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Is Hacking Cars a Thing of the Past?
"Ever since electronic ignitions, and especially ones controlled by computers, it seems the "hackability" and user-maintainability of cars has been declining. Your neighborhood grease monkey can't do much to a modern car without a bunch of electronic gear interfacing to the car's computer. It's almost a little anti-competitive.
Carbeurators, and the other mechanical systems which were fairly standard and visible and self-evident, really seem to be the equivalent of "open source", while the new computer-based systems seem to be more closed and proprietary. I know in the early days of cars with computers, there were third party ROM upgrades for performance tweaking; I'm guessing that's falling by the wayside more and more, as these systems get more and more complex.
It almost seems like a Microsoft-like statement, to tell you they're doing all of this to reduce theft, while really they're doing it to ensure you are forced into coming back to their dealerships..."
Don't drive a car running windows
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Is a car's antitheft device even a deterrent to car theives? They can still bust in your window and take all your CDs and be out of there in a matter of seconds. Then you're still out the cost of new windows.
Most good car theives would look for cars WITH alarms as they would be able to get some cash for that part too. I takes about ten seconds for someone to smash the window, rip out the alarm system/turn it off and hotwiring the car isn't that big of a deal as I've seen some really organized car theft in my time using a tow truck...
Hire me...
Is to make more money for the dealers. I think that we are moving into many diffrent incompatible car computers that all are worked diffrently so a mechanic cant service more then 1 or 2 diffrent types. Bringing about the death of independent mechanics and the rise of the dealerships. Then again I could be paranoid.
Does anyone even use those things anymore?
I mean, let's face it, when you hear a car alarm go off, do you even *LOOK* in that direction? I know I don't.
And even if I saw someone with a jimmy, the hood up, wires sticking out and a
All car alarms do now is annoy people.
Oh and give kids a something to throw snowballs at during winter
- Z
There's a fine line between genius and stupidity. Genius has limits.
well, I, for one, don't mind losing that kind of 'freedom and control' if it helps the deployment of ignition technologies to keep non-safe drivers out of cars: breathalizer, driver licence check, etc
.. well, lets just say that the average human is a little too attached to their car in the first place :)
to me, it is absolutely criminal that cars are not mandated to have at least some level of drunkdriving prevention. dunno if that would get in the way of alternative security systems, but if it does
"Old man yells at systemd"
What next? Take your SSL browser and server back to the shop because you can't telnet to them?
Make Microsoft give you a refund for adding virus protection to OE6 ?
Buy a new house because your old one had locks on the door?
Gimme a break, there is nothing requiring you to go back to the dealership for whatever "upgrade" you want, and you're the one who ordered the theft deterrant system, genius. If you'd rather go back to an abaccus so you can hack it, be my guest.
Honestly, I think the security is worth it. No one pays attention to car alarms going off anymore. My brand spanking new 2002 Taurus won't start unless you use a special key from the dealership with the computer chip in it. While the car came with 2 keys, it will cost me $80 each for additional keys.
But then, I've never felt the need for a remote starter anyway. I've gotten used to walking outside in my pajamas in the winter to start the car so it can warm up while I get ready for work.
Besides, installing a remote car starter isn't my idea of a real hack. How is that any more of a "hack" than installing a new car radio? Obviously, you weren't able to bypass the security system, so you're not much of a hacker.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I don't see how it's only a *slight* reduction in the chance of theft (assuming the magnetic key has sufficient resiliancy to brute forcing, yadda yadda). I mean after all, if you can't simply hotwire the puppy being the standard car hacker, what's the chances a similar black hat car hacker can (in the time needed to steal the car w/o getting caught)
Using and aftermarket chip for an engine is stonger than ever. Those system aren't that complex, there's justed better than before. Nothing can justify using a carburator in today engine except for racing application, and ever, new electronic fully configurable racing system are available. Performance chips are affordable and easy to install. And your comparaison with software is valueless, it's simply not the simple thing, car electronic is evolution.
Really the only thing you need from the key is the VATS chip off of it. You really don't need a functioning key to make things work. Electric current goes through the chip, and if the car doesn't receive the correct change in current, the car doesn't start. Requiring a key with VATS doesn't do much for the professional car theif or the theif with access to a dealership with a corrupt car parts guy (imagine that).
Reb
Honda's always rank in the top 10 of the "Worlds' most stolen cars" list. As such, insurance prices reflect this fact. A magnetic key scheme does well to lower insurance and potentially prevent your car from getting stolen.
I guess that's not an issue, though, for racer boys who like to put $10,000 of hop-ups into a $15,000 Honda.
Now there's a computer running the fuel injection, firing the spark, there's no carb to fiddle with...and if you try to do something to the radio you're likely to trip an antitheft device and make it quit working.
So, you want to hack your honda's computer? Try Apex'i Actually, you can just bypass it, and do all sorts of fun stuff like control your VTEC lobes, throw a turbo on there and control wastegates, do custom ignition. The best thing is, a grease monkey with some computer experience can easily do this. All you need to do is find someone with a dyno who will let you use it.
It's your car. You can do what you want with it. If you don't wanna put out the effort to hack in the features you want with a level of security that you want, that's not the manufacturer's fault, it's your fault for being lazy. ;)
;)
Your alternative option is to buy a car thirty years old (air cooled VW's come highly reccomended) and just set up a servo to short circuit the wires you need short circuited, and presto, instant remote start.
Just don't leave the car in gear when to go to bed at night; use the emergency brake.
I drive an 89 Dodge Shelby and it is VERY Hackable so to speak. There are user groups out there for all of the 82-93 dodges who will help you do most anything from custom reprogramming of the ECU to reverse engineering the ECU chip to total race engine mods. The newer Dodge Neons are the same way. Totally moddable. With a few PC attachments and custom serial cables you can make you can even reprogram your own ECU. Part of the problem is that Honda has never been very Mod friendly due to it's reliability. For some strange reason people love to mod those cars up. My dad told me something a long time ago. You can make a fast car slow but it will cost you 2x as much, so why do that when you can make a fast car faster?
Vote early. Vote often. Vote CowboyNeal.
You are a fucking whiner, and probably a communist to boot. Nobody is keeping you from making your own, supremely hackable car, are they?
I tried installing NetBSD on my car last week, only to find out the transmission in my Yugo is undocumented, and they won't tell me how to bootstrap the thing without having me sign an NDA first.
It's a shame, it really is.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
dont forget to use the "CLUB"!
those thing works...
Anything that is drop in simple (like a remote car starter package) isn't a hack. Working around this "feature" is hacking the car. I only assume that the author never considering hooking up the car to a serial line and starting to investigate the I/O.
I've hacked my motorcycles to make things work contrary to the original design on many occasions. Removing parts I didn't want that sucked way power, adding new circuits for auxillary devices, splice here, chop there, etc. Here's the important part, when I've asked other people, the typical response was "Gee, I've never done that." so we figured it out. Wanna know how long it took for someone to figure out that a '96 Kawasaki KLR hand guard could be fit onto a Suzuki SV650 with just a bit of machining? Now that was a hacker at work!
You hit it my friend! Since when does a dealer want to faciltiate you *not* having to take the car back to them for sservice?
Remember the service light deal with BMW? Only a BMW dealer had the module to turn the service light off, regardless of how well you'd had the vehicle maintained outside the dealership. It's all about control!
Jesus, this is on the level of whining that you can't use the windshield wipers from your old car (which were brand new!) on a new car you just bought.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Why do you want a remote control starter in the first place? This isn't even a case of lazniess, you *have* to sit in the car in order to do anything useful with it. And you say you feel uncomfortable about leaving a key in your unit in order to make it functional, but if they are already in your car and that far anyway, what would they need your *key* for? Starting the car? Well, if they are that far in they would have hot-wired if you didn't have a system in place.
Besdies, a remote control car starter just sounds like a *really* bad idea. No benefit, all kinds of possible security breaches. You want to make your car easier to steal for no good reason?
I'll admit that the fancy electronics are pushing out the really small-scale mechanics, but it is by no means microsoft tactics. They want to improve cars, make them harder to steal, more convenient and efficient. Yes, you may have a bit more proprietary stuff in each car, but I'll wager that even if the accessories are produced by a single company now, in the future other companies will have the circuitry for the different models just like they do forconventional parts.
This is one of the most oddball ideas I've seen on Slashdot.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If you want to protect your car from being started without a key, you need to make sure the key is physically there. Hence, no remote-starting. The way around this would seem to be buying the car with a remote-starter and anti-theft, or else buying one without both and then installing technology to do both.
I don't see why this means "hacking your car" is a thing of the past. It just means you need an anti-theft device that's more compatible.
Hmmm... You are looking for an interesting combination here... a remote starter combined with security for your car. I had no problem putting a remote starter in my car ('85 van), spend $80 at Canadian Tire, and less than an hour of work, but security wasn't a big concern for me.
What I think is if you want one of these devices, you are taking a security risk from the start. Me and a friend quite easily designed a garage door openor once that would scroll through the 1024 possible signals of a popular brand. I wonder if it would be very hard to design a starter remote to do a similar thing. Me-thinks no.
I guess a final question, is if your car is that new, what do you need a remote starter for? Any new car I've been in warms up very fast, and the windows defog right away. It is only us in old cars that really need one. And we arn't as worried about security.
PK
"Where are we going... and why are we in this handbasket"
Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
Dear Cliff,
Am I getting old?
It just seems there is all this new fangled gubbins, and I feel a bit past it. You never had computers in cars in my days, oh no.
Is it just me, or was it better in the 90s?
Conspiracy theorists start your engines!
If it's that big a problem for you buy an older car. Pass on all of the bells and whistles that computers bring to a car in exchange for the ability to remotely start the car, if that's what's truly important to you. Or better yet, find your local grease monkey, go to a scrap yard and build your car from scrap. You still have the choice.
I personally drive a 1982 Chevy Impala, a boat. The great thing is that I can actually fix most problems--it failed its safety inspection recently due to some rather old parts, and I spent about 15hrs replacing all of the parts, which saved me $700-$200=$500, but it also took two weekends. You can actually do work on it, but it takes time.
Most people don't want to do this though, so as cars become more electronics based it helps the shops for all the people who can't/won't fix their own car. The other part is akin to the "windows" phenomenon-people don't care about quality, only that is gets the job done eventually. Cars now are designed to get the dealer the most profits, and forcing you to go in to get things fixed is a great way to do it.
If people can connect to one another even the smallest of voices will grow loud.
--Serial Experiments Lain
The chip in the key is required to trigger the anti-theft system, but the key itself isn't needed. You could cut the metal tongue off the key, rendering it useless for actually turning the starter, while the chip would still work.
You would, of course, be essentially disabling that part of the anti-theft system, but thieves now have ways around it anyway. If the key profile is identical to pre-chipped versions, it would also mean you could run your car with a non-chipped key, which is a lot easier to fit on your keychain.
ok, I've only shared this idea with friends and relatives, but I'll make it public now: a 'screaming car alarm.' Yes, a recorded scream of a woman would play should a car alarm be tripped. Now, that should get attention...
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Ah, so it's nice to know that you car is secure
with a fancy key required to start it, and yet
you leave the thing running in your driveway,
while you get ready for work!
There's some irony here somewhere, I'm sure.
AC
As the once proud owner of a 1966 Mustang, I remember what it was like to mod the hell out of my car. Now my wife has a Civic and I have a 4Runner (hey, we live in the mountains, so 4WD is a MUST on at least one vehicle). Modern cars are a LOT quiter, ride better, get better fuel economy, and are better for the environment. Equivalent sized (outside dimentions) vehicles actually have MORE room inside them now, more luxuries (all but the cheapest cars now have power windows/locks/disc brakes/etc, are much safer, etc, etc.
All of this comes at a price. You now nearly need to be a rocket scientist (or at least an automotive engineer) to work on them, but IMO, the price is worthwhile. Meanwhile, my 5.0L V8 '66 Mustang used to get about 16 MPG and had about 220HP, yet you can buy a 4-cylinder Subaru WRX with 225HP (Turbo) which gets ~27MPG, and will let you walk away in a crash.
Yes, cars have gotten harder to work on, but they've also gotten safer, lighter, less polluting, and more luxurious. If you want to tinker with your vehicle, buy a 2-door Civic and mod it up, or buy a classic to restore like I did. Or get a kit, and build it from scratch.
I mean.. why break into cars, hotwire them, and drive them off. The smart thief would save up and get himself a tow truck. The ONLY person who would pay any attention at all is the owner. The alarm could be going off and nobody would give it a second glance. Chances are good, nobody would ever even get a plate #. You could steal the car in plain sight, and never hear a peep about it.
No antitheft system in the world will help against a dedicated theif. The most effective system would probably be to just remove the distributor cap, or a kludge to disconnect the battery easily. No car thief is gonna spend time under the hood finding out why the car won't start. Of course, you get bit on convienence issues. But you'll never have to concern yourself with car theft.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Your mind is like a parachute: if it doesn't work, you're screwed.
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
As for third-party ROM upgrades, these things are falling by the wayside because, among other reasons, most onboard computers use EEPROMS now, and when most people monkey with their engines they just wind up wrecking the timing and trashing the performance anyway.
And there's not reason to compare everything you dislike to Microsoft. That radio keylock is a Honda option, nobody forced you to buy it, nobody is keeping you from removing that option from your car, and so on. A little time with a pair of diags and a soldering iron will remove the problem forever.
As for leaving a spare key installed, what makes you think that's less secure than installing a remote starter? I built a little gadget not six months ago. It's a lot of fun. I go into a mall parking lot and press a button. A couple of 555 timers start cranking... and a few seconds later so do all the tricked-out imports in the parking lot. Granted, I still can't get in the vehicles, but I sure can start 'em up.
In conclusion, if you want to play with your engine, or your ignition system, or whatever, buy a car you know how to work on. If you buy a 2002 model and can't figure out how to monkey with it, don't blame the auto manufacturer for knowing more about cars than you.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Sounds to me like you need a brown '78 station wagon. Not only is it completely hackable, but you won't need any kind of theft deterrent!
Once upon a time, I could fix my own car. Hell, I spent four years in the Air Farce, fixing jets, my grandfather was a mechanic, as was my dad (Navy, not Air Force). As it stands, I can't fix my wife's Chevy Malibu; how does one fine-tune the timing on a distributor-less ignition system? You don't. You take it to the dealer, cough up a bundle, and have them fix it. We just coughed up a pile of $$$ to get the alternator replaced; I couldn't figure out how to troubleshoot the blasted thing.
I was able to do most of the work on my 1988 Honda CRX, and dad and I pretty much rebuilt my 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis (hmmm, 1978, 1988, now a 1998; interesting).
What I would love to see is a car which is simple enough that the average shade tree mechanic can fix everything. Unfortunately, I wonder if the car manufacturers make piles of money off "factory certification" for the mechanics, much like MS makes money of MCSE certification. It wouldn't be the first time a company has subsidized losses on an item with money made on repairs.
I was going to give my $0.02 worth, but it ended up being a dime.
Most of the old car work was thing like points, and carberators. Both are gone, replaced by something that is not only more reliable, but easier to controll. A good hacker can replace the comptuer on his car with something tuned to his likeing, and has more information doing it. Old cars never had O2 sensors to help you figgure out what the right mixture setting on the carbrator, new cars have that sensor, and the ability to change things in REAL TIME for the best mixture. (for some definition of best understanding the emissions/proformance/milage trade off)
Sure it is more work, but then turning a screw on the carb wasn't a hack it was just easy to do, and needed to be done often enough that everyone could do it. Today there are no screws to turn so the real work is a real hack.
There was an article about this topic in the Boston Sunday Globe this week. But the author of the article doesn't necessarily cry over the recently announced demise of cars like the Camaro and the Firebird. In order to get another 50 horsepower out of one of those beasts meant "boring out the cylinders, tinkering with valves, changing pistons ... a greasy, lengthy job." With the new "tuner cars" all you've got to do is drop in a $500 tuner chip.
look at the geek group's website and look for their geekmobile
I was working for my fathers trucking company a couple years back and we noticed the same thing when we worked on older trucks vs new trucks. The engines had increasingly smaller parts, that were more liable to get gunked up and/or damaged. Unlike alot of the older trucks the parts were not repairable nor were they interchangable. On an old Cummins engine you could (with slight) modification switch out the water pump with another brand or repair it by hand with not much more than an Acetlyne (sp?) torch and a hammer. But on a more modern engine you HAD to buy replacement parts specifically.
This simple concept of replacing everything when it breaks instead of fixing it is becoming more and more common everyday in all types of industry that once required a great deal of technical prowess and ingenuity. Kind of like being dependant on an IDE to write code, you never learn what to do when you can't just replace it.
I can state for a fact that old time mechanics were true Hackers (note the capitalization.) These men didn't just simply spend their evenings on their duff at a nice clean desk typing away at their little keyboards. They got their hands dirty and cut and smashed. I'll never forget the way my fathers hands look after 40 years of fixing things. Think about the non-computer Hackers who've gotten us here through the years so we can do what we truly love without having to break our knuckles in the process.
when my dad got out of college and was hired by dupont, where he continues to work today, his first project was to replace the entire electrical accessory system in a car with fiber optics. turn signals, headlights and things of that sort.
i guess the idea turned out to be not as useful as thought because he was moved to management soon thereafter (isn't that the story with all engineers?) and has been there since and i have yet to see a fiber optic car.
