I didn't miss any steps. If anyone needs pictures of anything, i'll see what I can do.

Here they are, they need a cleaning (the seats had sat for a while in a dusty garage, plus our dirty hands during install....plus dog hair from my dogs :P)

 

Wow,
thanks,
your post is a good guidance for me in the future...
so now I know I can get any used older Honda seat,
harvest their OPDS sensor PAD (not the module but the sensor pad),
then connect that sensor Pad with the Honda Fit OPDS MODULE,...
I mean this is for replacing the seat with after market seat in the future...
(this mean I do not need to destroy my original passenger seat... but just buy some cheap
used seat from some junk yard...)

the only thing that I need to figure out is whether I can harvest just the sensor pad
or I need to keep some of the foam where the sensor pad is embedded into..
or if they are just act like a capacitor, I might be able to replace those sensor pad with a fix capacitor to trick the OPDS just like the resistor trick the air bag sensor...

oh by the way,
Your Civic Si seats looks very nice with that Red Stitching !
Congratulations

 

The si and fit seats also have 4 sensors in the bottom between the rail and cushion (4 harness plugs total). This worked easily as the si seats used the same harness and sensors as the fit - only the OPDS unit needed to be swapped and calibrated. You may need to harvest more than just the sensors in the pads. Btw - those do come off the foam. But don't get oil from your hands on them or bend them even in the slightest.

As for tricking the system into thinking there is an OPDS and there isn't, I couldn't find a solution.

I had amazing recaros ready to go in - and didn't. There is a resistor bypass for airbags. But not one for the OPDS (the airbags plug is just 2 wires. OPDS is 4 sensors on the bottom of the seat plus 2 pads in the seat itself)

 

Hello,
I read some patent from Honda,
and they said the OPDS works with difference in Capacitance value from the OPDS sensor pads,... so you might want to check the capacitance value of those pads when you sit on it, and when nobody sit on it...
that could be as simple as that...

also if you check Honda Fit part catalog,
you will see that on Honda Fit the OPDS sensor pad is ONLY at the seat back and NONE at the bottom part of the seat (where our butt seat)...

so I think we can just harvest those OPDS sensor pad,
and then hide them somewhere... perhaps at the bottom of the recaro,
connect those OPDS sensor pad with original Honda Fit OPDS module,
and voila, you got recaro but with NO OPDS warning light

or as I had said, if those OPDS sensor pad truly work with difference in capacitance, then just plug a capacitor to the wire that connect to the OPDS module and the sensor pad...
so the capacitor is seen as the sensor pad...

Oh you might need more than 1 capacitor, most likely 2 capacitor.
one for the lower back and one for the middle/upper back sensor pad on the seat back.
I think that is the way they measure whether a child seat there or adult seat there (by the height of their back).

what do you think of my theory?

 

There is 4 individual sensors on the underside of the seat. The si seats have those same sensors. Hence why Honda had to use weight in the seat to reset and calibrate my seat.

Also, the ecu looks for changes in weight. To keep your airbags active you'd need to trick it into thinking there is always someone in the seat.

You'd need to trick all 4 sensors plus the sensor pads.....

 

hmmm...
I guess I have to study them in real time in the future when I bought Recaro seat...

I really need to do it myself so I can understand more on how this works...

anyway... now I need to find extra money to buy the Recaro...
that is the hardest part hahaha

 

I had a flawless set I was going to put in. Sold them as there was no OPDS bypass for the fit. The 4 sensors in the base and having them re calibrated was a huge issue. Hence why l went with the si seats. All but one plug, and all pin outs for the OPDS were the same.

 

Those look solid in your fit. I guess they do sit higher due to rails and the floor of Fit. I guess these seats will not fit in GD3?

 

Nope. Sit about the same. Used the stock feet from the fit rails.

They should fit in a gd3. Dunno if it's as easy - as the ge8, the rear bolts lined up on the stock si rails.

 

What year SI you can use?

