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Hack Your Ignition (Before Someone Else Does)
guanxi writes: "IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article about hacking and specifically, the "hacker's nirvana on wheels", all the way from hot-rodding to reprogramming your digital ignition. Of course, I neither endorse nor recommend any of the procedures mentioned, any of which may be inherently dangerous to your life and your warranty. "
How about hacking digital odometers?
I'd imaging it is just stored in memory somewhere. Set'er back to 0 and no one would be the wiser!
here is a sweet page about modding cars. It can turn you into a ricer real quick. Car mods are pretty popular these days in my town, from big fins to stickers, to large exhaust pipes, there's just no end to the mods.
Nothing to hack? Hah!
It starts with the baseball cards taped to the frame that make the BRRRRRRR sound in the spokes.
Next thing you know you've got an oxy-acetalyne torch in your hand and you're welding a sissy bar to the frame and extending the front forks for that low-rent low-rider look.
Ask the people at Fat City or Rivendell how they got started.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Except your bike lock...
One of the problems with tuners is that they add more power without accounting for aging of components. This isn't usually a problem in racing since you're rebuilding your components after every or a number of races. But for "hackers," they often tune it and forget it--or tune it and increase the mods. Sometime down the road, they'll blow a piston or apex seal without warning. Not to mention several thousand dollars' down the drain.
I personally prefer more conservative tuning, but then when some guy beats you during an ad-hoc "race," your first instinct is "gotta get mo' power."
So how do you think you explain this to your car company if you screw it up?
Honda: "what's the problem, sir"
You: "well, I was wiring an internal network into my car and fused my hand to the cable and the glove box. Is this covered?"
Man invents automobile.
Man builds automobile.
Man adds digital data bus to automobile.
Man discovers that you can snoop on automobile's digital data busses.
Man succeeds.
Man discovers no useful information from snooping automobile's digital data bus.
Logical conclusion: Man has too much time on his hands.
Reverse-engineering is fun. Reverse-engineering embedded systems is even more fun, because it's hard. Reverse-engineering safety-critical embedded systems is really challenging, and not for the stupid.
Now, what the author is talking about is reverse-engineering the systems that control AntiLock braking, ignition, and transmission control, among other things. It's a really cheap way to improve performance on a car.
Car companies (well, at least Ford) have a bad history when it comes to electronic civil liberties. At what point in reverse-engineering a throttle control system would you be "bypassing an access protection device"? Probably never. But consider that Adobe got someone jailed for breaking ROT13; Cuecat was XOR. If people start selling hot-rod software (and they are), how long will it be till auto manufacturers start answering Yes to the author's "is it encrypted" question. It might only be ROT13, but it would be enough to bust anyone who was selling firmware upgrades for a Mustang and put them out of business for good.
Anyone remember the 60 minutes Audi 5000 scandal? Where the car's fuel injection system was said to, in rare cases, cause the car to accelerate out of control, causing injury or death? Let your subconcious do the dreaming about the accidents that could come from improperly debugged ABS code or throttle control. Now imagine that someone hacks their car's firmware, crashes in a fireball, and their family sues the automaker. The automaker can't prove that the car was modified... at all.
My prediction: this stuff will scare automakers shitless, and they will fall all overthemselves to find a way to apply the DMCA to stopping the dissemination of reverse-engineering information.
Of course, I could be wrong.
I've got a nice hack for ya.
New Ford F-150's, Expeditions, ect.
Unplug the main harness going to the digital display, and locate a gray wire, with a black stripe. (your VSS wire) Place a small strip of tape over the metal pin, and
VOLIA
no mo miles
I have used this software on my LT1 Camaro with excellent results. This software allows you to pretty much hack every aspect that the PCM controls easily.
LT1 Edit
Macs as a fetish property
There's replacement EEPROMS for various cars with digital ignition (as opposed to a distributor) available on the market, some of them may even be installed by your dealership (depends on the dealership of course). They've also been on the market for quite a while and aren't a novelty. If I'm correct, on non-digital-ignition automobiles, you can use MSD's system to retard or advance your ignition timing. Also, this is not a very safe way to increase your engine's power, as advancing ignition, raises the cylinder pressure far more than any other modification, in propotion to the gain (usually no more than 15 hp).
"dangerous to your life and your warranty"
Yeah I would hate to expireHere's a car that's been pre-hacked and souped up for ultimate geek driving: the MegaCar! I mean, just look at this picture. LCDs everywhere, 150k/sec mobile connectivity...The flash site is annoying, but damn, that car is sweet....