Master Using It, and You can have THIS!!
Is it that much more of a security risk as having a remote starter for the car? Having a remote starter for a car always seemed to me as an security risk in itself. Why is it needed? It is not as though the car will park itself for you and pick you up at the door.
Fight Spammers!
What? Couldn't you find something about computers to bitch about today?
Seriously, how is this reducing your freedom? You still have the freedom to buy an older car, or even modify your newer car to use the older engines and transmissions. The bottom line is that a lot of the modern computerized gimmicks in cars are there to increase performance, and mileage. Some minor things are done to increase security. But I really don't see how requiring the proper code to be administered (in this case with the key in the automatic starter) is restricting your freedom. And how is the little addon that requires a key in it "that much more work"? You make it sound as if that one extra little thing is a world ending situation, while the entire project would have been a yawn without that.
Yes, cars are becoming less hackable. But, in case you haven't noticed, so is damn near everything else around us nowadays. Things get more and more complex, with more and more specialized parts, and eventually it becomes less "hackable" by the common man. When the internal combustion engine was invented it was a fairly simple device. But progress has lead to changes that are vast improvements over the original. One of those improvements is a computer that controls all sorts of aspects of the engines performance. Is that really a bad thing?
Seriously, not everything is out to get you. Just calm down and take a rational look at it. That, or go back to bitching about Microsoft. (Oh, never mind. I see you managed to fit that into an article on cars anyway. Hey, wait a minute! Since when was Slashdot a site for car jockeys?)
Bite my yammer.
Now, this is hacking cars.. ;)
Gentoo Sucks
You want hackable vehicles? Look at the contortions people put Harley Davidson's through. Or how about all of the weird things people feel compelled to do with VW's.
All old-school metal hacking, in the truest sense of the word. Add some basic sensors(head temp, oil temp and pressure, rpm, etc), an aftermarket fuel injection system, and tie in an embedded linux system to the network to grab info and present it in a cool way.
Presto. A vehicle that is fit to your exact specifications, and lets you tweak ignition parameters on the fly.
Computers making modern cars un-hackable? That's a bit far-fetched. For just about any car there's dozens of custom mods for them that can be installed by any mechanic. There are still 3rd-party performance chips you can put in. You can still change just about everything in a car, the only thing different is that it's a little harder to do. You can go get all the computers that a dealer uses and do all the tweaks yourself. Yeah it's more expensive, but so are cars and so are the parts inside them.
And I wouldn't go around comparing cars from the past to open-source and modern cars to microsoft - that's essentially saying open-source software, though infinitely hackable, is inefficient, outdated, and insecure. Drawing a parellel between Microsoft (closed-source) and modern cars would in effect say MS software is clean, efficient, secure, and performs well out of the box.
If modern cars are less "hackable" than older cars, why are there thousands of custom shops dotting the country, hooking up modern cars? Why are there still car shows for people to show off their mods (some of which leaving the original car nearly unrecognizable)?
Cars aren't getting less hackable, you just have to do it differently than before.
I don't understand why you are worried about leaving a spare key hidden in the car somewhere? Assuming that it isn't placed in an easily accessible place you shouldn't have any problems with 'thieves' getting control of the spare key. Any thief that wants your car will use a more or less sophisticated way of starting your car. An example would be grabbing the signal that the remote starter uses and just reproducing it when you are not around. The dealership will also have to install either a module or 'spare key' to allow the remote starter to work.
On the other hand, the aftermarket is keeping up with the electronicification of cars quite well, from what I've read. Yes, there are a lot of electronics in cars, but that simply means you either work with them or around them now.
In your case, you couldn't install a remote starter because of your antitheft system. So? Perhaps you should choose a different system (if available) that won't interfere with $50 off-the-shelf Pepboys remote starting systems. Yes, you didn't have to make this choice before. Yes, before you could do it all yourself. Well, welcome to the future.
What it really boils down to is that it is still possible to hack your car (as you put it), but the effort and price associated with doing so has increased. That's all. Basing your assumption purely on your own single experience is hardly scientific.
I recommend that you pick up an issue of Sport Compact Car sometime, and see what they're doing. They're not exactly the remote-starter types, but they are doing just about everything under the sun imaginable to everyday vehicles, including full standalone engine management. Yes, it's expensive, but it's most certainly a very cool hack.
Mr. Ska
We are talking about a friggin' car here folks! Loss of freedom! Give me a break. We have far more pressing things to be concerned with then your freedom to "hack" um, install after market parts in a Honda. Buy a car from a company that does not use this system. After all it is not like you are short of choices in automobiles. Hey maybe you should get a bike or walk instead.
Block Heaters? Don't all cars still have these things in them? Who needs a remote starter when the engine block is already warm enough?
Plug it in, and forget about it until the morning.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
I disagree. A feature that requires the key to be present to start the car is useful to almost every end user. It can help keep your car from being stolen. It is true that it inconvieniences a small percentage of users who want to fiddle but overall it is a positve thing.
On the other hand Microsoft (and lots of other companies) tend to add features that are not good for the user. One example of this is the XP authentication nightmare. Another (non MS example) is the SDMI. How about DVD region coding. These are all 'features' that make the product less useful.
I think that's an important difference. It's the difference between a feature you don't like and a feature that no one likes.
Average American might be a bit more accurate. I wonder what percentage of humans own automobiles.
You are probably one of the Anti-Microsoft types too. You probably think that they are evil for trying to control what on your desktop or server. But all the while you are more than happy to hand over all your freedom of movement with a smile to the government who Knows better how to live your life better than you do. Hmm, if information is supposed to be free then why can't I be free too? Just say no to Big Brother.
I don't know what you mean by saying cars aren't hackable anymore. There are plenty of aftermarket chips, and mods, especially for hondas! Circut Diagrams for many of the cars are available out there, which would assist you in adding anything you wanted. And for non electrical hacking, that hasn't changed much. The procedure of putting on a new intake or exhaust manifold is much the same. And having a mig welder helps alot for making pieces fit that shouldn't!
There's no security concerns with a remote starter. You start the car remotely but to do anything with it the key must be in the contact. Press the gas, engine stop, Press brake, same thing. The worst someone can do to you is starting the car and let it runs, whooooooo, that's scary.
When it's -40 outside you like your remote starter.
Yup, lessee. Car running a little sluggish? Pop the hood, spin that old 10mm box-end, twist the distributor clockwise a few degrees, now I'm humming right along. Oops, getting a little hot - turn a screw on the carb - now I'm running so rich I can smell the gasoline in the exhuast.
I drive past the smog-check stations and scoff.
There has to be a reason why lots of people don't mind putting the time and effort into maintaining 40 year old econoboxes.
Maybe because everything that's been offered since then has been lacking.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Scott McNealy has predicted time and time again about the power of Java and whatnot in cars-- eventually the ability to have a bidding war between gas stations on street corners so you can get the cheapest deal for petrol in your car. Imagine the systems for that and imagine the possibilities and things you can control and change. You just happen to have a car with its own electronic hacks which make yours more difficult.
A good friend of mine has an S2000 coupe which he's hardwiring his own HUD into, direct off the ODB2 settings. Pretty amazing stuff.
On the flip-side you have things like a radio which can play MP3s installed in a 1958 Corvette.
Just like the advent of front wheel drive has changed the addage of 'no replacement for displacement' (the ability to turbo the piss out of your Mitsubishi and have it smoke a brand new 'vette) as the electronics grow and change the hacks to your car will grow and change.
...I don't see how a spare key installed by the dealership is any more secure than one installed by the owner. :)
That stupid little quote caps off the dumbest story I've seen on /. in MONTHS. He's so deep in his own ignorance that he figured the only way to save his silly little rant was to add a "your rights online" buzzphrase. "Honda is just like *Microsoft!*".
This dumbass is upset because a key is required to start the car. Uh, brainiac: that's the whole PURPOSE of keys. Honda is finally doing keys RIGHT, and you're bitching about it.
Not that it's really what your asking, but if you're afraid of leaving the key in your car, just cut the 'key' part off. The electrontic thing is in the black plastic part of the key that's really more of a handle.
--tim
The key has to be there, but it doesn't have to be cut, does it? Just leave an uncut key there for it to sense, and whatever.....
ender-iii
Clearly the car is hackable, and there is nothing preventing you to hack it.
The issue is not that it is not hackalbe, but it's not easy to hack. No, you can't just order some doo-dah from JC Whittney and expect it to be a simple mod. OK, so a 1976 Pinto was an easy hack, but your 2001 Civic isn't. Sounds like you need to sharpen your pencil and go deeper into the hack.
In the old days of electronics, almost everything came with schematics. You could open your TV and there was the schematics of the set pasted to the inside of the case. With a little amount of knowledge you could figure out where to tap in to put in a composite video signal. Computers were pretty public about their innards as well... I used the schematics from my VIC-20 reference manual to figure out how to mount a switch that allowed me to put RAM into block 5 so I could copy ^H^H^H^H Archive cartriges. Computers and other consumer electronic items no longer have the publicly available schematics, yet they are hacked all the time.
If it was easy, then everyone would be doing it!
Have you ever tried to get an extra key copy
of one of those things in case you want more
than the two (I think it was 2) that came with
the car. You can't go down to your handy corner
key duplication place and get it done for $1.50
(or whatever trivial amount it is these days).
You have to buy one from Honda for $75.
Speaking of theft....
I have a late-model 300ZX Twin Turbo that is one of the most sophisticated cars on the road. Hell, it was designed on a Cray 2. (Back when they were the shit, in the late eighties) It is completely computer controlled, with distributorless, coil-on-plug ignition, rear-wheel steering, etc. I have remapped the air-fuel ratio in the computer and added controls for larger fuel injectors to compensate for the increased boost pressure that I run. I have tweaked out the ignition system and made various other modifications to the driveline. I've put in adjustable shocks and progressive-rate springs. I feel like it is very tweakable.
Granted, I have a level of comfort with working on cars that most people don't have (I've yanked the engine and transmission out of it myself - nobody works on it but me.), but it's not like I was born with it. A co-worker of mine compares my knowledge and interest in working on cars to his interest in computer hardware. Potentially intimidating at first, but rewarding when you figure out what's going on.
The point being that there are all kinds of tweaks you can pull. Geeks like us have even more opportunities with all of the computer-controlled stuff that comes stock on these things now. I like to race my car, for example, and I've been thinking very much about getting a TuxPhone and integrating it into my car, not as a phone, but as an embedded Linux system for controlling air-fuel mapping and boost levels on the fly, not to mention data collection.
Get busy living or get busy dying. Carpe diem.
I know hacking stuff is fun, and also remote flashing and honking at people who walk past your car is amusing but why would you wan't to start your car from remote??? what if you leave it in gear?? i'm sure its probably illigal (safety issues or something?)
I think what is happening here is similar to the xbox - microsoft has realised that the PC is dangerous: those pesky little users can do whatever they like, but, if you close everything up, build things into the electronics, it becomes much harder for the user to do anything more than what its designed for. Thats the ultimate goal - where the company controls exactly what happens and the user hands over the cash.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
um, when the law states that you're not allowed to drink and drive, how is providing a mechnism to prevent it taking away from a freedom? you are free to talk, think, say (for the most part) whatever you like. Information is free, which is why MS shouldn't be able to control the info on your computer. You can't kill anyone with it, and MS certainly isn't a body who has an interest in monitoring or controlling your data for the good of the population. (there, I humoured you)
/act/ freely. A society must always set boundries on behavior, as it is truely the only means by which we can inflict pain (and/or help another person) However, communicating ideas does not infringe on the physical health of your fellow citizens; each person must interpret your ideas and /act/ in reaction to it in a way that is inline with the laws and regulations of the society you participate in. It's called the 'good will' of the community; you can think or say anything you want, but you have a social contract to participate in society, abide by its laws, and, if supported by its citizens, submit to various types of physical restrictions designed to prevent casual attempts to infract serious offences.
Are the metal scanners at airports taking away your freedom? Duh, you don't have to take a plane, just like you don't have to own or use a car.
You make us liberals look bad by confusing your right to communicate and think freely with your lack of right to
Thus, having a breathalizer ignition is not giving up freedom if the majority of people in the society (if its a democracy) support it.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Does anyone else see this kind of thing happening several years down the road to computers? The loss of the ability to customize the hardware? Seems to me like this will be the next evolutionary step and may already be happening.
Hacking your car is still alive and well; there are certainly some challenges (cruise control, security systems, etc.). I was on a few mailing lists for hacking the Toyota Prius... there's a Yahoo! group dedicated to it, and the people on there are amazing. There's an LCD display in the Prius, and people are attaching it to night-vision, DVD players, rear-view and side-view cameras, you name it. Plus there's tons of info on hiking up gas mileage, increasing battery capacity and all sorts of cool things.
As with all hacking, it CAN be done, and if someone hasn't done it yet, there are certainly people willing to help you figure out how.
Toodles,
---Chip Lynch
Hackers are using a "hack" to tap into the computer without implementing the full OBD-II functionality. To do this with a VW or a Audi, you need a cable that will conect your laptop to the connector, and you need software to do this. There was a former product called VW Tool (or was it VAG-COM, I forgot) which is no longer being made, that hackers have gotten a hold of, and they are using homemade cables to link them up. There are others too. Using this software, you can set the various parameters of your car.
Here are some of the things you can do with an Audi A4's computer with a VAG tool
http://www.audiworld.com/tech/elec13.shtml If you want to buy a kit with cable and software, check these guys
http://www.ross-tech.com/
Other car hacking efforts include Toyota Prius hacking
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/autos/news/c09h ackcar.htm
I don't really see any improvements in a car that has a remote starter.
What is it good for? Most of the gadgets that enable you to warm up your car before you get in (standing heater / a/c) will come with a dedicated "engine" which is essentially a small combustion engine hooked up to the primary fuel circuit and starts at a preprogrammed time or catches a remote signal to start immediate heating (like when you don't know exactly when you will leave). This engine will then run with very little fuel and pump all the heat into the car. Absolutely no need to fire up 200+ hp for some heat. I think the same systems also exist in the states, over here in Germany the company "Webasto" is making these very successfully.
The remote starte reminds me of a story I read in Ralph "Sonny" Bargers book "Hells Angels". Back in the 60's or 8ß's there obviously was a cop who had a reputation with the Angels for being a tight investigator. He used to remote start his car (which was parked in his driveway) by standing far away from the car in a "secure" spot before getting in. Obviously afraid of car bombs. One morning when he started, the car roared up as usual. Too bad somebody had planted a bomb right in the "secure" spot where he used to stand when remoting the baby. He did not survive to tell anyone about it.
+++ath0
Excuse me, but what does that have to do at all with freedom of choice and control?
Mod point free since 2001
There's a thriving market for Civic mods. Of course kids with far too much money and time on their hands tend to go overboard with their mods, producing some very hilarious results.
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
But, for your general message: AMEN MY BROTHER! AMEN!
Bite my yammer.
I can't believe the ignorance in this thread and what passes for content on slashdot.
All new gasoline powered passenger vehicles in the US must comply with OBD II. OBD is a STANDARD. It stands for On Board Diagnostics.
OBD was required by the EPA primarily as a measure to enforce emissions compliance. It is *slick*.
I plug my laptop into my 2002 Z06 Corvette and can scan hundreds of engine parameters in realtime. There is even support for using a Palm to scan the vehicle. Check out http://www.obd2.com.
I also have an '85 Mustang 5.0 that features Ford's last use of a carburetor on a car. The carb has become a pain in the ass due to the crap they're putting in what they still call 'gasoline'.
My race car features a more serious race Holley carburetor. Changing the *calibration* on a carb is *very* difficult. The details of this are even LESS OPEN than the current OBDII based strategies. I'm not talking about simply changing the jets - I am speaking of the calibration and metering. The techniques for doing that are closely guarded secrets of those Who Know. You basically have to drill out specifically sized metering orifices and replace them with interchangeable mini-jets. Wet-flow on a special flow bench, etc.
There are numerous solutions to changing the calibration of current OBDII vehicles.
As for remote starters.. Get a life.
There are tradeoffs in everything. If you want the remote start ability you give up some of the security.
As far as leaving an entire key in place I guess that depends on the car and the kit your using. My Acura has one of the mentioned keys and when I looked into a remote start for it, I was told I needed to buy a spare key which would be disassembled to get just the coded portion out. I decided it wasn't for me.
But the point about cars being less hackable is valid. For years manufacturers have been making it harder to replace stock radios, and if you want to retain steering wheel controls your going to need lots of electrical tape and redbull.
I think Mercedes Benz has taken this to an entirely new level. New MB vehicles are incredibly difficult to steal thanks to their code hopping IR keys, so much so that the theft portion of insurance rates on them are down right cheap (which is good). But forget putting a remote starter in your brand new benz. Last time I tried counting there are 97 buttons within reach of the driver in the S class (I counted knobs as one switch even if they had more than one selectable position). All of this runs through a central computer in the car so basically if you want a different stereo system you better know german and feel like dumpster diving at MB headquarters.
Mercedes has a integrated cell phone system that comes with voice recognition. It uses a standard motorola timeport phone, identical in every sense except the firmware. Yet if I plug in my old timeport the car refuses to recognize it. Mercedes apparently thinks that the $87K you spend on the car with the phone isn't enough, they want the extra $450 for every phone you want to use in the car.