 

all Si seats use the same bolt pattern. So any 06-11 should work for sure.

The difference is the quality. They improved the seats in 09+ over the 06-08. Better quality material in the middle of the seat (less prone to tearing, lasts longer). And having owned a 08 in the past, the 2009+ seats to me, the bolsters feel stiffer/bigger/better.

Also, in reguards to the height question. The Si seats have height adjustment for the drivers side. I have mine lower, and I honestly think I have more head room.

 

In that case I need to look into this.

I would love new seats. And of these will fit my GD3, then they are a must have.

Also someone else said they do have adjustment for height for driver seat. Now I really need these seats.

Unless anyone else has out the 2010 si seats in the GD3, I may be the first

 

I say do it up. I have zero regrets. The biggest complaint about the fit (other than the cheap paint) is the seats. I'm a big guy (frame and muscle, not fat). The fit seats offered me zero support. long drives were murder on my back.

It would be interesting to see if the rear holes line up on the GD3 too.

just remember to harvest the OPDS (the GD3 has the OPDS I am sure too. check the underside of the fit seat to see if it uses the 4 pressure sensors)

 

Yes they have sensors. Every time my dog sits in the front the airbag is turned off due to weight. So yes sensors are there I guess I just ripp em out and swap. Now how will I know if the holes line up without having a pair of seats. Don't wanna grab seats and realize I'm
Screwed. I may rip out a seat today just to see if the rails and all will go right in

 

no need to rip them out.

the Si seats use the SAME sensors and harness! the pinout is the exact same.

just remove the OPDS unit from your seat and install it in the Si seat. VERY easy to do.

I would suspect you need to swap the front feet too. not hard to do.

 

Nice mod!

I just found this ITEM9's Build Thread: JR Supercharged PWP EX 6MT - Page 26 - Honda CRZ Forum: Honda CR-Z Hybrid Car Forums Alpina, I'd watch that thread closely... if anyone can figure out a solution it would be Item9.


It seems as others are working on a solution for the aftermarket seats which requires cutting up the OEM seat.
I think they're on to something.

 

People have tried that. Even if you get the OPDS bottom and back sensors into a seat, you then need to recalibrate it. Lots of dealers won't do that - as it's a liability issue bypassing airbags.

Plus the cost of reupholstering expensive seats....

 

Thanks FitStir, you point me out to the right direction again today !


Nicotine,
as I had post before, I am pretty sure the OPDS sensor is only at the seat back and not at the seat bottom because I take a look at the Honda Fit Parts Diagram.

based from the CR-Z forum pictures, turn out I am correct,
the OPDS sensor is only at the seat back and no OPDS sensor at the seat bottom.

The Weight sensor were attached to the seat rail and not to the seat back.
but you are right that there are 2 other sensor below the seat,
I missed that, I thought the 2 other sensor below the seat were the seat POSITION sensor...
hey wait a minute... perhaps those 2 sensor below the seat are
one weight sensor and one position sensor...
anyway, I would not know about this until I gutted my own OEM seats hahaha

so there are 3 solutions for the OPDS sensor problem...

1. Gutted your OEM Seats like that CR-Z poster do and try to insert those sensor into the new recaro (involve opening up the Recaro, which I won't know whether this can be done easily or not until that guy received his Recaro).

2. Gutted your OEM Seats but do not take out the OPDS sensor pad entirely from the foam like what that CR-Z poster did,
instead, cut a good chunk of the OEM seat foam, so the OPDS sensor still have enough backing foam for it to attached, (yet still thin enough) so we can hide this under the recaro seat

3. if you don't want to gutted your OEM Seats because you might need it someday,
you can always buy a new or used OEM seats back with OPDS sensor inside (some used OEM seats who had been to accident and had their airbag deployed can work)...
remember this OPDS sensor do not need to be re calibrated because they are just sensor...
the most important thing is just that OPDS module, where we should reuse
the OPDS module that came with our car...
in fact, I am pretty sure we can buy any Honda OPDS seat back sensor pad and don't have to be a Fit seat back, because from your experience
the OPDS sensor pad from Civic Si can work with OPDS module from Honda Fit...

