BMW E36 MF Steering Wheel Retrofit

**Enforcer** · 03-31-2010, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by war085

I did it the same way

However, the airbag will not work cause the E46 is double stage!

That's one of the reasons I chose the wheel I did. It's one of the early ones so is single stage like the E36.

**mswiss** · 03-31-2010, 07:46 PM

so wait is this hooked up and fully functional?

**Enforcer** · 04-01-2010, 03:06 AM

Yep.

I haven't got around to taking the pictures of the connection at the PC end. (mainly because it's bit of a mess around there.

But the steering wheel is controlling the Volume, Next/Prev, Mute, Play/Pause of RoadRunner using the iBusRR program by Warfield.

Airbag should work, fortunately I have not had to test it out. Have not had any errors pop up from the car, and they can be pretty finicky if they don't like the airbag circuit.

Obviously the cruise control buttons don't do anything as I don't have cruise control on the car. But I am wondering if there is a way of decoding the signals from them and maybe building an interface for those as well. But that is way down my list of things to do, if ever.

**mswiss** · 04-01-2010, 08:09 AM

wow that sounds great, i've been looking at a new steering wheel already (mines getting a tad worn down) and will probably be picking one of these bad boys up when i get the money.

even if the cruise control doesn't work would there be a way to remap what those buttons do?

**Enforcer** · 04-01-2010, 08:35 AM

It all depends on whether the work in a similar manner to the iBus, ie send a digital signal (think serial port on a PC) or work like steering wheel buttons on other cars and just have different resistor values for each button.

If it's different resistor values then you could use any of the 'joypad' methods that have been discussed on the forum.

If it's the digital one then someone would need to decode it and make an interface for it like resler did for the iBus.

**war085** · 04-01-2010, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by Enforcer

But the steering wheel is controlling the Volume, Next/Prev, Mute, Play/Pause of RoadRunner using the iBusRR program by Warfield.

Any details about this ? This is very cool and interesting instead of having those buttons lighting only with no use ..

**Enforcer** · 04-02-2010, 08:04 AM

What do you want details of?

RoadRunner/RideRunner
iBusRR by Warfield
How I connected the MF Buttons to the PC

**will8008** · 04-13-2010, 08:22 PM

i read that to upgrade to the newer e46 airbag its as simple as only un pluging the black wire from the airbag, but that is also using the newer e46 airbag wiring so think with your retrofit you would get away with you plug just going into the yellow plug. the 2 plugs on the newer airbag is black for half deployment (small impact) yellow for full deployment (high impact) you just half to insure if your car is single stage to plug in to the yellow or the light will come on. leaving the black blank will not bother the system but if your car is single stage ensure u unplug the black wire if the newer wiring is used. i have an early e46 single stage and am going to put a newer double stage on so will repost once i have it done and find out if it works. works on fords putting double on to single wiring so dont see why not.