I'm currently trying to figure out how to get a copy of the firmware off the timeport that comes with the benz system so that I can put it on my original timeport.
This is quite sad, among manufacturers there is zero incentive or requirement to play nicely. I understand that they want to protect profit margins but its damn near predatory. There was an article on wired about some company offering a in car voice recognition system that works with bluetooth enabled cell phones. Great idea, too bad bluetooth is a technological unicorn and car manufacturers are bound to shut these guys out of the business.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
If you get a real car, and want to talk about how to remotely shift into neutral, engage the clutch and *then* start the car... well, then we'd have something interesting to talk about.
Isaac in Cambridge
Hacking cars?
Is this how people view automotive security & convenience?
First of all, taking your car to the dealership to have a remote start installed is pointless. They will simply call your local auto security&audio shop to have the unit installed, and tag an aditional $100 or more to your bill.
Installing a remote start in your vehicle is quite simple for anyone qualified to do the job (hint: don't do it yourself!).
When I say Qualified, I mean CERTIFIED and Insured.
Leaving your key in the car isn't a problem for two reasons.
First, the key goes into a box that is well hidden in the dash.
Second of all, every installer I know cuts off the end of the key, so that it cannot possibly used to start the car.
See? Simple.
You want a secure, programmable, remote start for your car with a voice UI and reporting features?
Have a child. They also mow lawns and do dishes.
Can't patent them though, my parents have prior art...
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
You're bitching about not being able to use a remote starter because that requires bypassing the anti-theft system, and thus prefer old cars that don't have the system?
If you bypass the anti-theft you get a functionaly-equivalent setup of a car that doesn't have one. So what was it that you were bitching about?
That and the fact that you don't actually need the key, just the ID chip, and that the anti-theft system can probably be easily disabled.
Pedro Côrte-Real.
If you want to make custom additions to a car, get a simpler car, like mine No stupid sig yet
404 sig not found
Two things... GM has two additional features that are not available in the US. They are only available in South Africa (Car jacking capital of the world)...
Both of these are available in the Corvette:
1.) Integrated Flame-thrower mounted on bottom of car
2.) Alarm system sends 10,000 volts to the drivers seat, rendering driver unconscious if attempt is made to start vehicle without using key while alarm is armed.
I saw it on Car & Driver TV a while back... I think 2 years ago. They showed it functional. I doubt these things would be legal in this country.
What a stupid waste of time. Slashdot, have you ever heard of the phrase "Quality over quantity"?
The only reason I visit this dumb site any more is to read the entertaining troll comments, like The Turd Report, and that beowulf guy. Literally everything else here is a complete waste of time.
Oh well, I'm sure I'll be modded into oblivion, as any comment the mod gods don't like is instantly censored by transforming it into flamebait/troll status. I got news for you mod gods, it's not the trolls who are bringing slashdot down, it's the incessant parade of utterly useless content. Slashdot is nothing but another leech site.
PS
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these.
Carburetors were amazingly elegant little mechanical devices, but they were anything but precise. Computerization of cars has permitted hundred-fold reductions in CO2 and NOx emissions (and less dramatic improvements in fuel economy). Safety advances like anti-lock brakes and active suspensions also wouldn't be possible without computerization.
In an industry that had seen very few true innovations for 70 years (disc brakes being just about the only automotive hardware invented since the 30s), computers have completely revolutionized just about every system in an autombile. As a result, cars are cleaner, more efficient, more reliable, more comfortable and safer than would have been possible with entirely mechanical systems.
You seem to argue there are fewer people customizing their cars. I think there are just fewer shade-tree mechanics doing what's now unnecessary maintenance: Replacing points and distributors that don't exist anymore, spark plugs that now last 100k miles, adjusting timing that's automatically adjusted, etc.
What about the hot-rodders who customized their cars? I'd argue there are just as many of them as there ever were. The modifications just require a different skill set than they used to, and the cars are Civics and Integras instead of Novas and Mustangs.
If you want to get into customizing your car, there's plenty you can still do from high-tech "superchips" to good old-fashioned intake & exhaust mods. Just pull your head out of that 20-year-old Chilton's manual if you want to get serious about souping up a late-model car.
I love hacking cars. Saddly here in the USA there is less of a modern-car hacking cultrure. In the USA we've *mostly* got old hot-rodders with carbed V8's, and kids with big-wing/big-exhaust otherwise-stock imports. Not many people are doing MODERN performacne hacking, but there are some.
Many other countries have a real strong culture in this area though. For an example, go to Autospeed, an Australian site where they post weekly articles about auto performance and electronics hacking. Australia is a real hot-spot for this stuff. It doesn't matter that the auto manufacturers are making more complex and advanced products - it just promotes the creation of more brilliant hacks.
If you're interested in programable engine management, adding electonic accessories, etc. all you have to do is dig a little and you'll find a whole world of resources. Just like Tivo, DirectTV, Audrey, or anything else - If you build it people will hack it.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
When I think of performance and racing I don't think about Audi or VW.
A 225hp car isn't capable of "performance".
*NEWSFLASH*
There are hyrdolically actuated gearboxes being manufactured for consumer vehicles. Technology has moved from F1 racing into Ferraris and now BMW is offering a hydrolically operated 6spd gearbox with a clutch and all in the european spec M3 (possible the M3 GTR or something like that).
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
I'm sure these sound like a really good idea to you, but do you -honestly- think they will do anything good? You do realize that such devices -could- possibly cause problems?
You put more stuff into a device and you increase the chances that it will break. I don't have any education the area of engineering but I assume this is a very basic principle. The more complex it is, the more likely it's going to break. Do you -really- want to be late for work one day when your drunk-driving auto-detection thingy goes haywire? Probably not.
Do you really think somebody won't figure out a way to get past these things? Grab an air, compressor, fill a balloon up a ways, perhaps heat it to a reasonable temperature and let the damned breathalizer analyse that. Fire up your car and off you go. Whoopee. Sure, you could make the thing more complex; perhaps get a very preciese thermometer in the thing to make sure your breath is 98.6 degrees or at least very close. Now, mom has to take her child to school, has a fever of 101 degrees and can't start the car. Wonderful.
What if I'm loaded off my ass, and feel like changing my own in -my own backyard-. I don't think there should be any technological measure in place to keep me from pulling my car up onto blocks and doing my thing. Sure, it ain't safe, but it's my life.
GPS Systems to track my speed? Bull. There's no way law enforcement is ever going to get their act together enough to actually build a database of all the roads with all the necessary speed requirements. If I'm ever sold a car with this kind of crap in it I'll make damned sure it's not functioning as soon as I can. There -are- times where speeding is warranted. I don't want my car shutting down on me when I -really- need to get somewhere fast. I'll refrain from such examples -- use your imagination.
So, should we make these types of things mandatory in cars? What if it's detected that mine is broken, accidentally or not? Do I -really- want to be labled as an offender or criminal because my GPS system got splashed with water and I'm unaware of that? Sure, you can get ticketed now for having defects in vehicles -- but they're defects that are visible to the eye. Broken windshields, tailights, etc. Any idiot can tell when those are broken. Do we really want to include a GPS calibration routine in a pre-drive checkout for the average consumer? Hah... no.
> Since when does a dealer want to faciltiate you *not* having to take the car back to them for sservice?
Since when do dealerships make decisions in the design of engine components? There are many reasons for why cars are designed the way they are, but they do not include forcing you to go back to the dealership for service. The giveaway is that the auto manufacturers don't make any money from a dealership's service department (other than for parts, and most independent mechanics will use factory parts for most repair jobs anyway) so there's no economic drive for carmakers to design in such things.
P.S. The "module" necessary to reset the service light on a BMW was also referred to in some circles as a "screwdriver", which can be had from select non-BMW vendors, I believe.
Virg
That's classic. The best thing I've read on here in nigh on fifteen years.
If your car is too complicated to customize, maybe you should consider souping-up some other things around the house.
Why not think of it as the more technical the car is, the more stuff there is to hack on?
Car hacking is dead. I've moved on to hacking IT.
Can be found here, for those interested. It uploads GPS data at boot to tell the owner it's location. In dash VGA touchscreen, MP3s, etc.
(Oh boy, FINALLY a topic I know something about!)
I'd MUCH RATHER have a GOOD factory security system than a botched aftermarket one. (I've had 4 cars that had aftermarket systems installed by previous owners. ALL of them have caused more headaches than the 'security' they provided.)
Having any kind of security system will not likely prevent the really serious fella trying to seal your car. While you CAN buy LOJACK et al, they pretty much ensure you get back the bits and pieces you DON'T care about. By the time somebody recovers the professionally stolen car, all the nifty doodads have been stripped or broken.
I own Corvettes. (That my, ahem, other hobby) One's an 89 and the other's a 98 (OBD I and III) yeah they're more difficult to work on than the 76 Pontiac I _just_ got rid of, but no more so than working on computers. Often, that 'technological B$' folks complain about actually HELPS in diagnosing the problem.
If you aren't willing to spend time learning how to work on something, you probably oughtn'ta go at it uneducated.
As far as installing the remote starter, it didn't sound like you wanted it bad enough. IMHO, the one thing it MIGHT give you (remote starting) isn't worth the things you MIGHT get (wiring issues, intermittent gremlins, connections that don't AGE well.)
Honestly, a Nerd complaining about complexity on Slashdot...who'da thunk?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
There is a place in the UK that specialises in ROM modifications for cars - they seem to think that pretty much any car can be "chipped" which for me kind of suggests hacking car's "black boxes" is not just a manufacturer only thing...
They also have a category called "American Cars" under the "can my car be chipped" area so you are going to be sadly disspointed if you think this is a UK only thing...
http://www.superchips.co.uk/car/frameset.htm
If a manufacturer like ford makes cars that can be chipped by a 3rd party then I guess there is still hope.
Assuming that you have an alarm of course. My alarm has remote start, and I had to do just this, but it's safe. My car alarm disables the fuel pump remotely when the alarm goes off until it is dis-armed.
So lets say that someone breaks in your car. The alarm goes off, and the fuel pump cuts out. It's immediately useless. Even if they have time to find my alarm and key, remove it, and then try to start it, the fuel pump will still be disabled. By this point int time, it's taken too long an even if he tries to re-wire it it won't work because the fuel pump kill is wireless!
As a technician (about 6 years now while attending school) at a automotive service station (read that general purpose garage) i've seen the "hackability" of a car not really increase or decrease, but definately change.
As you pointed out, changing hardware parts of the car used to be the way to modifiy performance.
Now, there are all kinds of cool hacks you can achieve throgh software. EPROM's are avalible for most cars which use these which can dramatically change performance. As well many cars (foriegn mostly) have the ability to do neat things like..buy and extra module that lets you plug your laptop into the cars main computer. You can then (in real time) change fuel rates, etc. Its neat to drive down the highway,click a graph on your laptop and change performance:)
Also things you never thought would be computer controlled on a car, are now.
When the new bugs came out several customers felt that the radio had too much bass (old people mostly;) ) The radio had no extrernal button to change the bass however.
When a scanner was plugged into the cars data port however, the technician could change sound levels for the radio, through the ECM. Neat-o!
Combine that with the fact that the scanner we use, a Genisys, runs on a real tyime linux system (made by lynx). So I'm using a mini-linux computer to adjust a car stereo's bass level! neat!:)
The hackability of cars hasn't gone away, it is going more electrical, meaning if you don't have a nifty scanner (3000-6000$ base price) you can't see alot of the neat options:(
However moden cars all adopt to a standard for their dataports etc, so one tool fits all! (the standard is OBD-II is you wanna look at the interface)
Many car manufacturers are moving to using industry standard buses and protocols (CAN and a couple of SAE standards) for internal communication. There is a lot of "wiggle" room for people to come up with Gizmos that attach to this hardware and do things the manufacturer never intended. For example.. many people love to have a tach, but many dashs lack them. The tach information is available on the computer/diagnostic bus, how about designing a simple PIC circuit to read the RPM message and display it on a LED display.
Lets face it.. hardware hacking in all its forms has gotton harder and harder for the last 20 years as more custom PLC and ASIC devices appear and Surface mount becuase the standard.
If you really want a challenge, convert your old gas powered car to electric. You'll end up with an extremely simple system you can work on yourself (only one moving part in an electric motor and no need for complex computers and emission controls) as well as a car that will get you to work in the worst weather, without the need to warm it up. (Just jump in and go, heat is electric and instantanous) and DC motors can really hual ass. Oh.. and its non-polluting, so you can feel smug about never having to get a smog check again.
"I'm a smart person, of course I am familiar with everything. When in doubt, its just a big conspiracy - they're keeping it all from me!"
Reading these responses, you'd think that this was a freaking automotive forum...
Mod this guy up, because he actually is contributing accurate knowledge the the conversation!
You might be ticketed by the Rice Cops [ www.ricecop.com ]
You've obviously never seen a tricked out 1967 Volkswagen Beetle with nitrous beat a new Corvette in a quarter mile, it's quite impressive. Go to a bug-out witness first hand:)
(note: I do drive a 1974 VW Thing. 54 HorsePower. No performance here:) )
C'mon this is hardly an amazing revelation. Cars have been getting more and more computerized and difficult for the average Joe to repair for at least the last 15 years. Open the hood on any car from *1990* and you'll find a big black box with wires running out of it. It controls the fuel injection, the engine tests, the digital controls, you name it. You don't want to be messing around with those cars, except maybe to change the oil.
But how is this different than any other electronic consumer device? Nobody hacks up their PC motherboard or DVD player innards. And nobody complains about it either, not even the crazies who think that every corporate manuver is an encroachment on freedom of speech.
Not really. The car can't actually be put into drive. If you try to put it into drive, it will cut the power and turn off.
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
Ever since I was a kid, all of my relatives and their friends have said the same thing.
First it was because of points going away. They complained that they couldn't tune the dwell and all that not-so-fun stuff and how it was keeping them from making the motor run properly.
Next thing was fuel injection. Christ did people get upset when that happened. "I can't tune it and make it do what I want" is what everyone said. Problem with that is that your engine control computer tunes the fuel delivery all the time, faster and better than anyone can tune a carb.
LIttle after these things happened the aftermarket came out with products that allowed you to tune both of these aspects better than anyone ever could the old fashioned way. Only problem is that most carb builders don't take kindly to adjusting fuel and timing curves with a laptop. So they continued to bitch.
The point is that no matter what the car makers do, two things will happen: People will bitch and the aftermarket will devise products to bring back the user accessability aspect. This will always happen because of one fundamental truth about people and their cars: they will always modify, tune and generally make thier cars thier own.
ft
... you're complaining, because people can't start your car without the key?
In other news: KernelHappy promises to at least scan what he posts before clicking submit.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
"loss of freedom of choice and control?"
Your car has an automatic transmission and you are complaining about a lack of choice/freedom??
First of all, you are a puss. If you are installing one of those things, you have an automatic. Second, real mods are not 'installing a remote starter'. It's squeezing a big freakin' engine into a little dinky car. (Saw a Chevy big block crammed into a Nash Met a few years ago in HotRod).
Second, I'd prefer a v-8 with rear drive. But with a family, a Mustang/Camaro doesn't cut it. So I'll be driving FWD I-4 or v-6 engines with tons of electronic controls.
Now, for just a handful of engines with which I am slightly familiar:
Zetec I-4 (ford focus): turbos, superchargers, nitrous.
Duratec v-6 (ford contour): superchargers (for some models), nitrous.
Honda I-4 (civics, CRV's): block and head upgrades, turbos, superchargers, more handling kits and brake kits than you can shake a stick at.
VW 4's and 6's: see above.
See, there's tons of stuff available for certain cars. Real stuff. And of course, if you like remote starters, neon trim, and 100w headlights, you can always go to JC Whitney.
And if you want traditional cars, they are available aplenty. 60's Mustangs and Camaros. 80's BMWs. And if you like old iron, there are tons of component (kit) cars available. Any ford up to WWII. Almost any Chevy of the same vintage. I've seen kits to put a '55 chevy on a late model Caprice.
The enthusiast magazines have been asking this question for years. And the answer has always come back a resounding 'NO'.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Comparing modern computer-controlled cars to closed-source software is a bit unfair, really. Modern cars are VERY hackable, if you know what you're doing and don't mind voiding parts of your warranty. The car-modding game's the same, but the rules have changed is all. If you understand the rules, there is little you cannot mod on a new car.
:-)
To use my own car as an example, there is a program that would allow me to modify the fuel tables, ignition tables and other operational parameters on the on-board computer using a standard PC (program: LS1Edit). This acheives the same thing as playing with the distributor dwell and carb mixture on an older engine, and then some.
Or, for the less adventurous, Hypertech makes a device that allows you to apply "macros" to the onboard computer, doing the same thing as LS1Edit, but to a lesser degree.
Further, modern cars (with the appropriate computer hacks) still respond quite nicely to the old-school tricks: headers, camshafts, intakes, strokers, blowers, etc. It's like having the best of both worlds - the reliability and economy of computer control, and the performance and "hackability" of old-school tricks.
It all comes down to learning new rules to play the same old game.
I have to disagree. Performance can be alot more than just hp. Take the Acura RSX Type-S for example. Its got a 4 cylinder engine that gets 200hp and 29mpg. Now I call that performance. Performance should equate more to the quality of the egineering and what innovative things are done to the car. American companies have been putting big honkin engine in heavy-ass cars for years, but I know many a drive who'd say they don't perform worth a damn compared to a European or Japanese car in the same price and class.
