Recaro Sportster CS heaters to OEM switches +Airbag

AH370Z

Hi All,

Thought i would share my installation for my new Recaro Sporster CS with Side Airbag and Heating.
Disclaimer: Perform the below at your own risk, ensure you always disconnect the battery and allow it to discharge any risidual power within the car (usually 5 minutes)

With the OEM seats removed this is the floor wiring harness (yellow is airbag, large white is seat motor/heating, small is for the seat belt) For the seat belt connector in my car the passenger was not connected but the driver one was. It also looks like the Australian cars do not have a occupancy sensor in the passenger side otherwise you would have to transfer this into the recaro seat or use a resister to permenatly enable the passenger front airbag
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Connecting the Airbags

The airbags in the recaro are universal however they are not plug and play for the Z.

Recaro Airbag connector
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Initially I figured the easiest approach was to use quick splice connectors.
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I ended up doing away with these as they were actually cutting into the wires and causing resistence and for the airbag lights to stay on even after reset. Not to mention it looks ugly.

I decided to wire in the oem connectors for a secure connection and oem look

Connectors removed from oem seat and stripped
oem connectors ready.jpg
Cut the recaro connector off
cut recaro airbag connector.jpg
Wired in the connector, I opted not to use any solder and just wrapped each connection with electrical tape and then taped them both together. They arent going anywhere
airbag connector wired.jpg
airbag connecter complete.jpg

After connecting the battery back up and starting the car, the airbag lights were still flashing but when I performed the airbag reset procedure (series of timed ignition power cycles) the airbag light was reset. So happy!

Seat Heating

The Recaros have a power and ground wire, 12V Relay and wiring to the recaro 2 stage heater switch.

Recaro wiring.jpg

Here is the fuse that's needed when wiring in the power. I installed this between the recaro seat power wire and cigarette lighter in center console
recaro fuse.JPG

I initially connected the power and ground and made use of the recro switches before I moved onto figuring out the intergration to the oem switches, so I don't think this is necessary as you can get power and ground from the oem floor harness and you will rely on the cars fuse system.

I connected the ground to the seat mount bolt and tapped the power into the cigarette lighter in the center console using the fuse supplied with the seats. This required removing the shifter surrounds, center console and was quite annoying. As mentioned above I don't think this is required if you want to intergrate into the oem switches.

About a week had passed and I was ready to intergrate these into the oem heating switches and this is what I found.


There is a large white connector with 4 wires attached out of the floor which is for the oem seat motor/heater so I assumed I needed to tap into these.

I checked the Service Manual and came up with wires 59 and 60 on B501 and B551 Connectors. I origionally wanted to avoid cutting off any oem connectors from the OEM seat but in the end I decided that I could always just wire them back in and it would give me the best connection as with the airbags.

Below is the wiring for OEM heating connector from the Service Manual.
Heated Seat 2.jpg

I learned that its not best to go off the wire colours as they differ from car to car and the best approach is to use a multi meter to measure the 12v going to each wire when you flick the oem eating switch to high or low. Sorry I didnt get any photos of this.

If you do not have multi meter then the thicker 2 of the 4 wires are going to be power and ground (black and green in my car) and the remaining 2 will be for high and low (Grey and white) so you can connect them up and use your butt to figure out if you got it right.
floor heating connector.jpg

Disconnected the recro switch from the heating wire connector
removed switch.jpg

Cut the recaro connector so that I could wire the oem seat connector
cut recaro heating.jpg

Sorry do not have pics of the wired in oem connector but you get the idea.
One strange behavour I did note was the head unit was staying powered on and I worked out this was when the power was connected e.g Red wire from recaro to the Green. I'm not sure if this is because there is already power going to the seat from when i connected the power and ground earlier when I was just using the recaro switches. I have not yet had the time to figure this out or remove the extra power and ground as in theroy it shouldnt need them as it can get power and ground from the oem floor harness.


Anyway hope this helps someone out, below are some interior pics.

AH370Z

interior.jpg
interior 2.jpg

VenomNinetail

Thank you very much, this is actually what I needed for my custom seats.

I'll be using you're guide as a reference.

Iammeowwwwww

Hiya mate, great write up on the wiring of the install. Would you mind sharing what solution you chose for mounting the recaro to the floor? I made the post below and I'm curious if you had a better experience.

Why The Recaro Sportster CS is a Terrible Aftermarket Option

AH370Z

I used wedge brackets mounts and sliders, they told me they had to install a 20mm spacer to allow the sliding clearence. After install I was not completely happy due to the increased height.(no longer felt like I was in a sportscar, rather an SUV!). I was not satisfied and after much assessment and measurements I knew it didn't need to be this high, so I took it to a workshop and had the spacer removed and replaced with a 3mm spacer. So I gained 17mm back and I couldn't be more happier and find it the perfect height. I'm 5'9

A.is the Recaro seat base frame. B is the 20mm spacer.
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20mm.spacer removed and replaced with 3mm one.
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Iammeowwwwww

Thanks for sharing. I can't help but think that with the sliders, the seat is still higher than the OEM seating position. Nonetheless, can't argue if you're happy with it!

I ended up foregoing the slider + 20mm spacer all together and decided to modify the Sparco bracket to fit around the seat cushion and support. The result is the seat mounted directly to the bracket, sitting at the same level, if not lower than stock.

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