Fieroluke

I have worked as a software engineer in a team that made airbag control modules for the Saturn Innovate so I'm not a complete idiot;-)

the airbag module (it's officially the SDM, sensing and deployment module) measures the firing squib constantly. All the time. It does so with very little energy to prevent setting it off. The SDM can't tell a real squib or a resistor apart because of this.

the SDM usually contains a high side switch to the firing power capacitors (which provide power autonomy if power is interrupted in a crash. It also contains a low side switch. This can be a mechanical safety switch to keep the airbag going off from faulty software. But these days modules also contain electronic software switches. Main point is it has to be a separate "decision" Mechanical staging switches close the ground loop e.g. At -1g of hard braking. The SDM closes the high side switch at the right time depending on acceleration curve and software.

The software tries to predict the vertical displacement of the passenger's head in a crash and takes into account the inflation time of the bag. Modern algorithms also take into account seat position, driver weight and maybe more. All this to make a better
prediction. But the F-body SDM is so old, it doesn't do all that fancy stuff yet.

drain89

iTrader: (13)

"Yet". Hmmmm...

CamaroRick

iTrader: (24)

Well I believe the fbody energy reserve is up to 36volts, the 04 hd single is 24v reserve so If anyone wants to test the bag deployment on 36v it would be accurate to an in car deployment.

Fieroluke

The deployment voltage doesn't make much of a difference. The electronic match will start the reaction also at 12V, it typically takes 2-3 ms for that to happen.

My bigger concern is the two stages of the bag. These were introduced to reduce the chance of airbag inflicted injuries in low or moderate severity crashes. For moderate crashes only stage 1 will fire, with 50-70% of the gas. From the GM wiring diagrams this should be the grey connector. This is what can be easily hooked up to the f-body SDM. So all is good if you only have moderate crashes.

Stage 2 (pink connector?) would fire with or slightly after Stage 1 in severe crashes only. Now, the F-body SDM doesn't have this capability. Wiring the second stage to fire with stage 1 (let's neglect the how-to for the sake of discussion) will cause the bag to inflate more quickly, increasing the risk of injury to the driver. In a high speed crash this risk is inevitable, but if hard wired to stage 1 it will be there for all crashes. Your old single stage bag didn't have this luxury and would deploy with the same force for all crashes.

How could stage 2 be wired to stage 1 without causing an error code anyway? Wiring them in series or parallel will change the combined resistance and likely set the warning light. Wiring them in parallel and then adding a series resistor of 1.5 Ohms should keep the warning light off, but may prevent deployment since the SDM will have to ignite both igniters simultaneously with the added series resistor eating up additional energy. There are many reserves built into the system, so it should probably work, but it's a risk. An alternative might Be to custom build a setup to apply the stage 1 voltage to stage 2 using a relay and delay circuitry, but I'd strongly advise against such a contraption.

Personally, I'd refrain from stuffing a different car's bag into a cover it wasn't designed for - who knows if it would inflate properly in the event of a crash. I also wouldn't build said contraption, even though I could. Hooking up stage 2 and adding the resistor I'd also consider unsafe, I'd rather have a Stage 1 only deployment than none at all.

CamaroRick

iTrader: (24)

That is exactly why I swapped the bag for a single stage version during the swap. The single has the same bracket and similar size to the dual bag that came with the donor wheel setup. Its in the car right now.

Im sure theres a way to set up a dual setup if your persistant enough. get an SDM from the same car and all the sensors etc. $$$

SparkyJJO

iTrader: (11)

I'm just planning - whenever I get to do this - to hook up stage 1 only. Sure, it may not be "enough" on a severe crash, but, as some have pointed out, how good is an 18 year old airbag going to be anyway? 1st stage of a newer bag is probably going to be at least as good as that I'd think.

Fieroluke

Exactly my line of thoughts.

relief

I've just been reading the last 21 pages, while falling alittle off topic here, going back a couple pages ( OnyxZ28 ) im interested with your installed 5th gen 2014-15 ZL1 camaro steering wheel, nice idea by the way. Were you able to get the horn to work ? you stated you use no air bag would the air bag work, logically ?
any updated experience with this would be nice, wouldn't mind giving this ago my self .

dans2000camaross

im doing a install myself and i already have my shaft and wheel (saturn aura is EXACT) my wheel has paddles and i wanna use em. what clockspring do you guys run?

CamaroRick

iTrader: (24)

I used an 02 clock spring (radio controls were standard 00-02)the end where it normally passes into the stock wheel must be trimmed up for a tighter bend. I imagine the wheel could be modified to use it as is. They are discontinued so be careful.

LT4vert

iTrader: (3)

Oliver(Fieroluke) has made his paddles work . Im not sure if his interface for them is ready yet. I would pm him.

Fieroluke

I'm tunneling the paddle info through the clockspring, but I'm going to feed the info into the PacAudio steering remote for the radio so that I have two extra buttons. Haven't verified it yet because I still don't have my test mule back up and running...

dans2000camaross

im using the TCI EZ TCU were you have 1 wire for upsift, 1 wire for downshift, and their supplied ground so thats 3 wires out of the 4 on a f body clockspring spoken for

Fieroluke

Which works unless you already need the four wires for cruise and radio steering wheel buttons... ;-)

thelug

Read through all 4 years of the thread, kinda lost as it goes in many directions. Is there a detailed write up on putting a 04-06 GTO wheel in my 02 TA? Or is there a better option?

VIP1

I haven't used any cruise control on any car in probably 10yrs (and I travel for work and drive various rentals) so re-using those paths for paddle or something else is fine with me. I do use the radio controls on the steering wheel though (sometimes).

LetsRide

iTrader: (3)

Fieroluke any updates on the C6 steering wheel module?

Fieroluke

Unfortunately no.
I have way too many things to do, and the steering wheel modules have not been high enough on the priority list for different reasons. But the car my module is going into is sitting in my front yard, I have just returned from China and after I have sorted things out I will hopefully get to do electronics again...

SCFiero

I am new to this forum, I don't own a 4th gen, I used to have a 3rd gen but I mainly joined because of the info in this thread regarding this steering wheel swap.

I just finished installing one of these C6 steering wheels into my Supercharged 1987 Fiero, I would love to get put on the list of people interested in one of those modules.

Fieroluke

there is no list - when I'm ready I'll just post here again and see who's interested. The hardware ist basically finished, and the software should be too, but I'm about to put my project car/test mule into storage, so that'll be it until spring. Maybe weather permitting I'll convert the column on the car to be able to test this beast in a car.