A good idea, with a few warnings. First, some manufacturers store the chip in the tongue, so cutting it off would simply destroy the key, Also, the chipped part of the key could be inserted, and then the car could be started with a screwdriver (the key part ensures the lock cylinder will turn easily, and the chip starts the car). With those warnings in mind, have at those cutters!
Virg
Auto hacking isn't dead, it's mutated and evolved. No longer can you rebuild your carburator with a Swiss Army knife, like you could on old VW Bugs.. No longer can you do those little tweaks that let you eek a few extra HP's out of your 'Cuda..
Similarly the computer hackery of yore has passed from sight, only to be replaced with OC madness, case modification, heavy-duty server setups in one's broom closet, and so on..
It used to be that hackers would race hard-drives across table tops, and race Mustangs down the main drag. Now, the script-kiddies and rice-boys put skins on their virus generators and Acura Type R stickers on their Dodge Neons!!!
Flash has replaced content. It's all about appearances, and who cracks first.. Neon light kits under the chasis of either your Dell or your Civic warn that you are clearly a force to be reckoned with.. A 40 pound spoiler and a muffler the size of a coffee can are the automotive equivalent of running an animated desktop hack or semi-transparent windows - performance be damned!!
Just as in computing, auto-hacking has simply grown, and become so widely exposed that it's attracted it's own brand of poseur. There's the wankers who put stickers on their cars, because race cars have stickers, so stickers turn mom's old beater into a renegade from Indy.. There's the wankers who assign unique audio events to every window action and have true-color, animated mouse pointers.
Then there are guys who rewire their own auto audio systems, making sure the trunk DOES NOT rattle when they turn the music up, and those who put performance parts in and then actually USE them in motocross events. These are the overclockers and liquid-coolers of the auto-hacking world.
Take a look at the Honda Insight, and note the very cool side-mirror to LCD screen hack.. There is still auto-hacking.. But like real PC hacking, it takes effort, perseverence and creativity.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Dammit, you fuckwit moderators. This guy has the juice and is spilling it for us car Hackers. I want to attach my PC to my car and figre out what is wrong with it without going to the shop and spending 89.95 for a diagnostic monkey to tell me it was the alternator (which I knew anyway, but just to be sure).
You obviously aren't up on your racing (when I say racing, I don't mean NASCAR.) Audi was doing quite well in the Speedvision World Challenge events, was banned from rally events in the past (they had an unfair advanage and absolutely stomped their competitors. If 220 HP isn't good enough for you, why not mod it a little? 300hp is easily attainable with minor mods, and I've seen a 1.8T Audi A4 Avant tuned to 550hp (that's a 4 cylinder) and an older Audi 5 cylinder tuned to ~900hp. Do some research before you post in the future...you may remove your foot from your mouth now.
There is a whole multi-billion dollar industry around modding trucks & Jeeps. The question is how much work do you want to put into your mods? People build MAME cabinates or mod their pc cases all with all kinds of stuff, but complain about a few hours work to get their car the way they want it. Heck I know guys that build their vehicles from the frame up to get exactly what they want. Yes it takes a long time but it's the same mindset as building a pc from scratch, and considering some of the doorknobs that build their own cars it can't be that hard. Figure out what you want to do, then how to do it, it's the hacker way.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
The Prius and other computerized cars are bringing this to a new level. This guy hacked in cruise control by reading the electrical specs and building the circuit to doit:
(check out the Cruise Control Phase 2 section)
http://www.thelarues.com/prius.html
As mentioned, there is a touch panel in this car and some guy has played Dreamcast games with his son on this. a MP3 player has been hacked into the system too.
What's going on is that the mechanical hacks are getting replaced by the electronic and software hacks. Looks like there is still fun to be had with todays/tomorrows cars. IMHO
My Passat has the same 1.8T engine that is used from Jettas/Golfs all the way up to Audi TTs. The computer chip that controls the engine is programmed to de-tune it compared with the Audis. Some of the things the chip does is control maximum turbo pressure, etc. Considering the price difference, I guess they don't want performance equality between VW and Audi. My Passat only gets 150hp, whereas the TT gets 225hp from the same engine. Seeing as some many components are shared with Audi, the car can easily take these changes. Another common hack is getting the tiptronic transmission re-programmed to modify the shift points and the time it takes to shift.
There is a big market in reprogramming or replacement ECM chips... I can easily get another 40hp and perhaps better millege by going down this route. The hp can be increased further with turbo replacements, etc, but apparently, you start having to make other big changes for the car to handle 200+hp.
Take a look around http://www.clubb5.com/ for some ideas... these B5 Passats are very hackable. Whether it's just plugging a laptop into the VAG-COM thing and re-programming the locks, or wiring in new tools like The Alien, or putting in Xenon lights and the Audi sport suspension.
Not quite. There is a big difference between automotive theft protection and so-called software "theft" protection.
In the case of your car, the manufacturer is providing a feature that helps prevent the consumer from being a victim of theft. This comes at the expense of ease of modification, but it's a beneficial trade-off for most people. Speaking as a person who's car was stolen last year, I can testify that I find this to be a valuable feature (even if it isn't always 100% effective).
On the other hand, software copy protection only detracts from the product without benefiting the consumer in any way. Microsoft's WPA is not going to prevent someone from breaking into my room and stealing my Windows XP CD (not that I own an XP CD anyway :)). It only helps pad Microsoft's wallet at the expense of my extra added hassle. No thanks.
Two things: first, some keys have the brains on the tongue, not the head. Second, virtually every key has the interface on the tongue, so cutting it off leaves you with a chip that can't talk to the antitheft system.
Virg
You probably live in too cold a climate and/or don't have a garage. I would suggest moving far enough south that frost on your windows during the day isn't a problem. In the morning you car will be in your warm garage, so no problem then either...
:-)
Believe me, I know your pain, I just moved 900 miles south of where I used to live. I am getting spoiled awfully quickly with upper 70 degree temps in December... I don't think you could get me back up north for anything now.
I had an acquantance once (RF Hacker) who noticed that for almost all brands of garage door opener, you can purchase a spare remote control at Sears...
Because there are a finite # of possible combinations, he was thinking about building a frob that basically did:
for I in 0 .. N
send code I
done
I don't know if he ever actually built it, but I can imagine him having lots of fun driving through residental neighbourhoods with it in his car.
Now I don't know for sure, but do you really think that $79 remote car starter is using triple-DES or PKC in it's over-the-air protocol? Some dememnted RF engineer could ruin a lot of people's days filling garages with carbon monoxide.
Well my LS1 equipped Trans Am is 310hp stock, which has more hp than your A4 and I paid less than you would pay for your A4. Now I've put about $500 into modding it for even more horsepower.
And as far as your examples, anything is possible when you throw enough money at it. There are 1200hp triple turbo Mustangs.
Consider yourself lucky to even be permitted to open the hood on your new car. Back in the early 1980's I remember that there was once serious thought given, and a serious stink raised about it in all the auto magazines, that the federal govt wanted to make it illegal to work on your own car, that the hoods were to be locked shut and only government licensed mechanics at officially licensed shops would be allowed to service cars. The reasoning was that too many people were disabling the pollution controls and removing catalytic converters from their vehicles.
But all the good 'Riceboy mods' are only available for Hondas..... You can wire the trunk release button on the remote starter to the cleverly mounted fire extinguisher to put out the electrical fire caused by improper installation of the car starter
You must be an American. All American cars need huge amounts of horse power because they're so damn big and heavy.
Then you'll like 310 stock horsepower that gets 22mpg on the street and 30mpg on the highway. It will only cost you about $4000 more than the RSX. :)
When will automakers offer the ability to set options? When we make them, of course.
I personally hate the lighting systems that act like your mom. I don't want my lights on during the day. I also want the dome light to go off immediately when I shut off the car, unless I intervene. I also don't want the @$%# locks to lock every time the car goes off->on and vice versa.
Add to that the ability to turn on/off the chipped key requirement and whatever else isn't absolutely required for the car to run.
Would it be so hard to allow the owner to chose?
When I'm ready to leave the apartment I just open the window toss my keys to the nearest passing pedestrian and ask them to start my car. By the time I get down the engine is nice and warm.
Ahhh yess, the obligatory sigh oh, did you say sig?
There goes our favorite Open Source analogy of "Buying proprietary software is like buying a car with the hood welded shut". If there's nothing we can hack anyway, why bother having a hood that opens.
I've seen a bit of code that fits the new paradigm, sort of "Yeah, it's open source, but WHY, since no sane person can read it anyway", early slash for instance?
I see one maggot, and it all gets thrown away -- My fiancee
I like music
It's a car. You want to be a motorhead, go get a 70's chevy and do whatever you want to it.
Personally I really don't consider buying an off the shelf add-on kit to be hacking. Hacking is something creative that hasn't been done before. Only the original person to hack something is creative, everybody else that performs the same hack is just a script kiddie, er, a wrench kiddie or whatever the automotive equivalent would be.
If you're just going to complain about a product you didn't research further than the outside packaging, then too bad. Nobody said all car parts are compatible. Auto companies are allowed to create their own devices that don't work well with others.
I've lost count. Can anybody remind me how many stupid Ask Slashdot articles have been posted in the last month?
You're driving a fucking Honda. Nobody is gonna steal it, trust me.
you're worried about security involved in leaving a key to your car in it... probably buried and bolted in under mounds of metal under the hood or someplace, when the reception of a certain radio signal will start the thing?
Really, come on, do you really need to remotely start your car in the first place? Are you afraid someone is going to rig up a bomb to it? That, and maybe if you're an ambulance driver, fire-truck driver, etc, I can see. Otherwise, suck up and manually start your car like everyone else. Crypes. There are children in China who don't even have cars!!!!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Millions of people want anti-theft protection. Dozens of people want to hack their car. I think the manufacturer made the right choice.
It's just more complicated to hack your car, because the engine control is much more complex.
It is still definately possible.
There are many options to replace or piggyback your existing car's digital control module. They are complicated, and they aren't cheap, but there are quite a few options out there (Link, Motec, Tec II to name a few).
So, you can't just throw an ignition advancer on, or change the pilot jet of your carburator, but you can remap your fuel to air mixture curve or create a psuedo expert system that knows when your ignition timing should be advanced or retarded.
Hacking your car is so much better now, because there are more variables to control, more things to study, and probably more risks (and gains) involved that it makes the hack more worthwhile.
geremy
New cars produced in the european union must now include something called OBD III in the engine control unit (On Board Diagnostics).
This is stuff that allows the ecu to monitor extra paramaters of engine performance and emmisions. If for example the car owner opts to tune the engine (something as simple as fitting a free flow air filter and sports exhaust system), then if the engine performance changes out of a pre set band of tolerance, the ecu decides there is a fault, logs it, and illuminates the check engine light on the dashboard.
If you happen to get stopped at a roadside check while this light is illuminated, its no good saying "it just came on" cos the police can plug in a portable interrogator and find out how long its been on.
This system is making it increasingly hard to tune sports cars and still keep road legality.
Cars like the earlier model of mine used to have a vast aray of tuning options, however, since the introduction of OBDIII, there are very few options that keep the car road legal.
But I wouldn't take my car "off roading" or rally racing. Saying "Oh yeah! Take your car off road, and we'll see who's boss" is a common excuse from owners of 4 bangers who can't hack it on the streets or track. Come to think of it, I'm not too familiar with many places where you can do that. Also, when was the last time YOU(being the "true" Subaru driver that you are) took your WRX to the twisties?
Are you also implying that a "big heavy american V8" isn't "hackable"(it's called modding, not hacking)?
It could only be in America such a STUPID device was invented. The negative impact on the Earth is huge when you (as I read in a few posts):
The emissions from a car running on idle are just huge, especially in cold temperature.
You should get an electric engine heater and plug it in an electrical socket or an "Ebersprecher" - a small device that runs on fuel that heats up the car (yes, it also emits CO2, but way less than a cold car on which the catalyzer isn't warm)
Those who start the A/C to get the car cool - ARE YOU FOR REAL?! I was in Death Valley this summer with +120F in the shade (+50C) and we didn't leave the car running all the time.
Take care of the Earth. Please!
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
There are tons of things you can do to any car, electronic or not. The cost varies. It is more expensive to change the injection system on my supra then it would be to go down and by a 1000 CFM carb for a Olds 442, but it happens, alot. I know tons of people with mods from built in play stations to race built motor. Look at the tuner crowd. Some go for flash, some go for speed (my personal addiction). Many of these tuners work on high tech vehicles Supras for example have every gatget including variable valve time, but (or because of) this doesn't stop people. Check out MKIV.com for a look into the Supra world. iworld.com is home for Subaru tuners (WRX is becoming a tuner car).
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
Actually, recent US legislation has made it _ILLEGAL_ to install any kind of remote starting device on a manual transmission equipped vehicle.
Unfortunately I dont have any links to this, but I do alot of work at a stero / alarm shop, so we are quite fimiliar with this.
Aparently alot of unscrupulous alarm shops were installing remote start alarms in sticks, and people were leaving their cars in gear, then remote starting them, running over children in the process.
The short story is if you have a manual, DONT install a remote start, even if you have some sort of mechanism to depress the clutch. Remember, things can break, and do you really want to be responsable for seriously injuring or killing someone?
-AC
would you buy a car with passive antitheft (chip in the key) then install a spare key so that the antitheft is effectively disabled?
I think passive antitheft is great. I no longer worry too much about people stealing my car. I know that it's still possible, but not by the average street thug. Pros will get my car anyway, by putting it on a trailer if they have to.
I never understood remote starters anyway. I lived in Michigan's UP for 10 years, and it was often well below zero, but I wasn't THAT much of a wuss that I couldn't go start my own damn car. I guess if you're 80 years old and frail, it'd be nice to have the car warmed up for you, but let's get real! Why don't you get a down filled seat while you're at it?
God forbid you try and brake or turn.
Being an American, you know what I hate about other Americans? They think racing equals a straight line. You can spend all the money you have on a TA and it will still be a heavy piece of junk. The car was not designed for racing, it's a muscle car. As are the mustangs you mentioned. This isn't a flame,it's reality. They were designed to go in a straight line reasonably quickly and not worry about braking. If you follow real racing (which lasts longer than a quarter mile), you'll realize that horsepower means exactly jack shit (well for the most part).
A stock NSX has about 270bhp. You think a 400bhp TA is going to beat that around mid-ohio? road atlanta? nurburgring? Assuming driver quality is a non-factor, it ain't going to happen. Take a look at the skid-pad results, they're illuminating.
And while we are at it, how about you all turn in your computers, and go get an abacus.
I mean sure it's slower but it's "fairly standard and visible and self-evident". Everything else in our society has been computerized, why should you expect the most complex piece of equipment most people own to remain managed by simple vacume pressure? Modern car electronics allow for better performance, better gas milage, and fewer emisions.
If you "neighbor hood grease monkey" cannot/willnot update his or her skills they will find themselves behind the times. The same as say a Telecom engineer of the 1970's who never bothered to update their skill set.
Further, you certainly can modifiy your car's engine computer. Hondata for one makes modified ECU (engine control unit) for Honda (http://www.hondata.com/) cars. There is at least one company (http://www.electromotive-inc.com/) that makes entire ECU replacements that are user controlable with a laptop.
Aftermarket modifications (car alarms/remote starters) commonly lag behind new model years in cars. Given some time there always apears a new solution from the aftermarket and or enthusiasts. If you are unwilling to do it yourself, check out http://www.sema.org/ for lots of example companies that do such work.
What proportion of people do you think are concerned about car theft. Fifty percent, maybe? What proportion of people care about remote starters? Five percent? So clearly the electronic key is a net benefit to the customer base. I'm pulling these particular numbers out of my ass, obviously, but you get the idea...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
If hacking cars is dead, why did so many people head to the theaters to see fast & the furious? I too own a Honda, a civic hatch, but not your average soccer mom's Honda. It is heavily modified (not hacked but my LAN in the hatch doesn't have a firewall) in all the areas, to the point where not much is stock anymore. Tweaking one's own car to alter it to represent YOU is something most everyone would love to do but not all of us have the motivation, money, or mentality to spice up our otherwise boring rides. When new cars are bought these days most people stick to what is given to them. In some cases due to warranties you aren't "allowed" to make any mods and if you do it may void the warranty. Others like myself find the options as far as security, audio, lighting and horse power are pretty weak to my standards so I dump tons of money and floss it. As far as theives go you might as well not even bother because if someone wants your ride bad enough they WILL find a way to get it or damage it if they fail. The only protection you have is insurance to protect your investment. I've had my ride broken into for it's audio components and the fuckers slashed my seats coz they couldn't get the head unit out. It looked like they used an axe! Nevermind trying to steal it they just fucked it up and took an amp and a capacitor that they could pry off. Keep receipts on everything you buy, take pictures of your shit, and crank up your aftermarket coverage and your prepared for the worst. I agree that today's newer cars are becoming more difficult to modify. Honda for example is making it difficult to add performance headers to the newest line of civics because of the strict emissions. What's a Honda Hacker to do!
The question just has to be asked in the appropriate fashion.
Is there really a 'loss of freedom' involved here? The anti-theft measures that 'reduce freedom' provide more security than was previously the case. So if you want the same level of security you used to have before the elaborate new security system was put into place, you do as was mentioned, put a key in the module. You've basically reduced the car to being as secure as cars were before.
