DIY install aftermarket seats - Corbeau A4 in Mach-E

[JoeDimwit]

It doesn’t take very much speed to overcome the sheer strength of thise aluminum mounts.
I found an online crash calculator that you can adjust several variables and see what the kinetic energy involved is.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/car-crash-force

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to me, because I’m not going to be directly affected, but the people that care about you might feel differently.

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[TTT]

A different way to approach this would have been to just go to an Upholstery shop on day 1. Tell them you hate the activeX, and you want contours and comfort closer to the seat of your choice, and they could have taken the seat frames you have, complete with electronics and airbags and reworked them into the seats of your dreams for probably the same money, and you would have been safe and legal. Skins and seat foam are easy for a pro. Even modifications to the seat frame would have been feasible and within your budget. Your original skins would have still sold on eBay.

You are (un) lucky if you can trick the computer with just a resistor, some systems communicate with a control module on the inflator and read a unique ID number that is stored with the car. If you even swap or replace the airbag you have to have the system reprogrammed.

I get that your a do it yourself kind of guy, but I'd have considered modifications to the OEM seats to make them acceptable while keeping them safe and legal, and instead done an Alcantara headliner or something like that.

 

[dtbaker61]

A different way to approach this would have been to just go to an Upholstery shop on day 1. Tell them you hate the activeX, and you want contours and comfort closer to the seat of your choice, and they could have taken the seat frames you have, complete with electronics and airbags and reworked them into the seats of your dreams for probably the same money, and you would have been safe and legal. Skins and seat foam are easy for a pro. Even modifications to the seat frame would have been feasible and within your budget. Your original skins would have still sold on eBay.

You are (un) lucky if you can trick the computer with just a resistor, some systems communicate with a control module on the inflator and read a unique ID number that is stored with the car. If you even swap or replace the airbag you have to have the system reprogrammed.

I get that your a do it yourself kind of guy, but I'd have considered modifications to the OEM seats to make them acceptable while keeping them safe and legal, and instead done an Alcantara headliner or something like that.

I actually did not even notice that the airbags were in the seat and not the door pillar before I had already ordered the seats.... Coulda Shoulda Woulda, but this is what I I'm ending up doing.

This is literally the first car I've ever had that had side airbags so I did not even notice in the specs as that was probably the furthest thing from my mind when I was considering the car.

At the time I ordered there was nothing on the lot, no mannequins at the dealerships, and not a lot of solid details on a lot of the final configuration specs

 

[TTT]

I meant no offense, I appreciate people who are willing to tinker - I just hold back personally when safety is involved. I was working on a seat swap for my 17 Bolt, putting in more comfortable Volt seats - but I stopped short simply because I didn't want to rewire the airbag connectors - so I have similar motivations to you just different tolerances.

I'm part of another car forum that has been running for many years. People will likely be referring back to this thread for ideas for years. Part of the reasoning behind my post is to offer an alternative for owners who aren't as handy as you are. The basic structure provided by Ford can get reworked into something else without a lot of fuss by a pro for a price similar to what you spent - what you did isn't within most people's skill set.

 

[dtbaker61]

I meant no offense, I appreciate people who are willing to tinker - I just hold back personally when safety is involved. I was working on a seat swap for my 17 Bolt, putting in more comfortable Volt seats - but I stopped short simply because I didn't want to rewire the airbag connectors - so I have similar motivations to you just different tolerances.

I'm part of another car forum that has been running for many years. People will likely be referring back to this thread for ideas for years. Part of the reasoning behind my post is to offer an alternative for owners who aren't as handy as you are. The basic structure provided by Ford can get reworked into something else without a lot of fuss by a pro for a price similar to what you spent - what you did isn't within most people's skill set.

I totally get your point of view Tom, and quite frankly if I had noticed that the side airbags were in the dang seat rather than the door pillar I might not have taken this particular path..... But, I figure *some* other people will probably want to swap in 'tuner' seats, so I might as well document what I did in case it helps.

