My project to install these in my GT4 took an interesting turn. My car was actually in a shop to get them installed when they send me a text with a pair of seats that just came in from a salvage GT4 that they are parting out. It turns out this donor GT4 had perfect condition LWB seats with red stitching to match my car. We settled on a fair (yet still ridiculous outside of the Porsche universe) price for the seats and they are currently being installed in my car.

So I will have a brand new set of these 991 ROW P03 buckets for sale in the classifieds very soon at a fair price. I still have the original box and packaging so shipping would be fairly simple but I would prefer a local sale and I am located in NY close to NJ and CT. If there is anyone interested in a brand new set available very quickly without EU shipping time and customs hassles, please PM me to get a jump on the sale. I would prefer a local transaction but willing to ship at buyers expense. I still have to get the seats back from the shop before I officially put them up in the Classified section.

Also, Crazy Eddie has some Ed Guards (side bolster covers/protectors) made up with the matching Touring Black stitching and ready to ship. If anyone wants a set, hit him up. I am changing my order to red stitching fixed bucket Ed guards. If you don't know who Crazy Eddie is, look him up here on RL, or PM me.

 

Pete: any new progress? Do you think the P03 seats give similar lateral support for you to the 918 seats?

If I'm only replacing the driver side, sounds like I only have to deal with the seat position sensor right?

 

Put one seat in—the driver's, which looked great in the car—and took a spin around the neighborhood. Prompted airbag light, but I ignored that as I just wanted to get a feel for whether or not the upgrade was worthwhile for the coming hassle with making it work in the car the way I wanted to.

P03 seat is really nice, and I would say lateral support is in the range (or better) of 918 for me...although my P03s were all leather and I think cloth centers would have been better in that regard. Wouldn't change the bolster, but I think I'd sink in a hair deeper and the coefficient of friction would go up. But the surprise for me was just how good the 4WSS+ was in comparison. Roughly similar lateral support (at least in my short drive), with no R&D required. And the more I looked at the R&D, the less excited I got. I bought all the sensors and everything short of the passenger occupancy sensor. Saw (and still see) no solution for that I am comfortable with given Porsche's requirement that the sensor, controller, and cushion must be replaced together—but it doesn't make that combo for these seats that I could find. And yes, that's a possibly ridiculous standard, but I don't like messing with safety.

Add in the fact that my car is a lease, and limited time in this season of life, and I eventually gave up on the project. If I choose to keep the car, I might revisit. In the meantime, I can take some comfort in the fact that the 4WSS+ are very, very good.

 

I’m going to have the folding buckets installed next week and intend to take the easy route (no new hardware and just re-code).

Am I understanding correctly that through re-coding, the result will be that both the driver and passenger airbag will deploy regardless of occupancy? Any other side effects?

 

Correct. The Driver's side only throws one code. Add the seat position sensor and it goes away.

 

That makes sense for me on the passenger side. Hard to tell what effects you are introducing into the system.

What about the driver side? Do you see any issue with the position sensor in the same vein? Seems more like a binary thing, i.e. is the seat too far forward or not. May be interested in buying the extra sensor from you if you've given up!

 

I don't think that has been established yet, at least not in the research I have come across. That is why I prefer the @marinb method of "satisfying" the systems.

 

I bought the seat position sensors, and looked at my seats as well as the new ones. Didn't see an immediate "place" to put them, but suspected I could figure a way to mount them on the P03 seats to retain their functionality.

So I *think* it may be okay, but that isn't good enough for me when it comes to safety. Add in the hassle with the passenger seat given my (admittedly high) bar for entry and it was time to bag this little project. I will say the P03 seat looked GREAT in my car—but not next to a 4WSS+ seat, and then when the lateral support wasn't night-and-day better (for me, anyway), I decided to move on.

Precisely.

 

But it sounds like “satisfying the systems” is just a way of shutting down the error lights through hardware changes. You’re still tricking the system into believing someone is sitting in the passenger seat, no?

My biggest concern is that the airbags deploy at different speeds depending on weight.

 

I only did some work with race cars that had the seats removed. Club racing cars. I can't do it without having to address the euro coding rules so i gave up.

 

I’ve been doing a ton of work to figure this out over the past few weeks and wanted to share what I’ve found:

1. You need PIWIS in “Engineering” mode to defeat the airbag error lights. Dealers don’t have this. You need to go to a race shop. HOWEVER, as confirmed by multiple well-known and reputable race shops on both coasts who have done the job: this will only get rid of the error lights and the airbags are NOT guaranteed to go off in an accident.

2. The only known way to get the driver and passenger airbags to function as they would with your original seats is a hardware solution (as laid out earlier in this thread). You either need to port over all the modules, sensors, and harnesses from your existing seats, or buy new ones.

I am now going down the path of #2. Will update as I run into any issues or interesting developments.

 

Update: my P03 seats are successfully installed, with no error codes and airbag still functioning! I went with @marinb’s method after learning that there is absolutely no way to code around the problem (unless you want to risk your airbags not working).

One helpful tidbit: VW/Audi part #8T0963553G is a weight sensor pad that will work.

 

Pictures?

 

Of the install? No. I can take pictures of the seats, though.

We followed @marinb’s directions closely. Only divergence was to velcro down the weight sensor mat instead of screwing holes into the seat.

 

I will be performing my installation in a few weeks.

I have an occupancy sensor and male seat belt buckle clasp on the way.

I plan to use the original seat beat receptacle, wiring harnesses, and seat position sensors from the original 18 way seats.

What did you end up doing?