Is there anyway for me to turn off my airbags? I don't have an aftermarket wheel installed yet and I don't want to have to worry about my airbags during trackdays. Is there a fuse or a switch that I could wire up?

 

fuse is under the dash on the drivers left kick panel. just pull it and don't forget to put it back in when ya leave the track.

 

I guess I think about this differently. I worry about the airbag not working. I just went through a lot of hassle to make sure my passenger side airbag still works after replacing the stock seats.

 

Why , i want mine to work. Till i have a cage, harness and seat i want my airbags in perfect working order.

 

i thought the same till i started reading the affects of the airbag hitting the bottom of your helmet at the speed of sound. open face helmets are ok, but not closed faced.

 

Do you have that article? I think there is a thread on here somewhere about a draft article that was released but was not suppose to be released. The way I understand it, the article is incorrect. I will see if I can find the thread.

If you have a link to something, I would like to read it.

 

Here is the thread I was talking about.

https://my350z.com/forum/autocross-r...e-helmets.html

 

did you get it to work 100% ? if so, how ?

 

i didn't see that thread till now. but i knew i remembered reading something about it over the years. i guess to each their own.

 

The letter issued by SCCA is demonstrably false and was retracted almost immediately. There's no danger wearing a full face helmet with an airbag equipped car.

 

That's what I thought, but a few weeks ago, I was talking to an instructor and told me to turn them off. He was also the mechanic who worked on the 350z that wrecked at mid-Ohio, he said that wreck was caused by ABS failure in one of the wheels.

 

I thought we were talking about airbags, not ABS.

BTW... for a completely race prepared wheel-to-wheel car running a full roll cage, window nets, race seat, right side head net, 6 point harness, and HANS device - the airbags should be disabled and both SCCA and NASA require the removal of the airbags in those cars. In the context of this discussion (track days) the air bags should be left in and turned on.

 

We are. I didn't know if anyone wanted to know the reason behind that wreck, he brought up airbags and ABS to be turned off.

 

Actually, the letter was never retracted. Very simply, SCCA Technical Services never went any further with it. To put this controvery to rest once and for all, I called, asked about the advisory and got a response. SCCA agrees that both open and closed face helmets are OK to use in airbag-equipped vehicles.

Unless you are involved in full door-to-door racing, I'd suggest that leaving your airbags on won't cause you to have any higher risk of an accident. Unless you are bump drafting (and you'd better not be doing THAT in a HPDE), there's little chance of inadvertent triggering. On the other hand, airbags might help in an accident in a non-rollcage equipped car.

Finally, I inspected the Z that crashed at M-O and have to tell you that we're driving a pretty safe car. The crush zones of the unibody soaked up the majority of the wild ride. And while ABS failure may have contributed to the crash, it was a last second swerve of the wheel that got the Z sideways and tumbling.

I had the same thing happen--at the same corner-- the following week at the NASA Nationals! But I knew that high speed corner also had a huge sand trap (nicknamed 'China Beach') in back of it. Steering straight off kept my 350Z from suffering a similar fate and aside from a load of crap to pull out of the underside, nothing else catastrophic occurred.

David Muramoto
Editor-in-chief
Nissan Sport Magazine

 

I agree.

 

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think so. And, you were close to right about "destroying" the seat. Mine is not destroyed, since I could put it back together.

TAC-M, I know you know this part, but for others (I will place in another thread later), in the 07 the occupancy sensor is "in" the passenger seat. By this, I mean it is located between the leather and the foam cushion. The sensor consits of a little black box that is in a cut out section of foam in the fold of the seat and a piece of material with wires in it. You have to take the cushion off the seat frame and take the skin (leather or cloth) off the cushion to remove it.

Next, you need to remove the cushion off your after market seat and place the sensor under the cushion. Now, the tricky part is this. You have to get the sensor placed just right in the seat to work properly, and the chances are you will not do this just by randomly placing it in the seat cushion. So, I went to a techican with an OEM scan tool. We repositioned the senor several times until we (he) had it right, and then he reset my system so I no longer had an airbag light.

Of course, all this was after I had installed the resistors on the driver side and passenger air bag wiring harnesses.

 

got it. that is what i have. but since it is not in the oem position, i do not trust it 100% as well as it may have a recall on it....

I would like an electronic solution for this. I hope Cheston would come up with something.... EE - FTW !

 

Mine tests out fine on the OEM scanner tool (for me this is key) and it passes the use test we put it through (place brief case in seat and the light comes on, sit in seat and no light etc.).

You should be able to check your VIN number and find out if it is subject to the recall.

 

fwiw, i think Nissan specs for turning on/off the pass air bag is approx. 40 pounds (toddler weight). so if you are testing its functionality, make sure your object is over that weight.

 

So what does the NISMO Air Bag Removal Harness's do (the ones around $35 a piece)? I assume the ones are just for when you remove your seats, those of us with side impact airbags in the seats?

How does this play in role to the weight sensors? If I have the removal harness's, will the ABS sensor still trip?

Kind of confused here guys, if someone could please clear this up that would be a really good thing!

-Jonathan