Innovative Retrofit Steering Wheel Control Write-Up

[InnovativeFT86]

Hi everyone, first off, DISCLAIMER:

I'd like to make it clear that this is a write-up on how I did this modification to my own car. This is not a DIY guide. If you decide to do this on your car, I won't be held responsible for any damage or wrong doing. This was not done in one night just by "winging it". There are a lot of things to take into consideration. Thickness of the OEM wheel, air bag placement, air bag deployment (in the case that it does happen), mounting, pin placement, testing of pins, etc. If you choose to do this, please, take the time to review everything possible (and not using this write-up as a guide) so that you don't make a huge mistake that will cost lots of money or even damage to yourself or your car.

With that out of the way, on to the write-up. Sorry, Shaynek, for taking so long... I started this back in September and finally got around to taking more detailed pictures when I re-did the trim piece recently.

My last car and the car before that had steering wheel controls. I thought I'd be fine with not having them in the FR-S, but after a while, I wanted them. I know, I sound lazy, but I like what I like. I did some research on my options, even came across the images of the BRZ that has the steering wheel controls built in (older model/picture). Came to find out, it's a Subaru steering wheel and that was out of my price range. Then I find out that the 2017 models have SWC's in them. Again, out of my price range. So, I did lots of research, lots of measuring and decided, I wanted to go ahead and add this to my car.

This was wired up to a PAC steering wheel control interface to work with my Pioneer Nav unit. The power and ground for the LED's inside the SWC were wired up to a parking light source and then a ground.

My first option was the Subaru SWC unit from a newer model WRX I believe. I ordered them, placed them over the wheel and to my surprise, this unit was much larger than I had anticipated. So I got on the Google, searched for more controls and stumbled upon the KIA SWC. It was one of the smallest units I could find that had everything I wanted in it. Volume, track up/down, mode (source), and mute. I found a set on eBay for around $20, and ordered the harness with it for another $22 or so. A few weeks later everything arrived (harness came from Korea). Here is a size comparison. KIA on the left and Subaru on the right.



I disassembled it somewhat to see what kind of room I had to work with. Once I was able to figure out the depth, I did some test fitting to see where exactly to place it. I still wanted to keep the space where the indent is, or where I place my thumb on the left hand side, while also allowing the most depth for the SWC, and comfortably using the SWC's.



Once I figured out placement of it, I went ahead and made a template out of ABS plastic on the router to again help determine measuring and cutting.

[IMG]https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/17493122_1281445895269452_1234038441858259695_o.jp g?oh=0f017af822144198bd3490ff225fe3bf&oe=595EE***[/IMG]

I cut away at the vinyl material on the wheel, removed the rubber under that, and took off some of the metal under all of it. I used extreme caution here because this wheel is pretty thin to begin with. The majority of the material removed was the solid block that is closest to the center of the wheel. The rest of it was ground down as flat as possible.



Here is a comparison of the other side of the wheel to show how much was removed.



And another shot which also shows the new harness but ignore that for now:



Once I got it to the desired depth, I did some test fitting, and more grinding and sanding.





Then I went on to laying fiberglass to create the trim piece around it.







Once everything cured, it was trimmed, filled and then sanded. Originally I had planned on making this into 2 pieces. I didn't like the way it turned out so I made it all into one piece by glassing the left trim piece into a new mold of the center of the wheel.



Here you can see where I also trimmed part of the center/airbag portion away. I did not actually cut into any part of the airbag because that would not be good. For anyone.



Making it all into one piece.



Again, it was trimmed, filled and sanded into shape that I though would work well with the existing lines of the wheel.



Sprayed in primer, sanded, sprayed again, and test fitted.




Now on to my favorite part; the wiring. The harness itself was pretty simple. I removed all the green wrap and tape. De-pinned it, re-wrapped it all in black wrap, and then re-pinned into the FR-S's clock spring connector. The pins inside of the connectors are nearly identical. So swapping it from the KIA connector to the FR-S connector was a breeze.









Here you can see where I added the KIA pins to the FRS connector in the bottom row. Two for the audio signal and one power and ground for the led's inside of the SCW.



This is the connector that plugs into the steering wheel column side that runs to the radio and power/ground. These pins were a bit more difficult to add. I have Molex pins that I was able to add to these new wires. They were longer than I wanted them to be so I ground them down and the clicked right into place, perfectly snug.



One of my goals here to make this look as factory as possible. That goes for the wiring too. The new harness was wrapped in Techflex and Tesa tape, then ran along with the existing wiring behind the steering wheel and back to the radio.