In most cases, the manufacturer of most sports cars (corvette, etc.) has a liscensed third party like shelby for Ford. These suppliers and aftermarket manufacturers have certin chips that can be installed without ruining you entire warrenty. Sometimes, the warrenty is just modified to take out the changed part of the car.
Not only have they thought of everything that he was talking about, but they actually are doing it. This season, today, right now! Everything is adjustable, although some of it is not legal ;-) The best part, it is all adjustable, on the fly, literally. That's right boys and girls, wireless! Ferrari and Williams BMW are at the forefront, of course. There has been much effort into making sure that each of the teams are not vulnerable to hacking or jamming by the other teams. (The budget for these top-flight teams is supposedly nearly $200,000,000US)
Yep, you got it. I'll buy a beer for the first true hack on a Segway.
Suppose you had one, what would a cool hacker (such as you, dear reader) make it do?
Oh, BTW, I guess I'd have to buy you a Ginger Beer.
Alan.
This is really very common in the automotive tuning world already. Many companies have piggyback-style computers that intercept the signals entering and leaving the stock engine computer and modify them accordingly. Products like the A'PEXi S-AFC (among many many others) use relatively simple mathematical formulae (think...mx+b) or look-up tables to modify the signals that the engine computer sees from the sensors or the signals that the actuators see from the computer.
For the more advanced racer, there are entire standalong engine management systems that entirely the engine computer itself (think Haltech E6k and others).
The point here is that the signals used between sensors and microprocessors onboard a vehicle aren't difficult to decode. Most relate to measuring the resistance across a sensor or sending out a pulse to run a fuel injector at a given interval. Granted, the signals sent between the various computers are a bit more complex, but it's by no means impossible to decode. The only reason that 3rd-party aftermarket manufacturers are really the only people building these things is that there isn't a whole lot of return for the average home-mechanic. By the time Joe Six-Pack builds his engine management system, he's spent so much time that he could have enhanced the performance of his vehicle with all sorts of non-electronic devices that are cheaper and better understood in the automotive community.
Are there very cool things that can be done by the individual with a personally-designed engine (and transmission, and A/C, etc) management system? Sure! Loads of cool stuff!
Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.
But luckily, that's what universities are for...which explains why I'm still in school.
Audi of America will void the warranty on your turbo car if they catch or suspect you've been screwing with the computer. It's real easy to get a $400 chip and kick your 300hp S4 up to 400+ just by turning up the boost.
LV
Woot w00t w007.
It is inappropriate to link to the Jargon File's main corpus....It is several megabytes, and costs the site maintainer mucho bandwidth so you can browse one entry.
. html
Use this: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/hack
My impression was that the article writer doesn't have much experience in the tuning market, or he'd have mentioned chipping turbocharged engines, and he'd also demonstrate a better understanding of what goes on. Most chips(even for normally aspirated engines) don't just alter timing; they alter the fuel ratio to be perfect for power, which is different from the ideal air/fuel ratio for emissions. Yes, ignition timing does affect power/emissions too, but it's silly to ignore the other half of the equation. Also, among the european/asian car makes, programmable systems are pretty rare; most simply buy a preprogrammed chip from a company that's done the testing/setup for you. Makes a lot of sense considering how expensive some of these engines can be. Even just altering fuel mixture can cause substantial damage; too rich(ie too much fuel) and you'll cause the catalytic converters to overheat and melt($$$$$$.) Too lean, and you can raise the exhaust gas temperature to the point that you actually destroy the exhaust valves and they start leaking.
As for turbo chips...bear with me here. My car('91 Audi 200 quattro 20v turbo) makes 217hp stock. With new ROM chips for fuel/timing maps and a new pressure sensor supplied by an Audi tuner who has been in business since the early 80's...it makes almost 280, by allowing higher pressure from the turbo(aka "boost".) It yields sub 6 second 0-60 times for a full size luxury sedan(not to brag, but few cars, new or old, can beat me off the line, including any of Audi's current model lineup, unmodified.)