This is NOT a case where freedom has been traded off for security. The freedom formerly enjoyed is possible just by getting rid of the extra security.
Geez, you'd think people would think things through before posting such an article.
And remote car starters? You would have to disable the clutch interlock, so imagine you're parked on a city street with your car in gear. You start the car remotely and - BANG - your starter motor pushes your car into another one. Or down a hill.
I can think of better ways to hack within a car: How bout an audio system that lets you record instead of just play?
Shame of Slashdot
You think ODB-II is screwing us, wait till OBD-III goes live. Here are some of the features as stated by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA).
/citation)
---
OBD-III TECHNOLOGIES
Three ways to send/receive data:
Roadside reader
Local station network
Satellite
---
That's right, a radio link to tell big brother where you are, and what your car is doing. Why??
---
ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS
Incorporate into biennial I/M program
Read fault code to screen for vehicles that need complete testing
Pass or short test for vehicles with no fault code
Does not speed up repair process
Out-of-cycle inspection
Compile and screen data
Mail notice to vehicle owner requiring out-of-cycle inspection within 10 days
Require Certificate of Compliance (C of C) on next registration/resale, or
Require C of C within 30-60 days, with citation for noncompliance
Enforce citation via court and/or DMV penalty at next registration
Roadside Pullover
CHP flags down vehicles with fault codes
Technician verifies problem by inspecting and/or testing vehicle
Issuance of notice requiring out-of-cycle inspection
Same enforcement (C of C
---
On the other hand they also realise that there are legal issues by this statement on their site.
---
OBD-III raises 4th Amendment search and seizure privacy issues:
''The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated...''
---
But afterwards state that the OBD system should be leagal because it's a nondiscrimitory, mass population product. Whereas the 4th amendment only protects individual privacy and not a group of individuals.
Read more about this at
Sema web site
-- this space for rent --
92-99's Honda Civic are quite hackable, but the best is they're almost plug and play between models, including Integra. A friend has a '93 Civic Hatchback with a '92 japanese B16a (a 160hp 1.6 twincam VTec engine, almost just like the 1999 American Civic Si).
Those Civics are relatively easy to work on, and there are a lot of mods out there. The new ones maybe are designed to avoid all that. Anyway new models have a much inferior suspension.
I just visited the site, because I own one of those 225HP models (you can guess which one), and I dunno if I could shell out 499$ for a measely 19HP more. Besides I heard (from people having BMW modding chips. Warranty? What warranty?) that those chips can damage the engine badly. (It goes "Poof" and suddenly your enigine is a piece of metallic junk) ;-)) . You can't use the cars full potential anyway, since speed limit is 120kmh.
Yes, I am an european, and 225HP is quite a lot here (average must be 100HP, newer models)...to my experience anything above 150HP is "too" much when you use the car to go to work on snowy roads (and that is what I do, so next time I'll settle for the 180HP model
Okay, I admit, I'm not into car tuning... if you are, go here and weep.
The car-starter situation is nothing new. For quite a while, the car manufacturers have been making it harder to build knock-off parts, while simultaneously preserving installation revenue for the dealers. Funky tools, fasteners, threads, anything to discourage the non-dealer mechanic or the knock-off manufacturer. Standardization encourages dealer avoidance, hacking, cloning and (in the case of cars) theft. Cars with lots of interchangeable parts are popular with the "chop shops".
To be fair about it, Honda had a big problem with theft. It's no secret that the engine computer is the final frontier of anti-theft technology. How can anyone critize Honda for addressing the problem?
Car hacking is not dead, but it requires more ingenuity than it used to. I remember the old days when I upgraded my home computer by soldering additional memory chips on top of the onboard memory. Just because I can't do that with a modern motherboard, does that make it "unhackable"?
If car companies could copy from each other freely, you would see a totally different market. Parts would be much more interchangable, standardized, and adaptable. Even as things modernized, they would be modernized as components that would likely be easy to swap in and out. Things like planned obsolesence, or the dealer monopolizing service would be a thing of the past. Prices would probably come down considerably, while R&D especially in enviromental friendly technologies would go up. Today enviromental regulations are often used to gain more profits at the expense of poor people by pushing used cars out of the market and making it more difficult for new competition to get in the game.
Think PC. One of the greatest things to happen to the industry was when IBM and Intel lost the lawsuits claiming that people who coppied their interfaces were voilating their intellectual property. It opened the flood gates for AMD, Compaq, and millions of other vendors.
Getting rid of patents would take things a step further in the PC and the Auto industry.
The word "it's" is a contraction (short form) of
the phrase "it is". If you want to make the
possessive form of "it" (that is, indicate that
something belongs to "it"), you leave out the
apostrophe. So, for example:
"It's true the dog wagged its tail."
Got it?
Grammar matters. Get with the program.
Remember, though, For many years, Honda has, and still does hold the title as one of the top stolen cars in the US. Your point is still legitimate, especially when these new ignition systems have no effect on making insurance rates cheaper...
I guess it's more and more like kernel hacking, in that you have to get into minute detail for minor changes.
Check out Neuspeed for what's involved with supercharging modern Volkswagens and Audi's. Since these cars are computer controlled, adding a supercharger involves reworking the ECM. This is not a simple chip swap anymore!
For more fun, check out the Philips Automotive Lighting Forum for people hacking their headlights to use Xenon High Intensity Discharge (HID) light systems. People in this group hack all sorts of ways around Benz and BMW computers that throw hissy fits when they think that a light bulb has burned out.
-- Len
Not only are people hacking their computerized new-fangled cars, there is even a sourceforge project, although perhaps the most interesting part of that project is the links, for example to FreeScan or LT1_Edit (the former free at least as in beer, the latter is for $$$).
Happy hacking!
It should also block people who are half-asleep, weave in and out of traffic, never signal, tailgate, use cellphones while driving, insist on looking at the passenger side when talking, drive 20+ mph over the speed limit, run red lights, drive in the breakdown lane, blast car stereos (usually crappy hip-hop), and idiots who cause grid-lock.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Yes, Yes it is.
Yes, but it's a Trans Am. The price you pay for paying less is actually having to get into the horrible thing. In general, American cars are hideous. It's no wonder you see very few of them elsewhere in the world. The only Corvette I ever saw in Europe had Maryland plates, and I'd never even heard of Pontiac until I moved to North America. And, as somebody mentioned, there is far more to performance than straightline speed.
Theft alarms aren't for the car owners, they're for the insurance companies.
Why would anyone in their right mind want a car alarm? If the car gets stolen, big deal, the insurance company pays you for what it's worth (or if you have good insurance, they'll pay you for replacement value). Just don't leave anything you wouldn't want to lose in the car.
If anything you'd want an alarm on an older car since the insurance company won't give you enough to buy a new junker. Then again, who's going mess with an older car...
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
While I agree, in principle, that today's cars are much more complex for amateur mechanics, I think that this example is completely inapplicable. Quite honestly, wouldn't you have been worried if you could buy a remote starter that completely bypassed the anti-theft device? Instead, you returned the item to the store, whining that a pretty convenient but absolutely unnecessary device wasn't completely compatible with another add-on!
And how big is the remote starter, anyway? If it's something that you carry on you, or have it somewhere in your house, then what's the problem with leaving a key in it?
:wq
Total flamebait, but it's true. I'd love to kick this guy's teeth down his throat. One more loss of control of technology. This is _just like_ copy protected CD's.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
Was that you the other day driving 55 in the white Oldsmobuick. The reason I zoomed around you was that you were doing 55 in the fast lane.
"I'm really tired of driving the speed limit when 95% of the rest of the drivers on the road pass you. It creates a hazard to not only me but to everyone else."
If 95% of the drivers on the road pass you then I guess it just creates a hazard to you, to everyone else(the 95%) your the guy doing 55 creating the hazard. By your own admittaly 95% of the people have to pass you. Your the bigger hazard, not the other way around.
Step on it grandpa.
-BlingBlings Flossin it
Right. Tell your tow truck plan to the 15 year old who just smashed and stole your white boy audi.
What an assinine idea...
At least with my Grand Cherokee you could disable the alarm system by grounding a wire. Sure the alarm isn't enabled anymore, but the car will start and you still need a key in the ignition to drive it off.
Leaving a key in the car is a very very dumb idea. I wonder if your insurance company will cover theft in this case.
Why not just build your own car?
h tm
Something like this will trash any of your mass-produced rubbish:-
http://www.tiger-sportscars.demon.co.uk/frames.
Well, since 1996, every car sold in America has required OBD-II compliance, which dictates a requirement for an interface to the engine management computer that adheres to certain government standards. As a result, with a Palm Pilot and a $200 cable, anyone can pull all sorts of nifty information from any modern car's engine computer. Not exactly "a bunch" of electronic gear, when the whole setup fits in a jacket pocket.
One could argue that such standards are pro-competition, since one doesn't need a bunch of specialized equipment for each manufacturer (the situation prior to OBD-II). No need for a Ford computer tool, a GM computer tool, a BMW computer tool, etc...
In short, you can still work on your own car. Just like 50 years ago, you can't do anything without the proper tools. Just happens that the tools are electronic now, rather than mechanical.
And, like many people are going to tell you, if you don't like it, buy a TR6 and shut the hell up.
They were talking about that on CNN while I was travelling through Europe. It's quite feasible to implement it. It's also quite feasible to implement automatic ticketing that tickets all speeders all the time. Neither system would stand a chance of hell of ever getting implemented. In the case of the car just refusing to speed, that'd eliminate speeding ticket revenue and a lot of places depend on that revenue. In the case of the automatic ticketing thing, people would force the speed limits to be removed or raised to the actual speeds people drive at (Which again would have the effect of eliminating those lovely ticket revenues.)
What this adds up to is that there is a system that is arbitrairly enforced against a population which more or less completely ignores the posted limits.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A friend and I went to pick up our BMW M3's in europe on the european delivery program. We both picked up our cards in Munich, he drove his to italy and I went on to Germany (being more interested in the autobahn than the italian alps). The short story is that his car got ripped off in italy. The theives hoisted the car onto a flatbed (dragging it with a wench) but ended up dumping the car a few hours later with a badly mangled steering column as they tried to defeat the anti-theft (chipped) ignition system. The police recovered the car that night, crediting the anti-theft key system for its quick recovery. Is the anti-theft system worth it? In this case it was. BMW replaced the steering column under warranty/bmw insurance and we were able to continue on to the nurburgring for some real fun.
I think people are missing the *real* comparison here, the classic cars to computers. What's great is it rorks really well here.
Think of cars in the 70s. They were all and mechanical and made of many discrete parts. So were computers. You could get the plans to an Apple I and build your own computer out of many ICs.
Now, you buy a car and it's made out fewer, more integrated parts. Same with your computer. There are still standardized interfaces, however. You can get a new video card, you just can't build your own motherboard. You can get a new car radio, but it's a bit more difficult to tweak the ignition timing.
Think of it as a natural progression of the technology. *Everything* is getting more integrated and digital these days. It's not a concerted effort to make hacking a car/computer harder, it's an effort to make them cheaper to make and more efficient.
± 29 dB
It's actually quite simple - the "chip" on the key is nothing more than a resistor. In order to bypass it, you need to find it's value with a simple multi-meter. Once you have that, you need to add a few resistors, to approximate that resistance as closely as possible, to the VATS sensor wire in the ignition column.
Most remote start kits should come with several resistors for just this reason.
BTW, car audio/security/sales was my profession for 6 years. Back in those days, we cursed the big 3 daily for their "new innovations" that made our jobs harder.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
And you are just NOW realizing this? its been like that for a while now.. when was the last time you could even SEE your spark plugs with out a special tool...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In the UK, police regularly talk on TV about how even the "most secure" cars can be cracked inside of 30 seconds. An unsecured car takes a mere 12, apparently.
Wow. I'm sure that the 20 extra seconds is really going to help, in practice.
Methinks that the best approach to car security is to build the damn security device yourself, from first principles. Even if it doesn't work worth a damn, it'll still work out cheaper. And if it DOES work, you'll be sitting on a gold-mine that'll turn the spam-mailers green with envy.
(One approach I've considered is using the car's electrical properties, such as capacitance, as a means of obtaining biometrics on whoever is in contact with it. Easy to wire up, requires no fancy sensors, but turning the data into a useful ID would be difficult.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Hacking a computer is nice and no big deal, because they are cheap (Compared to cars.) and unnecessary for things like getting to work, the grocery store, etc. If I screw up my computer, no big deal, it can wait to be fixed. If I screw up my car, my life is thrown into a screwy loop. If my computer is stolen I go drop $1500 on a new one and wait for the insurance company to reimburse me, if my car is stolen I cannot go anywhere until the insurance company reimburses the creditor of the car and I can buy a new one.
Cars are not meant to be toys anymore. If you really insist on playing with your car, buy an old mustang that you don't need to worry about.
I can tell you, he propably doesn't.
He says, that ever since electronic ignitions came to play, the hackability of cars started declining. Nope. You just have to READ more in order to understand what's going on, dah! What you are saying is like this: "By moving from a vaccum tube to a transistor, you are removing the ability to hack in a circuit." Get the picture? You cerainly can't tell if the transistor is faulty as easily as you can with the vaccum tube, but heck, along with power comes the requirement of knowledge! What the author doesn't know, is how EASILY these new systems can be hacked, if you know your way aroung programming and electronics. e.g. ALL modern car ECU's can be fine-tuned by changing their factory default EEPROMS with other ones, oriented towards perfomance and not economy or lower emissions. Yes, you HAVE to know. Yes, you will have to read more. We are under going progress, we cannot by put down by lazy people who are used the way things work, and don't want to bother learning. I can always claim that cars using carbeurators are "almost a little anti-competitive" because the average neighborhood farmer doesn't have a clue about carbeurators, he always liked his hay-full trolley being pulled by horses and donkeys. Engines are not as hackable as animals after all.
Sheesh!
what was it that one of your presidents said about those who wish to trade some of their liberties for a supposed increase in safety deserving neither?
...if you dont believe me, check out LA.
Where do you draw the line?
I mean, there are some serious mouth breathers out there. I say we do an IQ test before we let them get behind a wheel as well; if you cant pass then the only thing you should be allowed to drive is a tricycle. Of course, there are many total morons on the road there
I find that the fact that people who are drugged legally are allowed driving a lot more worrisome.
How many ppeople are out there who are on Prozav, Zoloft, Librium, Xanax, Valium, Ativan and such?
100 million?
Have you ever tried one of those drugs?
A lot worse than 2 beers or one joint...yet its consdered ok for driving (oh..Im sorry,..most drugs come with a warning. How many of you have ever taken a cold medication and still driven or 'operated heavy machinery'?)
Im not sure for the States but in England the number one cause of accidents..something like 1/3 (I think its 4-5 times higher than #2) is fatigue. Of course, its not as sexy as drunk driving campaigns.
hey, why not also make sure that parents are qualified to have kids? There is a lot of sexual and physical abuse of children in the US....if you dont have basic common sense, you should not be allowed to procreate....
Its truly amazing that in the name of safety and the children, reasonably sane people are just willing to give all responsability away.
(look who Im talking to: you folks vote in that "Patriot" bill without the politicians even reading the darn thing!)
That's why its really amazxing that american citizens, who just drone on and on and on about liberties and rights so easily gave away their right to the presumption of innocence in the case of drug testing.
Remember how that started off in just 'ncessary' and sensitive positions? Then it moved on to other sectors and now if a kid wants to play chess or the tuba he has to first prove that he is 'drug-free'...which is code for marijuana since most kids know that there pot stays in your system for a long time but coke, heroin and so on will be out of in 48-72hrs..
Of course not that drug testing is a 10-15 billion a year industry, you'd have to fight the powerful lobby groups (who all exist for out protection and those of children) as well.
From public security to testing school children...all in the name of safety and the drug war, I think its a perfect example of 'give an inch, theyll take a mile'.
Not that drug testing, militarization of police, asset forfeiture scams and so on have done one thing to stop the problem....
How this atittude of willingly giving up ones freedom for a promise of more "safety" is different from communist state interference is beyond me.
How a country who clings to an outdated passage like 'the right to bear arms' can so easily just trample the rest of those annoying little things like amendments is also part of the delicious irony which is Amerika.
zeke
Someone has watched "Runaway" one too many times :)
;)
Seriously, though I think the best answer is an EMP gun mounted on the front of police cars, designed to fry a fleeing vehicle's car computer, from about 15 feet which causes the engine to stall and the car to coast to a stop. Much safer than a carpet-o-nails which can cause dramatic loss of steering with either or both front tires being blown out.
How about a Matrix-esque bluetooth-type proprietary no-hop wireless network that would allow a cop to kill all compatible engines within a small radius. The circuitry would be the size of a small pager's motherboard and could be built right into the computer, not as a hackable add-on. Ooooh, he can use the MDT to select the vehicle to kill from a list that pops up, showing the year, make, model, color and vin. But that would lend itself to automated license checks whereby the MDT would pop up on the screen any nearby cars that are stolen (a la LoJack) or who's owner's license is suspended. I got caught once by a cop in Princeton, NJ who was pulling up behind each and every car on the highway at 2:30am and running their tags to check their owner status.