Turns out that with for Ford seats, if you want the SRS to function properly without side seat airbags, you will likely have to terminate the airbag connector with proper resistor AND transfer over the seat position sensor that Ford uses to adjust the front airbag deployment force. I'm not sure about the occupancy weight sensor for the passenger side, but probably that too to have everything work right.

I doubt even a good re-foam and re-cover of the Ford seats would have gotten me the hip fit and shoulder bolster I have become so accustomed to in my eMiata. I replaced the stock Miata seats with fixed buckets from a Lotus Elise and really got used to the feel of a well fit bucket with rib bolster and shoulder 'wings'. The Lotus bucket has almost no padding, but so well shaped its remarkably comfortable.

The Corbeau A4 is great from the hips up, but a little bit 'flat' in the seat which gets a little hard on a long drive. I do love the micro-suede fabric though!

 

[TTT]

So this thread popped up again in my feed, and another thought popped into my brain as I learned (or pre-Alzheimer self invented - so do your own research here) something new in the last couple of years...

It turns out that steel and aluminum have different reactions to stress and fatigue. With steel, the fatigue curve goes flat pretty quickly, so if a part is strong enough on day one (or really day ten or after year one) and if it doesn't corrode, it will generally have a happy life virtually forever from a fatigue point of view. Steel has a failure threshold and stresses under that threshold don't generally have any lasting effect. (Insert Bill Nye here saying Cool!)

But, not aluminum, as I understand it. (Note the caveat implied here and as follows.)

Essentially, all aluminum parts are an experiment in fatigue failure. Even without corrosion. A dramatically over-engineered part undergoing even modest forces will last a long time, sure- maybe a millennium, but even an aluminum shelf will, in theory, collapse under its own weight someday. Every force that acts on aluminum weakens it a little bit, until someday it WILL fail. Even small forces. It all adds up.

When you apply that to a seat mount, the equation is much more dynamic. Every pothole, every corner, acceleration, braking, and every quarter pounder with cheese you eat is shaving away the time until eventually, the part will fail.

Those mounts will not fail while the car is parked, if and when it happens depends on the pothole, the hard turn, or the accident that's out there somewhere in the future of the car, be it next week or 100 years from now. Even if they were solid billet they would eventually fail, it's just a question of how many thousands of years.

Not trying to be either doom and gloom, or especially the final word on the subject. inevitably there are actual material engineers on this forum who can explain it better than me, or correct me where I may have parts wrong (statistically speaking in my life that averages 3 times per paragraph, including but not limited to spelling).

My bigger point is there are reasons the manufacturers use steel, because it's difficult to calculate the abuse coefficient versus the remaining life in a safety-related item, so, they don't. Businesses can't run with that kind of crazy anarchy behind their decisions. Well, usually. I mean, sure: Tesla.

Tom

 

[BigMach-E]

Quick question for the OP, you don’t have a GTPE do you? Those seats have bolstering and are made out of a microsuede like ActiveX.

 

[dtbaker61]

Quick question for the OP, you don’t have a GTPE do you? Those seats have bolstering and are made out of a microsuede like ActiveX.

I have a Select... purchased early 'sight unseen' before the Dealerships ever got their first MME delivered. Mine was the first in Santa fe actually....

When I ordered, I *thought* ActiveX was a micro-suede like material, but it is more like a synthetic leather. I find it sticky/sweaty on bare skin and slippery/cold in the winter. I had no access to see or touch a GTPE since my dealership didn't get one for many months after I took delivery, and they still don't have any MMEs sitting on the lot, they are all pre-sold. Besides I was looking for lighter seats without all the motors, and more of a shoulder bolster.

So, that was the genesis of looking for a 'performance' seat with micro-suede for me.

There were NO after-market steel slider brackets available for the MME at the time, and NO after-market performance seats that had side airbags built in. I didn't even realize the side air was built into the seat when I started, I thought it was in the doorframe and didn't even consider it.

so.... I started this thread knowing that there are pros/cons to aftermarket, and tried to point out the known caveats. By now there may be steel sliders available, and may or may not be performance seats with side air bags.

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