This particular chip pretty much stresses the limit of the k26 turbo; as with any turbo, spin it too fast and it'll disintegrate. These things operate at -very- high speeds...50,000 rpms is not uncommon...very high temps(several hundred degrees or more)...and very close tolerances. If a piece flies off or something, it can cause an enormous amount of damage; little pieces of the turbo can end up getting inhaled by the engine. If you're lucky, it doesn't take the engine with it. If you're not so lucky, the metal shards scratch the cylinder walls, or the oil causes so much crap to build up inside the cylinder that the compression ratio skyrockets and the engine starts to "knock"(ie when the mixture ignites before it should.) When the piston's still going up and the mixture ignites, you can break things. FAST. Look on almost all engines these days and you'll see a small sensor bolted to the block...it's a microphone, basically, and it listens for knocking(the ECU knows when it fired a spark plug, so if it gets a noise when it hasn't...tada, knocking.)
Particularly with a chip, there are a lot of things that can push the turbo over the edge...for example, a clogged air filter will make the turbo work harder to pressurize the same amount of air(ie, it'll need to spin faster.) While the engine control unit(ECU) takes into account high elevation via an external barometric sensor, it can't tell if your air filter is clogged! Another danger is that the intake air temperature can be too high; as you compress air, it heats up, and if it's too hot, the further compression in the cylinder will heat it beyond the flash point of the gas/air mixture, and you get knocking(see above.) You can also exceed the limits of the mechanical strength of the connecting rods(ie what connects the piston to the crankshaft, transferring the force of the explosion into mechanical rotation), the head bolts(what holds the "head" of the engine up against the block; it forms the top of the cylinder, and the more powerful the explosion in the cylinder, the more stress on the head bolts), the transmission, even the driveshafts sometimes
Some early chip designs for A4/S4 models pushed the turbos just a tad too much(the vendor in question had a bad reputation in the first place) and turbos were getting overspun left+right(expensive, considering the S4 has -two- turbos.)
Audi of America got wise to it, and unfortunately, is now -extremely- aggressive about going after owners who have installed aftermarket chips, despite the fact that they're quite safe now that more reputable tuners(who do better QA testing) have forced the crappy chips off the market.
So, dealers started checking ECUs for signs of removal, modification, etc. Owners countered by buying spare ECUs and installing the unmodified ECUs back into the car before having it serviced.
Amusingly, AoA caught on to this too...because their Client Relations staff were reading the webboards these guys belonged to. They were dumb enough to brag about it after "fooling the dealer".
VW and Audi have already started introducing encryption+verification that keys the ECU to all sorts of other things in the car so that it can't be easily swapped. VW/Audi's "real" reason is that it is for antitheft reasons.
It took all but a month or two for someone to figure out how to get around the keying. Same debate as publishing security exploits...except that cars generally don't get stolen unless they can be stolen in a few minutes, and keying the ECU doesn't prevent theft(it just makes the ECU useless in any other car until its been re-keyed.)
The first time I heard of aftermarket ROMs (for the fuel injection computer) the car in question was the 1984 Pontiac Fiero, GM's short-lived (1984-1988, I think) mid-engined sports car.
-Tom Duff
That would be "thinking". On a more serious note - I found it interesting that the real core of the story - the purported rationale behind a customer not hacking the car, that they "just wouldn't" - doesn't really ring all that true. Certainly, these are mechanics arguably more accustomed with modifications of hardware than of software, but surely these people use software routinely at every level of the manufacture process? I find it difficult to believe that they wouldn't appreciate the appeal of hacking the software, and it struck me as I read the article that just maybe the author had grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick.
That "you wouldn't be able to hack the car" doesn't strike me as a statement that comes from someone who doesn't understand the notion, but rather that it is the reasoned comment of someone who probably doesn't want to a) risk liability should a user do something stupid with the software (IANAL so I couldn't say how likely this might be); b) have Joe Shmoe messing around with their work; or c) risk precisely the situation that J.D. King describes: 'hacking the car directly' instead of buying a new model.
Although the article makes the point that hardware mods are big business for auto manufacturers, I can't see them going for the idea of having the end user flash upgrading their rom and thus having at their hands new software and options that might otherwise have lured them to buying new models. No, I kinda suspect that the real reasons things are taking so long to move forward is that the car designers know only too well what they're up to and what the customer might have in mind, and aren't going to be rushing towards that future any time soon.
Two points: ONE: most cars do NOT benefit from performance computers. TWO: most performance computers are added on to cars that are normally naturally aspirated and converted to turbo form. (a lot of cars that dont have turbos from the factory judge the amount of air with a vaccuum sensor instead of a mass air sensor) Often the relevant sensors dont even exist for the stock computer to talk to.