Nah, I like the EMP gun better. No one's stealing 74 Nova's anymore
Intelligent Life on Earth
Tecnically, I guess the word I am looking for is totalitarian, but commie sounds more demeaning. Do you honestly believe that a car manufacturer should be forced to place such equipment inside a car? That was the kind of things that Oceana was doing in Geoge Orwell's 1984. If you truly believe this then go to http://www.lp.org as they have much better argumets towards freedom than I.
I hate to tell you, but with my suspension mods I've done, I have the cornering ability of a BMW M3. I was tested as such by MTI's testing facility.
As for NSX's, unless they are spraying, they'll keep up(1 or 2 car lengths behind) through 1st and maybe 2nd gear, but once I hit 3rd it's all over. That was a recent highway kill. For the $60,000 they cost(?) I was expecting something faster.
How nice, put it in your car...keep it out of mine. If someone wants to drink and drive let them, and at the time we'll hope they crash their car into a tree and that they will kill themselfs.
While I feel if they got into an accident with another car and kill someone would be a horrible loss of that persons life, I can hope that the drunk driver was killed along with them.
But, if they were not...then I would suggest arresting them and when they sober up immidiate execution. This solves a few problems, least of which is over population.
Sure some people will whine and cry oh it's in-human to kill someone blah blah blah...well tough shit, you screw up that badly you deserve nothing less then the loss of your own life, while where at it we are atleast cleaning up the gene pool from bloody idiots and morons.
Give me a break. Use your Honda for what it's worth, transportation from point A to B. I'm soooo sick of seeing these Rice burners with there stupid fucking super wings, painted drum brakes, low riding pos cars. You wanna go fast, drive your Honda off the nearest cliff.
"I'll just throw on a turbo charger..." - Yeah right. I know these rice boys who have all sorts of problems just putting bigger turbos in cars that already have turbos. Adding a turbo to a NA car is A WASTE OF TIME. So yer honda makes 30 more hp, every Mustang, Firebird, Camaro, Corvette, and Viper is still gonna kick yer ass.
And as far as the SCCA being full of these cars, give me a break. Maybe your local autocross. But anyone who wants to go fast gets a real sports car.
That's NOT performance buddy.
1) It has NO torque. Torque is (for the most part) related to the size of the engine. Torque gets the car going. This tiny little 2 litre motor has no torque.
2) It's a FWD car. Major understeer!
3) It's a front engine car. Again, major understeer!
If I want performance I'll get a car with engine greater than 4L and is mid or rear engine.
PS I drive an Integra and to me its one thing... an economy car with bullet proof reliability.
I think you need to understand the importance of torque. Torque gets the car moving. You can't add any substantial amount of torque by bolt-ons, gasoline additives, turbos, etc.
If I want to go fast, I'll buy a Mustang GT. If I want a reliable car, I'll buy a Honda or Toyota.
Why was this modded down, even if its not true (which I believe it is), I have had several installers tell me that they will not install on a manual vehicle. Its the first thing that comes out of their mouth when you ask for a remote starter - "Is the car a manual?".
That said these new fancy gearboxes are manuals in the sense that they have a clutch, but they operate like an automatics except with lightning quick shifts (0.2 seconds). When the vehicle is started the gearbox is automatically put into neutral before engaging the starter. This is a requirement since they do not have an actual shift lever in the car (everything is done automatically or via paddles/buttons on the steering wheel).
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
It may be more difficult to install some cheap gadget you buy at Kragen or somesuch junky auto supply store, agreed. Cars are getting more complex. But it's that very complexity that is making it more and more possible to get into the guts of the car with electronic/software mods. As some have mentioned here, Audis and VWs are prime examples.
In the past, if you wanted to change valve timing, turbo boost, etc., you had to buy and install more aggressive valve cams, more powerful turbos or other parts. You had to do intrusive surgery to your car to put in these aftermarket components.
Nowadays, drive-by-wire cars like Audis can be hacked, literally. Many of the engine performance characteristics are entirely software-controlled, so by changing the software you can achieve much in the way of performance improvements that used to only be possible by swapping engine parts. Not only can you modify performance, you can also modify the behavior of things like the door locks, radio, etc., with PC software that lets you configure your car's computer.
I have an Audi A4 1.8T that had a stock 170 HP engine. I bought an APR chip "upgrade" for the car's computer, and suddenly my car has 207 HP. Not only that, the torque curve has shot up to 250 foot-pounds at 3600 RPM - a 50% increase. That torque is dramatic, and lets me beat "more powerful" cars off the line consistently. And now that it's raining a lot here, I can beat *any* car off the line that only has two-wheel drive when the ground is wet.
All this achieved in a simple one-hour soldering procedure. There are limits, of course, beyond which you need better parts, but who says cars are less hackable nowadays?!
Look @ a carb on an 86 Chev truck... Adjustments, choke, tweaking, a handful of vacuum hoses, bad economy, and an emissions nightmare.
Now look @ TBI on 89 chev truck... 3 vac hoses, good economy, no adjustments to go wrong, and always starts and runs perfect.
Why are you even bothering to use a big complicated computer? Perhaps you should go back to stone and chalk.
1+1=10
1998+ VW Passat (4-cylinder model), and 1998+ Audi A4 1.8T, as well was 2000+ VW Jetta, Golf,GTI and Beetle 1.8T can gain at least 40 (!) horsepowers, by installing after market software, which controls the turbo charger/intercooler induction system. There's a large market for such "chip tuning", and several brands are available. One such brand is APR, which even offers a switch that let's you set different turbo charger operation mode (stock, higher performance, and 100 Octane gas modes), check their website here.
Most other recent cars (except a few highly tuned cars like the Toyota Celica GT-S), can also benefit from a chip which bumps up the redline and changes fuel management setup. Almost any major tuner that's affiliated with a certain brand of vehicles, will offer such a chip. Yes, they're detectable (in most cases) and will void your waranty. But it's still possible to hack your ECU, and there's people making money from it. Also OBD-2 scan tools are available on the market, for use by individuals. One such tool is VAG-Com, which can be used for all Audi, Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda cars....because the article the poster is referring to is a load of bunk.
Yes, the Camaro and Firebird are going away. GM decided they'd rather use their resources dedicated to the F-Body platform to produce more profitable automobiles or trucks.
No, the tiny engines in today's imports aren't better than the heavy iron (or aluminum) that comes out of Detroit. Anything you can do to an import you can do to domestic muscle, and vice versa.
And there isn't a chip on the market for a Honda that will give you 50 horsepower over your stock chip. Not unless you've already done a ton of other mods, like new cams, intake, exhaust, pistons, head work, etc. The same is true for Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs, etc.
Vehicles are just as "hackable" today as they've ever been. You just need more/different tools to do the job now.
I know a guy who has a race equiped Dodge Viper GTSR. He can tune everything from his laptop. Suspension settings, valve timing, fuel mixture. He can even shut off matching cylinders if he thinks he's about to blow the engine or run out of gas. This thing is very hackable. The posters Honda may not be hackable (well at least to him, mod guys seem to hack em fine) but there are definitely conputer controlled cars that are hackable. Heck a quick performance hack worth anywhere from 5-50 Hp on most cars is to get a mod chip that blows gas milage out but gives you better raw performance.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This is amusing how much like Mac vs Windows debates this sounds :)
GPL Deconstructed
Yeah...nice cars, my grandfather had one of the first two tone mustangs in swo. Beautiful car...I'll agree on that.
Actually, modern car produce more polluteing and more destuctive exhaust then older cars. With the advent of the catylitic converter we changed the more-or-less non-destructive exhaust into sulfer dioxide...which in turn causes acid rain. Anyway, while lead gas was and still is bad, what is in the new gas MTBE or MTBE2 is so toxic that 1ml will contaminate 10,000L(4,500gal) of water makeing it unsutable to drink, this has happened in california(search google).
Compareing body design, moveing from a soild frame to a a-frame or space frame, makes the body weaker, when your in a crash now what actually takes the burnt of the transfered energy is the folding and bending of the body panels...nice eh? On the older cars, it was the frame that absorbed the impact...there have been advances in other safty features though.
Anyway, onto gas milage my pontiac transport(94) gets 27mpg on the highway. As good as your 4cyl subaru. My '96 saturn sw2(station wagon), on the other hand after some slight mods mostly diffrent plug wires, and plugs as well as a computer adjustment gets 47mpg.
But the question is...which causes more polution? The gas tainted with MTBE/MTBE2 and spewing sulfer dioxide and other super toxic chemicals, or the old cars runing gas and spewing co2, lead-oxidized air and a few other chemicals?
Before I forget, MTBE/MTBE2 are chemicals used to make more "octane" in the gas. In otherwords, it's the easy can cheap ways to stop gas compaines from refineing the oil->gas longer.
This is Slashdot, shouldn't we of all people know how to hack the computers in cars? I'm suprised someone doesn't have Linux running on thier car by now!
I have no argument with 1 (forced induction aside), but 2 and 3 are not necessarily correct.
2) Hondas, in particular ones with the B-series motors, actually do have equal-length driveshafts. Minimal torque steer with an open differential, and even less with a limited-slip diff of some nature.
3) Front-engine, front-drive cars can be made to oversteer, though not anywhere near as easily as their rear-wheel-drive brethren. It takes some suspension-setting, but is done regularly on FWD vehicles used in autocross or road-course competition.
I don't pretend that my 4-door Civic hybrid is a sports car. I do like the option to make it accelerate faster and handle better (top end speed does not concern me)...and if I wind up with something that will keep up with sports cars, so be it. If I could afford a sports car, I'd build a Cobra replica...some of those are pretty impressive indeed.
But your car has the engine in the wrong place: the front.
The NSX is a mid-engine sports car.
Put all the mods on your car. Waste all your money. If you were smart you would have bought the NSX in the first place.
-All- hacking is a thing of the past thanks to the DMCA. Do not hack -anything-, unless you want to be put away forever. The courts have deemed it illegal to determine how any piece of technology works. I expect soon that howstuffworks.com will be shut down by the MPAA.
I know the new Corvettes use a "drive by wire" system for the gas pedal these days. I think there's another GM vehicle out there where the steering will be done by electronic control instead of a shaft that runs through the engine bay.
;-)
It's just a question of how reliable can the manufacturer make the system. Lots of testing has to be done, and it will take years to perfect something like an optically controlled vehicle.
We'll see these kinds of vehicles more and more in our lifetime, I believe.
And you thought your car was hard to work on NOW!
I wonder how quickly Jim Conforti will have a hack to reset the launch control counter* for the new SMG-II?
* - Use it more than thirty times and it voids the warranty.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
So you'd say that the BMW M3 isn't a performance car? Its inline 6 engine is *only* 3.2L. The 2002 Porsche 911 has a 3.6L engine.
I guess you must be thinking about American cars when you start talking about so much size and torque: those things are big and heavy and *need* it.
Actually the Audi TT 225 engine uses larger turbo chargers to achieve the 225 hp, not just more psi from the stock K03 turbo. Also the Mk.4 platform cars (Golf, Jetta, Seat Leon, Skoda Fabia, TT, Audi A3/S3) use a transverse mount 1.8T, whearse B5/B5.5/B6 platforms (majority of Audi's, passats) use a longtitudal mount 1.8T. Also, when you increase the boost up to 1.1 or 1.0 bar using a chip, on the Passat,you'll also blow your diverter valve, and you need to replace that as well by a stronger after market one. You also void your waranty, but that's a trade off. VW's and Audi's in general, are very tuneable, cars, and are a great advice for someone who wants a Budget BMW. The only thing the $10,000 more expensive BMW 3-series has, that I wish I had on my Jetta is rear wheel drive. Everything else, including the choice of two beefy engines (VR6 or 1.8T), leather interior, multi-function trip computer, power heated seats can be ordered as an option on almost any VW.
All the thief has to do is steal a tow truck, repaint it, and then bang the hell out of it so that it looks really used.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
LOL, thats an interesting assesment. At a local car show I was near the security booth when one man came to report his 1969 camaro was stolen and he couldn't figure out how it was stolen since he had the rotor out of the distributor in his pocket. Literally within 5 minutes another man came in to report that someone stole the rotor out of the distributor on his chevy truck.
Now I'm laughing since I read the same story in a car-mag (think it was Carcraft) a few months ago.
Back on-topic, the best way to prevent your nearly new car from being stolen is to wire a hidden switch into the fuel pump circuit. Forget about clubs, they won't stop someone who's determined.
If you shut off the fuel pump circuit when you park, the sequence of events when a thief steals your car will be as follows:
1) they break into the car (well duh!)
2) they break off any clubs, etc
3) they break the ignition lock
4) start the car (it will still start without the pump)
5) they drive about 50 feet and the car stalls (no more fuel)
Now, the thief is totally exposed with onlookers wondering why he stopped his car in the middle of the parking lot. You can bet that he'll run for it since he can't futz around with so much attention.
The key is to make sure the kill switch is hidden or non-obvious. I've seen friends use the cigarette lighter (they didn't smoke) as the switch. Pretty sneaky eh?
Although my insurance company won't give me a discount for this "anti-theft" system, I'd rather still have my car than a few more bucks in my pocket.
I've been hacking on cars (old and new) for 20 years and this is the best anti-theft system I've thought of for cars with electric fuel pumps.
GRH
Yeah, it's not like there's some sort of DMCA for cars.... yet.
I personally hope the '74 Nova isn't on the list because that's the exact make and model of my car. They'll have to use the EMP gun on me because the only computer in my car is my laptop!
Seriously, though, the best cars to hack are older ones. There's nothing like a built Chevy 350, a 4-barrel carb, shaved door handles, no catalytic converter, etc. (or course, this isn't exactly describing my car, but it's not completely impossible.
Hack the CD changer bus, and plug in an mp3 player instead.
like this
Hmmmm....I can out run a NSX, I can outcorner an NSX, I have more hp and torque than a NSX...and I spent $30,000 less than if I bought a NSX.
Why would I want a NSX again?
I've actually found my '01 Eclipse to be easier to work on than my '84 Ranger. Brakes are simpler, struts/shocks are simpler, sparkplugs are way simpler, changing the oil is a snap. The engine is a more complicated design, but it's drastically easier to do work on. It LOOKS harder to work on, but when you get your hands dirty you find out that it's easier.
If something is going wrong, I just need to get an ODB-II logger ($150 w/cable & software) to pull the code out of the computer -- opposed to my truck where I've got to guess why the idle is off. Not only that, but I can actually have it log the performance characteristics of the car while I'm driving for even more diagnostic information.
You lose some flexability you previously had with non-computer controled vehicles, but you also gain more flexability in other areas. It's just a different kind of technology -- you've gotta get used to it. And when you figure it out, you've got more control than you could ever get before.
As a heavy modder of my own 97 OBD-II computer controlled car I can say without a doubt that it is now EASIER to hack a car then ever. Before when you wanted to do a change to the car which might effect mixture (it seemed like EVERYTHING effected it) you had to go through the effort to rejet the carb and even then it was a compromise between running the ragged edge of destruction and being fast. You had to worry about weather changes, altitude changes, etc
Now with computer control the variables are handled, changing fuel ratio is as easy as tuning a knob or changing a parm in a laptop.
Sure it requires a different set of tools, tools which might make the average greese monkey who has never worked on anything more moden then a carbed 5.0 motor cring in fear, but the fact is the data that is available via the ECU, and the ease with which engine parms can be changed is way better then before. Modern diagnostics make troubleshooting disturbingly easy.
And lets not forget the actual engines themselves are not all that different. The only "new" fangled thing is variable cam timing and even that is still just a "variation" hehe of a theme. you still have to get air in, and as much of it as possible, inject the right amount of fuel, ignite the spark at the right time, and get rid of all the burnt gas.
In the old days you could only make course adjustments that effected the entire operating range of the motor. And you can still do that today. But today you also have the ability to optimize the entire range of operation with no sacrifices. Some might call the complicated, I call that elegance and simplicity because now I can just do what I want and not have to think about striking a balance.
No. Cars are EASIER today then they were 15 years ago. When I can spend $95 on a Palm M100 and $165 on a cable and software to be able to interface with my cars computer don't tell me it is too expensive either. Just admit that you aren't willing to learn something new and you can't think outside your own self-imposed box. Cause it isn't that complicated and the basic principles of an internal combustion engine haven't changed.
Hell I know guys who are able to mod their cars to go fast who I know darn well couldn't work on a carb, or time a distributor to save their life. But they sure can punch a number into a laptop.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
...what about the clapper?
/dev/car. Their new specifications would bring new meaning to "information highway". Check it out:
I went to install a clapper in our Honda last week, which used to be kind of an elegant hack (like an audio hot-wiring of your car), only to find out that additional expensive audio equipment and modules were required, due to the anti-theft system on the vehicle, where the car's computer would not let it clap-on, unless it received the right code from the magnetic encoding on the key! In order to install a clapper, you have to actually put a spare key to the vehicle *in* the add-on module to let the car clapper clap-on. Yeah, that makes me more comfortable, leaving a key installed in the remote car clapper. That sucker went back to the store pretty quickly, that's way too much work, when a dealership can do it for me. Is the slight reduction in risk of theft of your vehicle, worth that much loss of freedom of beer and clapping? I want to clap!