Once that was put back together, tested again to make sure everything fit and was functioning properly, it was wrapped in a black vinyl wrap.



Tested with the lights on:



And that's about it. Here are some that I was able to take during the day.





Some wiring info I used for the KIA controls:







And this a diagram I created to show what pins/wires went where. Again, this was tested MULTIPLE times with a meter. As I would suggest anyone do when doing any kind of wiring. Always test.



Feel free to take a look at my page for more pictures of my work.

https://www.facebook.com/InnovativeSoundSystem/

[shaynek]

Do you know if the pins are the same for the BRZ?

[InnovativeFT86]

Originally Posted by shaynek

Do you know if the pins are the same for the BRZ?

I don't see why they wouldn't be, but you never know. The easiest way to find out would be to test it with a DMM (digital multimeter) on each pin from the clock spring side to the column side.

[lbroskee]

Radio on brz and frs use different resistances for the buttons

[NyC Zn6]

i get this vibe when looking at that wheel

[allowe]

If you are selling this, let me know!! I'm looking all over for something like this and it drives me insane on why we don't have them even as an option of wether we want them or not. There are no universal ones out there either.. easiest thing I'm thinking u could also do is get a headunit that has a remote and fabricate it so it sits on the steering wheel and somehow make the necessary buttons bigger.

Nice work though holy crap!!! I don't know much about fiber glass but the wiring doesn't seem overally complicated


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[churchx]

I'm still waiting for someone to try retrofitting MY2017's wheel with native controls. Very probably budget of such mod will be high, doubt for that wheel to be cheap, but imho difficulty wise it should be much simpler for many to do.

[InnovativeFT86]

Originally Posted by allowe

If you are selling this, let me know!! I'm looking all over for something like this and it drives me insane on why we don't have them even as an option of wether we want them or not. There are no universal ones out there either.. easiest thing I'm thinking u could also do is get a headunit that has a remote and fabricate it so it sits on the steering wheel and somehow make the necessary buttons bigger.

Nice work though holy crap!!! I don't know much about fiber glass but the wiring doesn't seem overally complicated

Allowe, thanks! And yes, that is a another great option and less complicated. Just make sure it's not an IR remote as you'll probably need an IR repeater to make that setup work.

The wiring is easy if you have molex pins that you can crimp onto the wire, or remove nearly identical pins/wires from a scrap harness that uses those pins. The pins are the hardest part to find. I had to use both. Pins from another harness and molex pins that I had to "shave" down to match the length of the OEM pins. But everything clicked into the plug, fits like OEM, and can't be removed, (unless you release the clip from it's housing) so it worked out wonderfully.

Originally Posted by churchx

I'm still waiting for someone to try retrofitting MY2017's wheel with native controls. Very probably budget of such mod will be high, doubt for that wheel to be cheap, but imho difficulty wise it should be much simpler for many to do.

I'm a little confused... what exactly are you trying to do with your 2017 steering wheel controls? I wonder if I could help....

[churchx]

What i'm doing with it - nothing yet. Just waiting for someone else to try retrofit it and comfirm if it works in older twins, as have hope that it might be simpler to do even for DIYers with less skills/tools, and then try to do it myself in my 2014' one.
Your mod and result is very good, but a bit above level of difficulty i'm willing to do, so hoping that MY2017 twins wheel with controls will be simple retrofit, without need to mod wheel itself & wiring harness.

[InnovativeFT86]

Originally Posted by churchx

What i'm doing with it - nothing yet. Just waiting for someone else to try retrofit it and comfirm if it works in older twins, as have hope that it might be simpler to do even for DIYers with less skills/tools, and then try to do it myself in my 2014' one.
Your mod and result is very good, but a bit above level of difficulty i'm willing to do, so hoping that MY2017 twins wheel with controls will be simple retrofit, without need to mod wheel itself & wiring harness.

Ok, I gothca... I would think the easiest thing to do would be to swap the wheel and purchase the wiring for it, or add your own pins. I haven't taken a newer wheel apart yet, but I'm sure trying to fit the 17 controls into the older models would require the same modification to the wheel itself that I did. Unless it's a "shell" that fits over the wheel.

[wootwoot]

I feel like the airbag would shoot that through your skull in an accident.

Impressive work none the less.

[InnovativeFT86]

Originally Posted by wootwoot

I feel like the airbag would shoot that through your skull in an accident.

Impressive work none the less.

Thank you. I thought that too before I started the project, but after lots of research on it, that is why it's mounted and secured it where it is. It should "push" it to the side if anything. If not... well, that will suck.