To make an example, the average honda civic computer settings are pretty much already maxxed out in stock form. You add an intake and an exhaust and youre still in the range that the stock computer can adjust for. You can actually add about half an atmosphere of boost (from turbo or supercharger) and still not need a custom computer. This applies to a most other non-turbo cars as well. Factory turbo cars have even higher limits.
Remember, modern cars have to be able to operate at 10,000 feet above and below sea level in a wide range of temperatures. Most cars have injectors that can take about 150% to 200% of stock duty before they begin to max out. Up to this point the car will still not even pollute!
Basically the only 2 ways to outpace the stock computer is to
1)bring in too little air at idle or have massively oversized injectors (the computer can't control the injectors to produce less than a certain minimum period of being open) which will cause "lopey idle" or stalling and rich emmissions.
2)bring in so much air at high rpm that the stock injectors can't let in enough fuel. Basically you will start to run "lean" (not enough fuel) which will produce very high temperatures and detonation (and kill your engine).
You basically only need a special computer if you are running massive cams (alternatively you could just raise the idle, which most people do) or if youre running such massive amounts of boost that the only solution is to run massive injectors (here again, you can actually just raise the idle). Now consider this: when youre making over double the stock hp, there is no way a factory computer is going to be able to cope anyway- I dont see the point of making them more hackable. On top of which, the only reason to use an expensive computer is to make the car more emissions friendly. And guess what mods are pretty much illegal under CARB rules? You guessed it! Programmable ECUs!!! The high-boost 323 and miata guys routinely run hacked ECUs with 12-15psi of boost, then turn down the boost and swap injectors for smog every two years. Its pretty sad that you have to break the law to pollute less.
The car manufacturers have another very good reason for keeping the electonics systems relatively simple- so they WORK BETTER. Each flaw costs them millions of dollars in recalls or warrantied repairs. The less extraneous shit they cram into the electronics, the less is likely to go wrong.
;-)
Maybe commerical software engineers will realize this, some day?
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Now if I can just hack my car to start somewhere in the first 200 tries...
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
That's why I walk. Nothing to hack into.
Why would you waste your time hacking a car that fights you every step of the way (physically, electronically, and financially)? I only own and drive open sourced cars. My daily driver is a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle. There is not a single part for this car I couldn't write a check to replace. I also haven't paid a mechanic since I bought it. There're no computer diagnositics I have to pay some guy with his name on his shirt to run for me. All I need is a good chest full of Craftsman metric tools and my ears. Your stock Beetle not fast enough for you? $2000 worth of NEW parts will build a complete engine to your specifications that will propel that 870kg car to speeds you'd never thought possible. Countless books have been written that detail every system in the Beetle inside and out. Why would you buy a car that tries to keep you out with complex computerized systems? Want to modify the ignition timing? All you need is a 10mm socket. Ferdinand Porsche designed my car. Who designed yours?
Brandon D. Valentine
Nothing to hack? Hah!
It starts with those beers that you drank at the bar that you're walking home from....
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Large _tail_ pipes are cool, as they don't dull street performance, but large _exhaust_ diameters are bad news. They only function well at high RPM's and narrow power bandwidths. Gearing gets to be a major factor, and a PITA, if you're doing street.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
My God ... Nike, Adidas and all the rest rely on the fact that your feet need high-tech aids if you're to simply walk from the fridge to the couch with a cold one.
Do you really believe that your shoes don't record your beverage brand choice?
Some cars roll out of the factor with overly retarded ignition. Sometimes simply advancing the ignition closer to TDC gives better performance. Lots of aftermarket chips do this. I don't understand why car manufacturers allow their vehicles to ship with these timings. Do you?
-ted
Regular people can do this too, you can get all kinds of chips and stuff for lots of diffrent cars. I don't know if this guy's just out of it or what.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This meant no headlights, turn signals, radios, and no guages. Nothing. Which meant that the odometer didn't rack up miles. Perfect if you plan on selling the thing.
Heheh...
I imagine though that it would probably be just as easy to disconnect the cable in a normal odometer if you wanted to deceive. I'm not positive though.Older cars had a speedometer cable coming from the transmission tailshaft or transaxle to the gauge. The cable was merely a concentric cable in jacket, kinda like bicycle brake cable but meant to spin. For the most part, you could simply reach up behind the dashboard, feel around to the center of the back of the speedometer, and unclip the speedo cable from the gauge. A warning: this is a lot more difficult than it sounds, the contortions required to get your hand back there are nasty, there are probably live wires with some current (ie. headlight circuit, ammeter, etc) back there so make sure you take off any metallic jewelry, and stuff back there is fragile and expensive (big labor) to fix.