Carbeurators, and the other mechanical systems which were fairly standard and visible and self-evident, really seem to be the equivalent of 'open source', while the new computer-based systems seem to be more closed and proprietary. I know in the early days of cars with computers, there were third party ROM upgrades for performance clapping. There's a project underway to have 'open source' specifications which would allow a user to hook up their car to their computer. There is much mention of
http://carnix.sourceforge.net/
It almost seems like a Microsoft-like statement, to tell you they're doing all of this to reduce theft, while really they're doing it to ensure you are forced into coming back to their dealerships...
testing out my trending skills
but I don't know if they are available for newer ignitions - check Hot Rod, Car Craft or some other magazines. Another option would be to go to an aftermarket ignition etc - probably way too much work.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Actually, you can hack your car to the extent of removing the whole engine system and replacing it with another one
Lots of people do it
stay frosty and alert
My neighbor moved and was selling his house and left his car there in the driveway. A couple weeks later a tow truck showed up and towed his car away...but not before I got a couple good pictures of the drive and the license plate...and another neighbor came out to talk to the driver.
Unless you're only steeling cars that are parked illegally, you're going to get caught pretty quick cause people hate towing companies and are going to take note if they don't see a good reason.
If I'm leaving my car in a airport lot for a while, I'll just pull out the ECU fuse (or some other necessary fuse, but that still lets the car turn over) and replace it with a bad one. Bet that would stop most criminals.
- waxy
Part of the reason that this is so complicated is because auto manufacturers are trying to give dealers, specifically the service department, more business. In the past, most of income of a dealer didn't come from selling cars, it came from servicing them! Every time something broke the dealer made money either from the manufacturer (warranty repair) or from you.
Have you ever wondered why warranty repairs sometimes take so long; its because for every major repair there is a district service manager that has to okay the repairs that the manufacturer will pay the dealer for.
But ever since the 80s, people have wanted more reliable cars which results in less service work for the dealers. A perfect car could be built, but all the dealers would go backrupt so they wouldn't be able to sell any of them! As a result, the manufacturers have had to find ways to make the dealers money. Part of the reason cars are more complicated is that only the dealer service shops will be able to work on them. Some components will have specialty tools made specifically for the one platform.
They also do other stuff. Try looking under to hood of a new VW to check the tranny fluid. You can't get to it. If you phone up VW and ask how you check the fluid yourself they'll say "Oh, we will check that for you the next time you come for your scheduled maintenance".
-?-
Fat lot of good it's done me, though. Apart from my O2 sensor dying at 197K miles and a transient EGR fault, I've yet to have any code-worthy trouble.
I love(d) my Volvo, I was in a major car accident today, but, the Volvo has served as a great car to work on. None of the work on the car has been done by a shop, except for new wheels being put on and the R-12 recharge. I rebuilt the engine, brakes, and many others things; I enjoyed doing that.
From what I have observed over the past few years, I am sickened by what people call cars and car modifications. Damn honda/light up toys, these aren't really modifications, these are analogous to using "Litestep" in Windows. Where is the fun in that? I rebuilt my car's Kernel, Bus, and so forth. I have a lot more respect for individuals who actually work and respect their cars vs. pull some cheap rice-rocket crap.
Sorry, I had to let my 2 cents out.
Even the Politburo concurs with Process of Elimination http://process-of-elimination.net
My 98 VW Passat has a boost chip (+47 hp, +66 ft-lbs), a McIntosh amp, a door mounted wall socket, a built in link for my PDA and so forth.
My coworker's 2000 Impala has a supercharger, larger injectors, a custom fuel program, custom ABS and traction control (to allow the supercharger to catch the wheels with full torque, which will definitely spin them), a WIn NT based PC and a big amp adjustment.
My friend's 2001 Accord has a dreamcast in his glove box and a pop up monitor installed in dash.
It takes more skill, but there is NO problem hacking cars any way you want to anymore -- so long as your car manufacturer lets you do so. I guarantee you it is not so easy to hack a Benz or a Bimmer due to their theft systems. Even the Passat requires you have a password to reset your MFD (economy / odo) and radio. But with these in mind, the world is your oyster, man.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
OBD-2 covers only the engine management and emissions related parts of your car. But pretty much every manufacturer adds proprietary extensions to deal with everything from ABS brakes to the door locks. For my Volkswagen, I use the VAG-COM software from Ross Tech, which understands the proprietary stuff. That's because Uwe Ross reverse engineered the Volkswagen diagnostic tool. You may or may not be able to find similar software for other makes.
Actually changing the fuel maps and timing (rather than simply diagnosing problems) is another matter entirely. That requires the ability to change the programming of the electronic control unit, and only a handful of guys have figured out how to do that. They're the ones selling the aftermarket "chips". For the home hotrodder, it is much easier to bypass the factory ECU entirely and install a programmable aftermarket engine management system (there are several different brands). Any car modified in this way will no longer be street legal, unless you undergo the expensive and time consuming process of getting a CARB exemption, or its equivalent for your state.
(totally off topic. This is what 50 karma caps are FOR) .08 and, worse, legislation that allows a cop to take your driver's license away (90 days) if you refuse to submit to a breathalyzer on the spot (regardless of if you are drunk or not), was caught DWI this Thanksgiving.
Texas Senator Barrientos, who supported the move to
Making manslaughter caused by unsafe driving carry a harsher sentence is the better solution to these problems. Make people do time for real crime, not thought crime.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
If you have the money, two reasons: Aesthetics and reliability. And you seem to be comparing a modded TA vs a stock NSX. American cars can be made to corner, but not many people are willing to spend money on suspension. Most people want straight line speed (which is only half the fun.) I respect some American cars, the Z06 is a perfect example...what a beautiful car; big brakes, straight line speed, and excellent handling - all fresh off the showroom floor. They're rare, but there are some great American cars, however I'd rather drive German. I like a luxurious interior without going over the top (like some Japanese manufacturers are doing) combined with good handling and power. And just so you don't think I'm biased, there are some great Japanese sports cars as well (Miata, MR2, NSX, Skyline, Sylvia, etc.)
I just let an illegal immigrant live in my car. He owns a baseball bat (ie. security system) and a simple yell out the window and he'll start the car for me. He fits neatly in the trunk and has yet to malfunction.
anyway
I must have missed this in social studies class
I don't remember "Citizens should not be burdened by anti-theft devices when trying to work on their car when they probably don't know what they're doing in the first place." in the Constitution.
Buy a different car if you don't like it and stop bitching.
No sig for you!!
It is a violation of federal law to tamper with any automotive emission system. That is one reason the modules are made difficult to alter. The other reason is purely the harsh environment, things like hot salt spray isn't good for circuit boards and other electronics.
But the engine control module and software, etc. is all part of the "emission control system". Modify them and you aren't "street legal". The anti-theft portion comes from the insurance companies. Many people won't buy models if the insurance gets too expensive.
I used to work in a car stereo shop and i've done this install before. You can use an UNCUT transponder key in the sensor ring. This tells the ECM that there is a legit key in the ignition and that allows the engine to recieve fuel and spark...etc.
A potential thief still has to defeat the mechanical key switch to start the car. It would probably be a good idea to install the remote starter with a security system anyway, instead of a stand alone system.
-ted
Ah, so it's nice to know that you car is secure with a fancy key required to start it, and yet you leave the thing running in your driveway,
while you get ready for work!
You know nothing about remote starters. They start the car but leave the doors LOCKED. If you attempt to put the car into gear or otherwise touch the brakes without inserting the key and turning the ignition on, the system will shut the engine off. Again, the car will start remotely but cannot be driven without the key (unless you hotwire it, in which case it's no less safe than a car without a remote starter).
The problem here is with these new ignitions, you have to buy a special module to install in your car and stick a spare key in that module. Then, the thief just has to reach under the dash, grab the key and he's good to go. Bad idea.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
"Is the slight reduction in risk of theft of your vehicle, worth that much loss of freedom of choice and control?"
Duh, you didn't lose any freedom you total blathering nut. You lost convienience. You gained lower insurance rates in the bargain. Someone please call Dogbert(tm) to cast out the demons of stupidity!
--Peter
You didn't read the parent post to this. The guy is talking on one hand about how he loves the security of the new key-chips, yet he goes outside in his pajamas in the morning to start the car to warm it up before work while he gets ready. He's not using a remote starter of any sort. :)
...convenience issues like that.
:)
Like last week, I spent half a day hacking our time reporting system so I could just put "Coming" and "Leaving" links on my desktop, instead of logging in and wandering far deep down into our intranet. Before morning coffee, that can take vast amounts of slashdot time away from me.
Now that is silly. But fun. Like that car thingummy.
Course you should have it. A good toy is a bought toy.
"ignition technologies to keep non-safe drivers out of cars: breathalizer, driver licence check, etc..."
Are you kidding? Driver license check? You want to put a slot on the dashboard to verify that the driver is licensed, but you fail to think this through. It takes few brain cells to realize that such a device can be interfaced with a GPS receiver so the gov't can track everywhere YOU (not necessarily your car, but YOU) go, if you exceed the speed limit, run red lights & stop signs, whatever.
Yes, I'm paranoid. I thought that we lived in a country where the guy on the street could travel in relative anonymity. Here you want to take that privacy away from me; it's none of your business where I am coming from and where I am headed, as long as I don't do something to cause a loss on your part.
As for drunk drivers, yes, I think that they shouldn't be driving. But to require breathalyzer interfaces on all cars is an incredible inconvenience for all of the responsible drivers out there.
Why do you do-gooders think you can sit on your holier-than-thou pedestals and say that the rest of us decent people have to inconvenience ourselves because of the irresponsible actions of a few idiots out there?
When you say "let us make ourselves free of this injustice" by placing restrictions, you are not making yourself free, you are making yourself secure. Security and freedom are EXCLUSIVE -- it is an XOR relationship, to use technobabble.
I'll bet every time some politician says "where can we put new restrictions," you bend over and say "IN HERE!!!"
Posted AC cuz' i'm not fire retardent.
...to drive with vegetable oil - real rapeseed or sunflower oil which is normally used for salads or cooking. Some people even filter oil used for making french fries or hamburgers and drive their cars with it.
In general, vegoil is much thicker than mineral diesel, requiring the fuel system to work harder - the injection pump might break after some time, or the injectors become dirty by inefficiently combusted fuel. So they heat the vegoil before giving it into the injection system. If you have ever put some oil into a pan and heated it, you'll know why - it's getting thin like water and much easier for the diesel engine to handle. Heat is being provided by electrical equipment, similar to a coffee-maker, or by the engine's watercooling system.
There is a community who shares experiences, plans and reports about their modifications on "http://www.fmso.de/" (in German), in a way which is quite similar to the free-software development most of us are familiar with. AFAIK in other countries like France or the UK there is a "vegoil community", too.
Sheer horsepower is not the main reason - most of them drive old non-turbo diesel engines with 50 or 60 hp, and these things don't really become faster with vegoil (there are a few ones who even hack their new TDI (Audi/VW) or CDI (Mercedes) engines - they _are_ hackable if you know how). However, vegoil is much cheaper (EUR 0.45/l) than mineral diesel (EUR 0.80/l), and it is neutral on carbondioxide - the engines spit at most the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere which the oil plants have consumed a year ago. Particles and toxic pollutions are much lower with vegoil than with dino diesel. Yet the main reason for most of these people to hack their cars is "just for fun".
BTW no one of them has a remote-controlled engine starter - these things are illegal in Germany because of unnecessarily polluting the air. If you want to have a warm car on a freezy winter morning, use a combustive or electrical (AC-powered) heating system.
Did you know that when you install an automatic starter it voids your warranty? If you read your policy, you will see that any changes to the electronic and ignition system voids it. The only way to get around it is by having your local dealership install it for you!
I own a (stock) example, and driving it on a twisty mountain road is about the most fun you can have with your clothes on :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Don't be a moron. You're essentially saying, whether you like it or not, you won't give up the liberty of not having a breathalizer in your car to catch the true criminals?
Personally, I'm saying exactly that. I have no mythical natural "right to safety." The plain fact is, there is no safety in the world, and we are at risk from the time we're conceived to the time we die. We might craft a careful illusion that anything else is the case, but it is only that -- an illusion.
I am responsible for my own decisions. Realistically, that is the only natural freedom that exists in this world. Beyond that, the only freedoms that exist are those we make for ourselves, and as Larry Niven and others have said, F*S=k -- the product of freedom and security is a constant. I for one am not willing to see my freedoms eroded for the sake of strengthening an illusion of security.
Chuck
I think I remember a vague plan involving one way valves on the hydraulics. Basically it involves making it so the brakes and clutch can be applied, but not taken off again.
While living in Newcastle (a city in the UK with big joyriding problems) I was also considering padlocking the clutch to the floor - under a similar "won't notice it until it's too late" theory.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Anti-competitive? Perhaps you should look at cars from Eastern Europe before you start suggesting the design of the modern car is somehow inherently 'anti-competitive'. It is precisely because of such fierce competition between manufacturers that you are not stuck with an old piece of shit that won't start on a cold morning and can go 10000+ miles between servicing.
Shoddy mod's to vehicles can be downright dangerous, and I sure as hell don't want some dumb fucker heading towards me at 100mph 'cos he didn't quite get the throttle response right in his bodged add-on and now it won't stop...
Bugger off and play with your Meccano.
 
Score(-1) Troll
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
I hate my Chevy Malibu.
Among other things, the car doesn't let the driver turn off the headlights at night, use the power locks when any doors are open, or pop the trunk from the inside when the car's not in park. All of these things required extra inteligence (on the part of the car, not Chevy) in order to make the life of the car owner more difficult.
Additionally, my theft system is currently malfunctioning so that occasionally I have to wait 15 minutes before retrying to start my car. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about any of this.
Particularly, I've seen them in late '80s Mercedes.
The right car makes for better hacking. Old BUGs were the best, because you can find all of this great stuff for them. The modern equivalent would be a PT Cruiser. Check out ptcruiserlinks.com and see for yourself.
On a side note, car hacking has in many ways become easier than ever. Readily available and easy-to-operate sign making equipment has led to a much greater availability of vinyl graphics and bumper stickers. The internet has you connected to many smaller artisans who truly make some impressive car accessories. (Check out flameball.com)
For performance modding, the new and better manufacturing techniques make for parts that fit without adjustment, and again at a greater availability. Combine that with a wealth of information at your fingertips via Google, and voila!
'80's cars (american) were designed not to be modded. This led to the modern rice rocket, and the decline of American cars. The Detroit (OK, Toluca Mexico) auto makers are reversing that trend.
"It's impossible" is always the matra of the man who didn't try hard enough.
~Hammy
Go to any import drag strip these days and you will 100's of kids 'hacking' their import cars. They understand plugging in a laptop and changing fuel mappings and timing to a precision way beyond what shade tree mechanics used to do. They are willing to debug electronic ignition systems, add wild ass'd stereos, hookup internet/game/dvd players. Auto manufactures have used electronics to meet stronger environment laws and still deliver reliable power. So teenages are hacking what u can't? Thats life.
i've got a '98 PCM from a supercharger grand prix and i'm in the middle of hacking it. if anyone has any info and wants to help me, email me at charlesbeyer@netzero.net
thanks
I know this comment will never get read...
But there's no need to buy the expensive modules the remote starter company says is required for transponder key setups... their $20-$30 adapter is actual nothing except 3 wires, a relay and a spare key.
The mere fact that over 50% of the population want such a law does not justify the creation of the law. This is a nation created by a downtrodden minority, and the fact is, what's good for 50.1% of the population might not necessarily be good to the other 49.9%. The system of law must be carefully controlled and balanced against the unscrupulous (or simply dimwitted) who will misuse it. Personally, if being against having 50.1% of the people make rules arbitrarily for 100% to follow leaves me "Against democracy" in your eyes, then feel free to view me as such.
The fact is, far too many laws are created in a rather pointless attempt to "protect the public good." In assessing the value of these laws, you have to take a good look at the purpose the law was created for, and whether or not it has any hope of actually accomplishing enough "good" to make it worthwhile.
For a good example, take the law against homicide. It seems that the overwhelming majority of people are against the unrestricted killing of fellow humans. Fear not, I am too. Should there be a law against it? Well, it's generally agreed by a very large majority that we should work to make ourselves less vulnerable to random killing. A law against homicide is generally pretty enforceable with reasonable use of technology on hand. We seem to benefit much more than we loose with this law, and it seems to be pretty effective. Makes sense to me.
To take another example (and a very controversial one), let's look at the laws against marijuana. Many folks feel it's harmful, though there's no real evidence to back that up. What's important here is the fact that on average those who think it harmful have more legal power than those who do not. Not only is there no conclusive evidence that marijuana harms the user, there's certainly little evidence that one's use of it harms anyone else. Hence, we now have a largely unenforceable and very expensive law on the books which prohibits its use or distribution. Personally, I've never felt the desire to smoke up, but I've known more than a few that have, thanks to the extensive amount of time I spend on a college campus. Let me tell you, the attempts at enforcing this law really aren't even making a significant dent. What's more, the increased difficulty in obtaining pot has driven the price up considerably, making it a very lucrative business. In a very competitive market that's already outside of the law, violence isn't necessarily uncommon, and innocents often get caught in the crossfire. To be honest, the law seems to be making matters worse, not helping. To add the final straw, we're dumping an absolute fortune into this "war on drugs," and it's like firing a 12-gauge shotgun at the sun.
Realistically, is this a law that should be on the books? No. If for no other reason, then simply because it is essentially unenforceable.
