Airbag swap

umcamara · Post by **umcamara** » November 17th, 2007, 10:04 pm

This thread is not intended as a debate about whether airbags are a pro or a con.

I was thinking of selling my silver RS and buying a black GS, but the silver is starting to grow on me in this car. I don't see many other cars that I can appreciate in silver.

I would like for it to have driver & passenger airbags however. Anybody have experience with swapping these in? I've looked at the parts involved in the "Collision Parts Guide" of the online shop manual. It doesn't seem like there's much more involved than adding the sensors, swapping the dash cover, and steering wheel. I would think that the existing car harness would have a plug for the airbag sensors.

Any thoughts?

Aston Wards · Post by **Aston Wards** » November 19th, 2007, 1:39 am

Sounds simple eh?

Check you local laws, i'd be suprised if they didn't frown upon such things, at least not by a qualified technician anyway.

umcamara · Post by **umcamara** » November 19th, 2007, 1:54 am

Never thought of it that way. Could open up quite the wormy can if I sold the car at some point, and the airbags failed to go off for somebody in an accident.

I'd probably have to disappear.

umcamara · Post by **umcamara** » November 26th, 2007, 4:25 am

Does anyone know if it's even legal to swap airbags into a car that was manufactured without them.

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 5th, 2007, 10:23 pm

Forget legal - how about: Is it smart?

answer: No.

Don't bother dude... the Airbags are fired by the SDM (Sensor diagnosic Module) which is frame mounted and tuned to the harmonics of the vehcile... you would need to mount it in EXACTLY the same manner as factory and the crash pulse of your year would need to be exactly the same as that of the doaner car for the airbag sytem to work properly.

Worse - if you mount the SDM improperly you could end up with what we call and "inadvertant deployment" in otherwords it could go off at any time because the SDM "thought" it had gotten proper inputs calling for a "fire".... I could go on abou this but just do yourself a favor and do not do this.

ps legal? sure. you can do anything you want to your car. You will instantly and completely absolve MAzda of all liability should you get injured in a crash with a modified system but it is "legal"... the real problem would be the massive lawsuit you would face if you sold the car with that system in it - regardless of wehter you disclosed that if was modded... you screw with the airbag and someone gets hurt = you get sued. Have fun.

mitmaks · Post by **mitmaks** » December 5th, 2007, 10:36 pm

I would not do it man. Do you have automotive engineering degree? Well thats what it takes to place sensons in precise spots where they would fire off in case of collision and won't fire off if you just hit your bumper cover, etc. You need to wire in all the sensors to the computer and to the air bags themselves, are you use you have electrical skills to do so? It's way more complicated than you might think.

umcamara · Post by **umcamara** » December 5th, 2007, 11:28 pm

PurpleDinosaur wrote:Forget legal - how about: Is it smart?

answer: No.

Don't bother dude... the Airbags are fired by the SDM (Sensor diagnosic Module) which is frame mounted and tuned to the harmonics of the vehcile... you would need to mount it in EXACTLY the same manner as factory and the crash pulse of your year would need to be exactly the same as that of the doaner car for the airbag sytem to work properly.

Worse - if you mount the SDM improperly you could end up with what we call and "inadvertant deployment" in otherwords it could go off at any time because the SDM "thought" it had gotten proper inputs calling for a "fire".... I could go on abou this but just do yourself a favor and do not do this.

ps legal? sure. you can do anything you want to your car. You will instantly and completely absolve MAzda of all liability should you get injured in a crash with a modified system but it is "legal"... the real problem would be the massive lawsuit you would face if you sold the car with that system in it - regardless of wehter you disclosed that if was modded... you screw with the airbag and someone gets hurt = you get sued. Have fun.

I see your point. I never thought about the placement of the sensors. But relax, a lot of what you're saying I mentioned in one of the first posts of the thread. (Legal and safety implications and whatnot) And it's certainly not legal to do anything you want to your car and drive it. Try explaining that argument to the Department of motor vehicles, highway traffic law enforcement, etc.

umcamara · Post by **umcamara** » December 5th, 2007, 11:29 pm

mitmaks wrote:I would not do it man. Do you have automotive engineering degree? Well thats what it takes to place sensons in precise spots where they would fire off in case of collision and won't fire off if you just hit your bumper cover, etc. You need to wire in all the sensors to the computer and to the air bags themselves, are you use you have electrical skills to do so? It's way more complicated than you might think.

No, I don't have an automotive engineering degree. But I'm two years away from a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manitoba if that helps.

mitmaks · Post by **mitmaks** » December 5th, 2007, 11:35 pm

also do you know it takes less than 1volt to set off an air bag, so just in case you decide to blow one in your face... doesn't take much man lol