Don't disconnect the speedo cable at the transmission. The cable is usually driven directly by a gear, and it's kept lubricated inside the transmission oil. When you take off the cable, if you don't plug the hole in the transmission well, dust will get in there and lunch your transmission (to say nothing of the big leak messing up your driveway).
Because speedometer cables are expensive and heavy and the fuel injection system likes to know the car's speed so that it can better understand the engine load, most cars since about 1985 will have a Vehicle Speed Sensor. The VSS is attached to the side of the transmission exactly where the speedo cable would have come out. It uses optical sensors, hall effect sensors or magnetic pickup coils to create a pulsetrain relative to the speed of the car. The pulsetrain is then sent to the computer, the computer usually sends that on to the speedometer. Sometimes they're simply paralleled.
You could disconnect the VSS just by unplugging the wire. Most cars won't even notice it until there's an engine load (vacuum is lowered, throttle position and engine speed aren't idle) which could only be explained by movement. At that point, your Check Engine light will light up, and it probably won't go away until you reconnect the sensor. Sometimes it won't go out until you visit the dealership. And, unless the EFI computer reads the data coming from the ABS computer as a backup to the VSS, it's very unlikely that it will generate a signal to drive the speedo or the tach - though, based on engine speed and knowing what gear you're in, the computer could calculate and drive the speedo/odo to display accurate speed and mileage.
My best advice is, if you want to play with the EFI system (and VSS/Speedo/Odo as a consequence), find yourself an earlier (mid-80s) fuel-injected car on the way to the junkyard. Chevy Celebrity / Pontiac 6000 are common, cheap (about $200 if you find one with expired plates rusting in someone's laneway), durable and relatively easy to fix. The GM multiport and throttle body EFI systems are well documented all over the place because they're so popular, and variants were used across the entire product line in a given year.
Buy the car, take it home, start it up, and start pulling sensors to see what they all do!
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
How cool would it be to add different skins to your instrument panel? I mean, the new high end cars nowadays have digital instrument panels..It could be done.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Scott Mueller's Upgrading And Repairing PCS (13th edition) includes a couple of sidebars on this subject. For some reason in the midst of a discussion about BIOS flashes he felt compelled to explain how flash capability is pretty common in controller ROMs in cars and went on to describe how his Chevy Impala is running a firmware flash that originally belonged to a Camaro; he even points to a few websites that describe the procedure. (It's late, so I'm not going to go digging through my copy right now, but anyone who's interested could email me tomorrow morning if they don't feel like googling for the sites...)
/brian
They just want to make their pansy little box or car look faster.
Exactly. For clarity to those who don't know cars:
There's nothing like having some loser describing to you how quickly he can make his 1.6L Honda Civic go.
Imagine if you owned a Cray supercomputer and some child implied that his "tuned" 400MHz Celeron was in the same ballpark.
As the saying goes, there's no replacement for displacement. An engine is an air pump, the more air you suck through it per revolution, the more fuel you can mix with the air to achieve complete combustion. The more combustion, the bigger the explosion pushing the piston down, and the more power you get from the engine.
A 1.6L or whatever Honda is laughable in the face of a common Chevy 350 (5.7L) like you find in a Camaro or Caprice Classic, or in the face of a Ford 302 (5.0L) like in a Mustang, much less the Chrysler 440 (7.2L), Chevy 454 (7.4L) and King of Big-Blocks, the Chrysler 426 Hemi of the musclecar days.
Street racing is acceleration from a stoplight. That's called drag racing. There's a reason why those long and skinny drag racing cars with the huge fat tires (the cars are called "rail cars", the class of racing is Top Fuel drag) are rear-wheel-drive with big V8s, not front-wheel-drive with whiny little 4-cylinder engines.
Those racecars share more in common with my daily-driver 1976 Dodge pickup truck than does a typical ricer's car. My '76 Ram has a 400 (6.6L) V8 driving the rear wheels. With a curb weight of 4,000lb, it's about twice the weight of a Honda Civic. But 6.6L / 1.6L = 4.125 times more engine, and all other things being equal, 4.125 times the power. Into only twice the weight.
Needless to say, when an Integra with a big stereo pulls up beside me, I enjoy stomping on the gas pedal and showing him my taillights.
Modern EFI, overhead cams, combustion chamber design, etc., make incremental differences to improving the power, but a street car's engine is still built for gas mileage, durability and emissions, not for power, and the modern requirements for gas mileage and emissions choke the power potential of these modern improvements.