Unfortunately, this is human nature. We see these laws as solutions, when so often they fail to solve the problem and become needless inconveniences to the rest of us. It's an attitude that is the result of trying to pretend that there are easy solutions to our disagreements, and that the world is a neater place than it actually is.
The same goes for an attempt to legislate a breathalizer in a car. Anyone sufficiently determined will find a way around it, and we'll pour valuable resources into a dead-end solution. For the same expense, we could cut down on all these pointless speed traps and have our cops spend their time setting up random DUI checkpoints instead. Understand that I'm not against drunk driving -- I just disagree strongly with your methods. It would make my day if I had to go through at least one random checkpoint every two weeks or so, and it would probably be far more effective in the end.
Better one five-minute inconveneince every two weeks than a 30-second aggravation every time I get in my car. Besides, maybe it would give our Troopers something useful to do with themselves, instead of wasting my money running speed traps.
Chuck
He's not using a remote starter of any sort. :)
:)
Ah ha. Got it. I was under the impression you were talking about the guy with the "Ask Slashdot" question that started this whole discussion. Makes sense now.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
But how many mid- or rear-engine American production cars can you think of? Betcha the number is awful damn close to zero.
When you're talking about SERIOUS performance, mid engine is really hard to beat. Low polar moment of inertia and good weight distribution is a Good Thing. How many non-mid-engine Formula 1 cars are there? Remember that close to zero number we talked about? : )
And, while we're on the subject, NASCAR does not race performance cars in any meaningful sense of the word.
(OK, so I'm just trying to start a fight. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Heh: F1 cars aren't even on the same planet! 3L max, no turbo or supercharger. Engine weighs about 60kg. No special fuel. Over 800hp.
;)
How many F1 cars are built in the US? Hang on, I think you've already answered that question
Maybe one day us consumers will really benefit from the F1 tech: small engines with good performance and good mileage.
I can't even check the transmission fluid in one of my new cars. It's all sealed off, and there is no way to do anything with it except take it to the shop.
It seems wherever I go, I hear someone complaining how new cars require you to be as smart as this or that kindof scientist to work on them nowadays. I really dont feel that its true. My 50 year-old father who's been working on cars since he was 16 felt this way. I took him into the garage one day to explain some stuff about our Ford Taurus. The one thing that you have to remember is that the engine in new cars is the same engine that was in cars in 1960; there's just tons of little gadgets bolted on to them. Instead of a carburetor, you have fuel injectors shooting the fuel directly behind the intake valves. Instead of a fixed mixture of air/fuel, the computer uses sensors to figure out if the car is running to lean or too rich and adjusts the fuel spray accordingly. People always cite how much diagnostic tools cost and how the normal grease monkey or gearhead cant afford them. While there are diagnostic tools that'll hook up to computers for not all that much (~$300-$500), they're right in that the really good ones are too expensive ($2000+). The plus side though, is that these really aren't needed. Sure they make it a bit easier to check and see whether a sensor is out, but you can check your sensors with a shop manual and an ohmmeter(most Chilton's manuals have the acceptable range of resistance listed). Alternatively, there's usually a few wires on the diagnostic connector (or a diagnostic jumper on the fuse block) that you can short and cause the check engine light to blink an error code. The error code you get from this is the same code you get from using a fancy diagnostic link. You just have to look it up and you know what's wrong (or what the computer *thinks* is wrong). Need a new computer? $20 at the boneyard. Cars today aren't really very different from cars 30 years ago. I have no more trouble working on our '67 Mercury Cougar than I do working on our '98 Ford Taurus.
"Moltar, I have a giant brain that is capable of reducing any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."
Someone tried to steal my car. They smashed the window and took apart the steering column trying to hotwire it, but since they didn't have anything with the radio code it wouldn't start. I had to pay my deductible to get it fixed, but hell, I'm just glad I still have my car.
And while alarms don't turn heads as much as they used to, my car has not been vandalized in the two months since I got an alarm installed, while it had been 3 times in the month previous.
:) The TransAm WS6 shares the the same brakes and suspension package as the Z06. So that means you like the TransAm as well.
Not for your average Blow Joe it isnt!
Does it go on forever?
How about just waiting until you get in the car to start the fucking engine? Was the extra 2.4 seconds really worth it to you?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
When I read your comments, I think you're forgetting that there are some companies that have done very well hacking with engine computers with considerable success.
In Germany, there are companies called tuners that can wring amazing feats out of stock BMW and Mercedes-Benz engines with masterfully-crafted modifications to the intake system, exhaust system, valve train and engine computers. A good example is Brabaus: they modified the stock Mercedes-Benz 6.0-liter V-12 engine to the point that a Brabaus-modified S600 luxury sedan is capable of top-end performance you normally associate with a Ferrari sports car, yet it does it so seamlessly that it drives like a regular car when driven at lower speeds.
The only thing nowadays is that you do need much more skill in modifying a modern car to achieve greater performance, but then, today's after-market car tuners have gotten very good at their work, too.
No. They are NOT performance cars. If you think they are, try racing my '67 Chevelle for "pinks." Hint: I'm making 505 horsepower, and that's a mild buildup.
For better or for worse, all performance cars are American. With the exception for the Viper, no one has made a performance car since 1971.
One quick fix for this is, go grab a classic auto trader, look for a nice car built before 1970, you can do whatever you want, if you get a 60s Mustang, parts are readily available, you get a mean car, with an ACTUAL carborator, made out of steel and chrome, no plastic bumpers. It's built like a tank, and hauls serious ass, not to mention it looks 1000 times better than any piece of shit out on the road. And you can work on it yourself.
My car can make 225 hp, too. If I disconnected 5 sparkplugs.
A remote control to start your car ?
Why not a remote control for you coffee machine or your electric toothbrush ?
C'mon...
As for clubs, I've got one and I know full well it won't stop anybody determined. Neither will the VIN etchings on all the windows. What it will do though is make the thief decide to steal the car parked next to mine which doesn't have those irritants.
I've got a Honda with that anti-theft immobilizer system. I once read a posting from a car thief mocking that system. He said that all you need is a custom-built replacement for the ignition computer that you plug in instead of the real ignition computer.
Ok, so to steal my car you need bolt cutters for snipping the steering wheel to get rid of the club, a custom ignition module for running the engine, and even then you're stuck with a lot of useless glass because it all has the original VIN on it so it's of no use to a chop shop. Why would any car thief in his right mind steal my car instead of one without these annoyances??
Sounds like someone's living in the past. I'll give you one example of a modern performance car: the Mitsubishi Evolution. Read up on it. 0-6 under 5 seconds. 0-100 in 11.1. 1/4 mile in 13.1 and it's AWD with active yaw control and steering/cornering like it's on rails. All from a car with close to 1/3 the displacement of your Chevelle. Don't get me wrong, I know Chevelles are nice (a friend of mine at work has one with over 550HP...he's even talking about TT'ing), but even he admits the thing's only good for a straight line. Heaven forbid the skies open up and it rains when you have it out on the road.
;-)
Remember: "The mind must be wide open to function freely in thought. A limited mind cannot think freely." - Bruce Lee
Serves you right for buying a Honda you, fool!
Should have gone old-skool GTI!
There's a scene in the book that talks about a street in the philipines where one car alarm will set off another nearby, ect, untill the whole road is screaching.
I can only imagine what it woudl be like with the screaming woman car alarm...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I love cars, and Im really a adept to Open Source.I drive a 70 mach1, and alway have looked a it as an Open Source car, like you open the hood and loke at the code.
What you seem to be wanting is to not allow children to come into contact with adults, because you never know, that adult might want to molest the child.
That's moronic. There is a difference between illegalizing 'not good things' and illegalizing stuff that lets people do 'not good things' It's bad to rape people, but that doesn't mean we should make laws legally requiring all women to ware armored panties.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, we can all come up with one of them. The car I would most like right now is the Aston Martin Vanquish. Big heavy car but with no comprimise in luxury. Top speed 190mph, 0-62mph in 5 secs, 460hp, 6L V12. I wish I had the money to hack one of these.
A friend of mine just had his car "stolen". Brand new loaded civic. Wanna know how they stole it? They ripped off the spoiler, smashed out the wondow, stole the leather seats and left everything else as-is. Insurance called it totalled. Who needs to actually start the car when you can just strip it right there, with the alarm going off.
Okay, I'll race you. I'll take a Ford Focus and we'll go on a windy forest dirt track. All that horse power will do you no good. So much for your "performance" car. Okay, that was silly example, but what the heck.
Why do so many Americans equate performance with straight line speed? How dull. Take that big heavy car somewhere where you actually have to drive (i.e. where the roads aren't straight and boring as far as you can see), then tell me again that it's a performance car. I guess if you can't really drive and have to stick to boring stuff, all you've got left is boasting like a knuckle head about the size of your engine. Go and take a real performance car for a drive under interesting conditions, and find out how exciting driving can really be.
I run a site for a car that was well ahead of it's time, the Merkur XR & Scorpio.
:)
The MerkurGarage
Check out the link for the 'Ghost in the machine', where I show how to read the stored codes in the car's computer with a VOM and a paper clip. There may be a lot of technology in today's cars, but ten years from now some 16yr old will smirk and comment how rudimentary it is by his standards. Don't think for a minute you are restricted...you're just not up to speed on the 'ghosts' that control your ride.
I had another car with a similar computer that had gone into limp mode...the timing was not being advanced, and it needed a new computer. It took three visits to the dealer before the discovered their $10,000 STAR diagnostic machine was lieing to them. I took out my $8.00 VOM and read the codes and showed them....they ended up having the STAR machine serviced and they ordered a new computer ($400.00) for my car....when it came in, the parts guy said I wasn't allowed to install it myself, as it was too complicated for me
Today, you can buy one for $35.00 off eBay, and there are gadgets that will let you program it from a laptop.
Well, things work a little bit different over here. Here you are driving along in your mid-range car (because if you buy the top of the range it could be stolen within hours after you drove it off the showroom floor, but anyway...),
You have your top-of the range alarm/immobilizer installed.You have satelite tracking installed. The next moment when you stop at the traffic light, some guy walk up to you and FIRST shoot you in the face, then tell you that he is taking your car while throwing your limp body on the pavement in front of everyone else around you.
Unfortunately a true story - it happens a couple of times a month...
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
Due to anti-polution laws, he wouldn't be able to drive his car unless he spent a shitload of money getting it certified.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
When your TA can win Pikes Peak, you can talk shit. Until then, accept the fact that rally cars are simply obscene. You'll take a lot of things in a line, and that's good. You'd probably do better than my old Coronet (but not if she had been a GTX) off the line. But you'll lose in the corners, where a turboed Quattro/WRX STi/Evo 6/Delta Integrale will be able to take a faster line than anything rear drive and have a higher exit speed as a result. Frankly, racing with corners is more interesting - it takes a driver, instead of just an engine and transmission...
itachi
Carbeurators may have been more easily understood, but the performance of a decent fuel injection system is NOTHING like the performance of a microsoft product, so IMO the analogy fails.
And owners of these cars will be YET ANOTHER class of consumers that get shat on by the recording industry's misguided attempts to alienate their customer base.
It's 2:00, I'm at work, and I'm karma-whoring. Yeah.
Free software is the analogy you are looking for. Rememberthe open source movement purposefully gets rid of the ethics that are at the heart of the free software movement so their work is more amenable to businesses to take over. The open source movement lacks the ethical grounds that keep one focused on being able to freely run, modify, inspect, distribute verbatim and modified work. The analogy you're trying to make is better made with the free software movement than the open source movement, lest you end up making a starter some proprietary interest embraces and extends.
No, car hacking is NOT a thing of the past... I recently got my grandma's '70 Mustang 351... and am hacking it to pieces. :)
Actually, first thing is, the engine came out. Installation of polygraphite bushings from PST. Install an edelbrock 4-barrel intake manifold to replace the 2-bbl setup. 650 CFM edelbrock carb. New shocks. Upgrade to electronic ignition. RV camshaft.
Next will be a full interior resto. Then maybe go back to work on the engine. I'm looking to get about 450 H.P., so will probably put a supercharger on it.
See, the trick is to get cars from before all these computer-controlled thingies started being put on them.
Some things just don't benefit from computers after a certain point. With this Mustang, there are a whole range of things to work on and tinker... not so with newer cars... you are much more limited with what you can do with them.
So, I'll keep the Mustang for hacking, new car for daily driving.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Hah, if you have one of those with a computer, you don't need any box to tell you why the check engine light is on.
:)
Simply turn the ignition key to on-off-on-off-on, within 5 seconds, then watch the check engine light or electronic dash. Count the blinks, each set is two digits. 5 blinks, then 5 blinks is 55, which means "end of codes"... anything else can be looked up in a good book or online (I suggest allpar.com)
Sucks to have a Ford, GM, or foreign car
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
If you're do careful work and follow all the instructions there's no problem getting the car cartified for road use in the UK. Not sure what the US legal situation would be though.
http://www.locostcarclub.co.uk/
Imagine a relay in between the car fuse box and the battery. The starter solinoid would still be connected but wouldn't do a theif any good with the ignition. The electronic control module and the power train control module would both be powered off of the battery all the time as well. Normally the relay is off and most of the car systems don't work. The relay is controlled/powered by the accessory line. Since the accessory line gets its power off of the relay, you will need some temporary power supply to allow the relay to close, power the accessories, and continue powering the relay after the temp power supply is removed. Keep a small connector somewhat out of view, and keep a small battery pack in the car that would simply connect then could be disconnected.
GET IN CAR > INSERT KEY > CONNECT BATTERY > DISCONNECT BATTERY > START ENGINE
When you turn off the car, all power is lost and the system is reset. Pain in the ass yes, a strange and somewhat pointless hack? Yes, but then again, isn't that what it's mostly about, just look at Windows.
Driver Licensing vs. the Right to Travel
Auterra is offering diagnostic s/w and an interface cable for Palm PDAs that's compatible with OBD II engine computers (required in the US since '96 model year, I believe). It certainly doesn't address all your concerns, but shifts some of the power back towards the consumer interested in maintaining his vehicle himself.
Don't use a car to be cool. I've never had a car stolen, I just don't buy cars for status. I don't have fancy locks or anything (well, my jeep came with one of those FOB things, I just put it into Valet mode and haven't touched it since, maybe I'll enable it if I ever go to TJ...)
If you bought a car where the key costs more than $6 to copy, you're part of the problem. Trade it in and buy a Saturn. If you're really afraid of it being stolen because of your area--mount a custom killswitch somewhere. Problem solved.
Well, I guess most computer geeks aren't car geeks anod most car geeks aren't computer geeks. Otherwise this would never have been written, and never been posted by slashdot. Computer control is a GOOD thing. 3rd party ROMS HA! That is the dumb way out of it, that chip is probably going to cost you $230. For $400 you can buy the whole ROM burning kit, and extra ROMS. Software for creating ROMS is available, and often available open source. Newer ODB2 systems use a flash chip for the "computer" (which is really just a bunch of look up tables) so you don't even need any extra equipment to change the computer values. Carbs were simple yes, and easy to clog, and did not atomize the gas quite like an EFI system can. Diagnosis trouble? $40 to a dealer for diagnosis? Have you ever stepped foot inside an auto-parts store?! for $40 you can have a code scanner to tell what that SES light is saying. For $0.01 or so you can buy a simpler tool to tell you what that SES light is saying (At least on ODB1/2 systems) What is this tool? a paperclip, you ground one of the pins and it will cause the SES light to flash in a sequence that tells you what codes are stored. The days of car hacking are far from gone, you just have to be computer savvy, and car savvy, oh yeah, and not be spooked by the letters EFI, and Comnputer, and Distributerless Ignition, etc.
That said, onto the remote starter issue. Why is it difficult? Well, why is it that password are encrpyted? They can be decrpyted, so should we just go around telling everyone our passwords to our computers with sensative data on them? Of course not, so, should honda go around telleing everyone who wants to know how to defeat their anti-theft system, no! Get it done right, don't tell it to send clear text passwords, encrypt them, and keep the encryption method as secret as you can.
Once--in the 70's (!) I was driving a VW microbus across country. The starter stopped working. I traced the problem to several wires hanging down under the dashboard.
Well, something you should know about those microbusses--they never color coded their wiring very well. I was able to get the vehicle started, but my right turn signal made the gas gauge flicker between full and empty.
Of course it may have been me. I once manged to align the timing exactly (180 degrees out of phase) but that is another story.
My new van was just broken into, at a mall. I came up to it to see the passenger door ajar and something at bottom of window broken. The alarm was not ging off when I got to it. It looked as if nothing was touched, and the door had been banged up against the seat-belt. It seemed someone tried to make it look as if they had never been there, but the door got stuck on seat-belt, leaving a mark. I checked my van before I had left, no door was open or unlocked. Anyone have an idea why someone would break into my new van ON the passengers door (across from drivers), not steal the car, not touch or take anything. Any ideas at all?
I wouldn't hack a hyrbid engine car my friend. The engines are too new and probably don't work right. Hack a Camry.
I'll say it again: your engine is in the wrong place.
Further you are comparing a modded car to a car that is bone stock. A V6 to a V8.
I recall some years back reading a story about how Mario Andretti (78 World Champion) rated various cars and put the Acura NSX as his second choice.
Is your TA fast? Absolutely!! Can it run around Silverstone/Brands Hatch/Monaco/Mid-Ohio/Laguna Seca faster than an Acura NSX?? Nope!