for the weight sensor, I am sure it will work just fine as long as you plug it into the OPDS module...

but let me pointed out that
although all 3 method above will prevent the OPDS warning light on the dashboard or airbag warning light on the spedometer from light up,

BUT,..

the only method that most likely still let the passenger air bag to deploy is only the first method...
the second and third method will let OPDS think that NOBODY is sitting on the car since no pressure applied to the OPDS sensor pad and weight sensor...

heck, come to think of it,
even the First method proposed by the CR-Z guy still most likely will not deploy the airbag if the car had accident
because although the sensor pad will feel pressure (if he integrated it into the recaro),
the weight sensor will not feel anything...

hmmm

that is why I need to measure the weight sensor and OPDS sensor pad resistance and capacitance...

because if those 2 sensor work by resistance or capacitance,
then we can just plug in either resistor or capacitance
to fool the OPDS into thinking that there are always some adult sitting on that passenger seat...
the bad thing about this is,
if a kid or nobody sit on that seat, and the car got into accident,
you will still deploy the air bag...
so if you do this, make sure no kid sit on the passenger seat
or be ready to replace those passenger air bag too...
but it is still way better then non deploying air bag at all...

of course, as you pointed out,
if you want full functionality of the airbag and sure about it,
then the Civic Si seat is the only current solution...

still, those Recaro Seat looks even better right...
so...

beside in Japan (and rest of the world)...
Honda Fit can be installed with Honda Access/Modulo Recaro Seat Option !!! cause they don't have seat airbag there...
it is just that US had too much regulation...

for me, most likely
I will try to measure the capacitance and the resistance of those sensor first...
then I might be able to save lot of money and effort since I don't have to gutted or buy a new OPDS sensor seat back...
I just had to remember never let small kids sit in the front passenger seat...
or if they seat, make sure they seat as far away from the dashboard airbag...

 

There is 4 sensors at the bottom. I can verify this first hand - which is why Honda had to do a weight reset when they reset the OPDS. It's not strips like the back pad. It's 4 sensors in the corners of the rails.

I will take pics.

Also, is a 40000 word essay reply needed? Lol.

 

Hello,

as you might notice by now,
English is obviously NOT my first language
that is why I am NOT able to express what I mean in as elegantly simple way as you were able to
please pardon me for the 40,000 word essay hahaha...

I hope this new reply is short enough for you,
although I am pretty sure you can make it even shorter hahaha...

and perhaps my lack of command in English make for some of the misunderstanding here...
I always know that there are other sensor at the bottom of the seat,
but I am sure those are not the sensor PAD, and since I don't really worry
about other sensor beside the PAD,
I mistakenly thought you are saying that there are sensor PAD at the bottom part of the seat...

well from what I understand NOW,

you already knew that the sensor PAD is only at the seat back, but you also try to tell me that there are other sensor to measure weight (and those are NOT PAD type of sensor) under the seat...
and I mistakenly thought you were telling me there are another sensor PAD inside the bottom part of the seat cushion...

Ok,
so I think now I understand what you had been trying to say.
Sorry for the confusion

anyway...
I do think that the weight sensor (some people said there is a position sensor too) UNDER the seat are easier to tackle then the sensor PAD inside the back of the seat...
but I also pretty sure even the sensor PAD on the back of the seat can be
harvested or replaced with either a capacitor or in combination with resistor...
I just had to do this experiment myself,
or hopefully the CR-Z poster (ITEM9) can figure it out so I can just copy his method

so the only problem left for me now is to came out with the money to buy the Recaro seat and the seat rail that I want,
the other obstacle like this OPDS, well if there is a will there will always be a way

but of course thanks to your effort on this Civic Si seat,
and to other poster effort here at fitfreak
and the poster at CR-Z forum,
I think I already have many great idea on how to tackle this OPDS problem