Those of us with real machines are quite content with our beige cases (in my case, a older, but still fast as all hell compaq proliant 8000 which was picked up dirt cheap from a dot com gone bust) and sleeper cars (also in my case, an Alpina).Indeed! My truck is forest green with rust and primer spots. Someday, I'll get around to painting it so that it looks nice again, but there won't be silly aftermarket rims or little blue lights on the windshield washer jets or clear tailights and big aluminum spoilers.
The car is either fast, or it isn't.
My truck gets 7 miles per gallon on the highway. The HC emissions are ~2 PPM, which is better than lots of 1986 cars, let alone 1976 trucks. I'm burning all that fuel. Where do you think it all goes?
Final thought. I tried Carroll Shelby's old trick. I taped a $20 bill to my dashboard, just in front of the passenger's seat. I had a disbeliever get in. I told him that, when the stoplight turned green, if he could grab that $20, it was his. He didn't get the $20.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
"They stared at me as though I'd just showed them a mouthful of partially chewed black beetles"
This is as good as the other article a few months ago where the guy said:
"As cool as the other side of the pillow."
Definitely two phrases I'm going to try and work into conversation, with proper attribution of course.
----
Please win this beer store.
Wax on, wax off baby!
I have a weird interest in wankel engines. Where did you get your experience reparing rotary engines? and do you feel they really are a better solution?
my guess is that you worked on hot-rodded RX-7's or something?
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Old rotary engines?!! Rotary Engine technology has come a LONG way since the 70's... and even more so since Mazda stopped importing the RX-7 in 95. The latest Rotary Engine rebuilders put in 3mm ceramic coated apex seals, ECU's that contain 3D reprogrammable fuel maps, boost controllers that employ fuzzy logic to activate the turbo's waste gate, ignition computers that increase spark, knock sensor computers that keep the engine from pinging/grenading, and intercoolers that cool 30-40% better with less pressure drop through them. Porting is now a fine art, and there are at least 20 different general ways to port a rotary. With minimal effort, and money ($3k-4k) you can get 300 horses and 300 ftlbs of torque out of a 13B-REW. Most tuner shops drop the stock twin turbos in favor of one large one, that pushes past the 500hp barrier... there have been a few that have 700 hp. And this is all with 1.3L 2 rotors. Those lucky engough to have 3 rotors (imported from japan) start out with 400 hp, and go up from there!
<sidenote>I'm putting down 313 Rear Wheel Horse Power, and 301 ftlbs or torque with basic bolt on 'hacks' (mods)...(Here is my dyno sheet) Intake, exhaust, intercooler, and computer. I replaced the engine at 130,000 miles because a vacuum hose popped off my wastegate, and caused the turbos to boost well past 15lbs, with no extra fuel to compensate... ping! Apex seal blew. I'm now at 150,000 miles, zip-tied vacuum hoses, and have had nothing but dependable and fun to drive Mazda Zoom Zoom-y-ness </sidenote>
Mazda is re-introducing the rotary later this year with the RX-8. Now called the RENESIS, the engine is a non-turboed multi-side-port 1.3L rotary, that is projected to put out 255-280 HP . The computer should be easy to hack, and a turbo kit will be available shortly after the introduction of the car. I would estimate about +330 HP from a turboed RENESIS.
1.3L, 3 moving parts, 280 HP, no Turbos, wanna Race? RotaryNe
Mustang and other ford fanatics have been messing with their computers for years now.
There are all sorts of realtime management systems as well as piggyback chips that you can plug into your cars computer and flip a switch for different settings.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
"My Honda Integra Type R manages about three-four times the power of your big-iron block at the same rev range, not to mention around the same torque."
ROFL! You do realize that HP is a function of torque at a particular RPM right? Ummm... Not too many 4 bangers have v8 torque at ANY rpm let alone the same rpm.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
" I neither endorse nor recommend any of the procedures mentioned"
I do, it's a lot of fun, but along with your laptop to reprogram it, you need a device to measure performance improvements also. You can't judge yourself if you got +5hp or lost 5 due to your changes in configuration.
And while your at it, you need to remember that different air temperature and the amount of water in the air, changes the performance of the engine.
I have built a cold air intake for my engine, shielded the intake from heat from the engine the car already had a pipe all the way to the front to ensure it picked it up from the outside.
