wrong, you read it on the seat side of the plug - you need to know what resistance the seat shows the system to fool it with a resistor.
As for the other issues, I got a donor seat from a junkyard - you have to cut the OC3 mat out. The position sensors are another thing entirely...probably have to do with the sliders.
Well, I have Sparco Evo IIs installed in my car, with working passenger seat weight sensor and no lights ever. I used Brey Krause sliders and a 4ohm resistor. I cut the weight sensor out of my OEM seat and installed it (it fits very well) in the Sparco.
Just my experience.
Also, I can't explain Nitro's observations, but they don't make any sense, electrically. If you insert an ohm meter in series in a circuit, you are measuring the resistance of the circuit. Measuring across the open car plug tells you how much resistance there is in that circuit, measuring across the open seat plug the same idea. I don't know of any ohm meter that can measure the resistance that a circuit *expects* to see across an open plug...
for what I did, I was measured the passive load of the airbag system so that I could replicate it with a resistor. I'm not sure how measuring the wiring and control system could tell you anything about the part you removed (the seat).
Some of those cars look like R53's.... My car is an R56. The pictures that I have seen of the R53's, they have 3 separate plugs. The R56 has one single large connector (maybe 3 inches wide), inside it are three separate plugs. One of them being the airbag, when I measure resistance across that I get a nominal resistance of 0.3 ohms... basically no resistance. I have checked my meter against some resistors that I have, so I know that part is working.
BTW, btwdriver, I realize your car is an R56, but I doubt Mini did anything but merge the 3 connectors into one for the passenger seat. (Does the driver's seat just have 2 connectors merged--there's no weight sensor, so it should only be the 2?)
Anyway, my guess is you won't have problems with 4 ohms. I did use high wattage resistors, of the kind used in speaker crossovers--they handle a lot of load and give you great headroom. I've never had any problems at all with my set up since the day I installed it, over a year ago.
You can see them in my Featured Mini here on Motoring Alliance.
What did you do about the stock seat belt mount? The Brey Krause mounts that I have don't have any, I was just going to drill a hole in it for the bolt. The metal is pretty beefy and should be sufficiently strong. I was thinking that a small bolt might be fine for the forward hole on the stock belt mount, the one that holds the mount level.
I will check again, but I definitely measured 0 ohms in both seats. Both the drivers seat and the passenger seat have 3 connectors.
1. Airbag
2. The connectors that go to the seat belt sensor and the pretensioner
3. Drivers side: The seat heater and the seat position sensor
Passenger side: The seat heater and the OC3 mat.
Also, what do you consider high wattage resistor? 1/2 watt?
I'm afraid that it just might be an article about what not to do... in any case I will definitely put something together. I have found that R56 information is very hard to find. I even talked with our favorite local dealer and they didn't have much insight on doing this.
If you're getting zero ohms for your seat pyro, its because you don't have the harness plugged in. The connector has a bridge that shorts the seat 'bags when the harness is unplugged.
I'm going through the same thing right now on my '02 R53 [installing seats]. I know your car is an R56, but apart from the seat e-field occupant detectors the rest should be applicable [apart from wire colors most likely] Here is a rundown on what you'll need to do to satisfy the airbag module and keep the front bags active:
*Head curtain load = 2 ohms
*Battery pyro = 2 ohms
*Side impact sensors = 79 ohms
*Thorax bags = 2 ohms
*Seatbelt Pretensioners = 2 ohms
*Seatbelt buckle indicator = you need a voltage source [I built a divider out of 390kOhm and 39kOhm resistors using the purple wire as the 5V source] presenting 450mV to the Blue/Yellow signal wire.
The power rating of the resistors isn't important. If you get in an accident the resistors most likely won't be powerful enough to resist becoming fuses, which is ok because they would've presented their load for that one critical use.
50/50 on saying this is wrong. Some have had issues with single 1/4 watt resistors melting. I ran four 1/2w resistors in parallel and no issues whatsoever
