Since it seems most of the R56 energy is mostly in NAM, I thought I’d at least post this for archiving purposes and to add value to the R56 community.

In the winter of 2012 I made the decision to totally remodel the interior of my R56 MCS. I had been doing track days religiously for three years and wanted to upgrade on the safety side of the car. I always though the stock seats were just “OK” even with a 4-point buckle-in Schroth harness. I got the green light from the financial branch and began slaving away in my icy cold garage till the next spring. All interior trim was removed except for the door panels and dash, side curtain airbags removed, and I didn’t bother keeping the passenger seat sensor. Interior painted matte black.

Seats – Sparco Evo
Brackets & Mounting – VAC Motorsports & Schroth
Harness - Schroth Racing Profi II 6PT Camlock Harnesses

I’m not going to go into brain busting detail, but if anyone has any questions about the process this would be good place to sound off.

Some things I have to follow-up on:
• Airbag light is on :-\. Not a huge deal, but it’s not perfect and that bugs me. I need the Bavarian Motor Technik software to pinpoint the fault location and am not to motivated to spend another $300 after all this. At least for this year!

Before, stock with 4-point quick fit harnesses


Gettin' gutted


Roll bar test fit


VAC Motorsports floor adapters, seat brackets, anti-sub belt bracket, and lap belt brackets.


All done painting! Peek a boo :crazy:


Black boot


Roll bar


The finished product

 

Nice. What does your car weigh with this setup?

 

Nice work, looks great! Any dash light or did you do something to suppress it?

 

Don't have a number yet. I haven't gotten it on scales yet for a corner balance. I'll do that after I replace my battery with a braille unit and maybe get so crazy as to do an AC delete. I'm certainly past the point of normal resale now so why stop

 

I mentioned this above but it probably got buried..

Some things I have to follow-up on:
• Airbag light is on :-\. Not a huge deal, but it’s not perfect and that bugs me. I need the Bavarian Motor Technik software to pinpoint the fault location and am not to motivated to spend another $300 after all this. At least for this year!

I had wired 2.2 ohm resistors to the airbag circuits. I think my mistake was I reconnected the battery one time in the winter without the passenger seat position sensor connected and that tripped the light. Once it's on the only way to get rid of it is with the BMW software It's not like it's beeping obnoxiously at me, just a light. I'll try and fix it next winter when the warm weather busy season dies down here in Michigan.

 

Yea, I missed that. Not sure how... probably too excited looking at the photos!

I was wondering about it since I plan to install some Sparcos or Corbeaus in my car eventually.

 

The seat belt sensors have a supply, ground, and signal wire that I figured out, but I never got to getting the seat position sensor all ironed out. I wrote down what the seat belt buckle sensor signal wire needed to see voltage-wise but can't remember it off the top of my head. For the seat belt buckle sensor you just need to make a voltage divider. When I was probing the wires and the airbag light went on already I just threw my hands up in the air and said, "WTF?!"

Till next time evil airbag light.

 

Well bummer. I was planning on removing the passenger seat altogether and using resistors to hopefully keep the airbag light from coming on. I guess that clarifies that it's not really an option.

 

You'll have to use voltage dividers on both occupancy sensors and the belt sensor. You could go ultra ghetto and leave everything connected and leave it flapping on the floor. Not so clean looking though