A cold damp, foggy morning does wonders in terms of performance, it's something my car really like. Of course one needs to find the perfect place to drive where the road isn't slippery.
Then of course there is my NOS installation (Nitro Oxide System) another nice little hack, with adds +50% horse power when accel. could get +75% or more, but I would like my engine to last 50.000 before changing it.
Note, that all these changes and improvements of the engine og course changes the specs so much that it is not legal anymore for street use. Just in case you care.
And my bike, will run circles around you, so what. Everybody likes what they like, different vehichles for different applications. The right tool for the right job applies to vehichles as well as software.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
That's what YOU think. (smile)
In real-world testing using instrumented motorcycles and automobiles, while motorcycles have the advantage in the initial acceleration once you throw in a lot of curves a higher-powered sports car wins hand down. Indeed, I remember reading an article showing that a Dodge Viper will lap the Willow Springs race course substantially faster than all but maybe 2-3 models of very high-end motorcycles.
However with a shot of NOS or a correctly sized turbo you might just find hat smaller engines can make torque. I've got a 3liter straight six that made 390RWHP and 427ftlbs that was all done by 7K. That was running WAY rich too (shrug). Engines are air pumps, a smaller engine boosted with enough added air can indeed catch up with a V8....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
ard to find harnesses I'm told but I know of at least one late model 4valve Cobra running it. SVO\Motorsport assists aftermarket manufacturers. They get a bit upset when you get into redistributing parts of th eEEC source with your stuff but they're not too bad otherwise fro mwhat I've seen. Mike Wesley ran into some problems for them but that was partly because he used to help design the hardware he was hacking...
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The comms aren't often encrypted that I'm aware of but the FIRMWARE IS in many late model cars these days. GM has encrypted theirs, I'm pretty sure Ford has, I'd bet that BMW has too. They spend zillions developing these systems, the encryption helps protect them and keep "hackers" out. They often fail though :-) How many car manufacturers are going to reverse the firmware after a bad accident BTW? Not many I'd bet. However supposedly later model Vette's store a limited data set that can be retrieved after an accident - things like speed and throttle position. Not seen that 100% verified though - possible RUMINT.
Now that ECUs are FLASH programmable it's possible to modify things quite nicely once you've got it figured out. This is both good and bad for the manufacturer since warranty claims can go up if someone screws up but then reverts it bck to the old programming. It's good though in that every engine is different and they can tweak in the field a bit.
Suggest you look into LT1EDIT and the new LS1EDIT. OBDII requirements have actually made the ECUs more powerful and this is allowing for lots of playing around.
On the other hand, companies like AEM, FAST, DFI (GenVII), Electromotive, Holley (Commander), Haltech, and Motec are making complete standalone systems that are pretty powerful to include closed loop part throttle - and even closed loop WOT with off the shelf WB O2 sensors. The AEM computer will be PnP for many cars including the Supra and RX7 that I own.
Honestly, this article really didn't tell us jack shit. The world of aftermarket EFI is HUGE as is the market for hacking OEM stuff. This article made it sound like this was new - I laughed. ell new ECUs control the transmission and are being modified. Engine swaps with this stuff are also popular. skip the emissions, have a clean fast car, and it starts every time with good MPG. What's not to like?
P.S. OBDII and OBDIII have provisions to spot tampering. New emissions inspections could even require plugging in for an ECU check. Ways to get around tripping these on OBDII are aleady being reseached. Som o thethings put forth for OBDIII (to include remote kill) have been pretty scary coming from our clueless legislators. Support SEMA!
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That not only aren't car dealers "smarter" than the aftermarket folks but that many of them actively help us right? What, you think the dealer is some clean hospital like bastion? Those mechanics are car nuts too! Set a flag? Okay, reset it using an OBD scanner. Thanks for playing!
Many of those flags are reset by dumping power to the ECU although with OBDII there are some that are persistant - but can stil be reset with the proper tools. SnapOn and others sell these tools as do the dealers. They must, the manufacturers tried to make this all proprietary and the Govt. told them they oculdn't. There are even standards for this stuff....
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You can still advance and retard igntion wholesale on newer vehicles, it's just a little harder is all. Hint: move the sensor that detects crank position. Thye make devices for this.
So why do it? First of all it's safe. Whoever told you it wasn't was smoking crack. So long as the engine isn't detonating and you didn't get real stupid chances are you will pick up power. OEMs are conservative with their ignition curves - they never know when some dumbass will put Regualr gas in the car and drive it hard with the motor detonating like popcorn. Advancing the ignition a few degrees on MANY cars will restore power the OEM decided not to give you. To do it right though someone qualified should do it through the chip since wholesale changes moving the distributor or sensor are pretty "brute force". Sometimes an engine really doesn't want the added ignition (shrug).
MSD, Crane, Jacobs, Mallory, and others produce multispark ignitions. MSD and Holley are also producing digital ignition systems for less power draw and higher reliability. Just don't weld on th ecar with one hooked up (ahem). This stuff has been around for years and yes some of them can even manage your ignition for you - overriding the OEM spark if you would like....
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Spot on, you know about this stuff. Have yo ulooked at the AEM PnP systems? Just now coming out these will plug into your existing harness, use your existing systems, have additional I/Os, and be FULLY programmable. hese beat the ApexI unitshands down - ApexI will NOT release their software for programming their units with a laptop or to do datalogging. Only their "partners" get this software! Their boxes cost as much as the AEM unit.
;-)
Holley has a good box with the Commander, one of their engineers regularly posts on a GM forum. FAST has another good one too. Wide Band O2 sensors are becoming cheaper thanks to LEV vehicles using them OEM (thanks Honda!). Look at the DIY-O2 project over in OZ for a cheap way to build a display\sensor or just buy one from them built. FAR less than the $800+ Motec wants - using the SAME sensor.
You're correct about rolling your own too. The DIY-EFI guys do it for fun but honestly it's too much work for me. Modding an older GM box is also pretty easy but compared to the aftermarket and new OEM FLASH programmable stuff I don't see myself doing it.
Imagine, boost, transmission, fuel, spark, traction, and datalogging all in a box costing less than $2K. That's the AEM with the DFI GEN VII, FAST, and Holley systems not too far behind. Software demos for many of these can be downloaded. Electromotive's new box looks interesting too but I'm not real sure about them these days
Good post, glads I'm not the only gearhead on today who's looked at this stuff...
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Uh check again. Current issue of Cycle World although it may be off the stands now, Gixxer vs. Vette, conclusion Vette smoked, same with Viper.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
What he's talking about is so far behind the definition of "new" or "cutting edge" that it's kind of absurd. He talks about "monitoring the network" and essentially replacing the relatively static firmware with something that can be manipulated by the user. This is not even new technology, and is universally employed by "tuning" enthusiasts (a la "The Fast and The Furious"). Laptops are used to log data about what is taking place in the car and the engine, and a programmable ECU replaces or overrides the stock one. Without this, it would be impossible to do things like add turbochargers to cars that weren't intended to have them in the first place. The examples I have in the links above are from just one store that caters to Miatas only; there are many options from many manufacturers for many cars.
I've participated in conversations where someone is essentially trying to debug their "map," or set of engine configuration options in the software, and where others chime in and offer to help. I've seen disucssions of which software is better, and so on. And again, this is all old news, not even cutting edge.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
RX-7s are GREAT cars, and if you don't do anything stupid, they're just about bulletproof. If you want a motor you can abuse with impunity, this is it. The main thing to remember is that rotaries are *designed* to burn oil (they must, to lube the apex seals), so you MUST check the oil frequently. Always remember that modding a rotary is DIFFERENT from modding a piston engine. Stay conservative, and you'll be fine. (Bill Buckley and I would say that's always good advice.)
Rotaries are simple, powerful and reliable. Without a muffler, they will make you ears bleed. And there's something to be said for a motor with only a few moving parts that can be rebuilt on your kitchen table. (While perhaps not for raw mechanical beginners, rebuilding a rotary is far easier than rebuilding a piston engine. There are a number of good books out there on the topic.)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Take your basic 4th gen Supra TT. Clean up the exhaust system to flow better, add an air intake, bypass a MAP sensor to remove boost cut, pull a hose under the hood. Result? 390RWHP and 427flbs all day long. Mid 12s if you can hook, a little tuning will net 11s. This is a drive everyday car that will run circles around a big block in the MPG dept. It will retain all ammenaties like A/C and power windows. Want more power? Dump the stock turbos and put ona single - can you say 600RWHP? Not crank, at the wheels. Some are pushing 900+ on the stock block but the internals are worked.
;-)
Hrm, and many of thse "rice rockets" weigh FAR less than a Chevelle. I also own a TT RX7 and while it makes less power than the Supra it flat out flies due to less weight. It's as modified as I'm willing to go but with the right parts it's got lot's more in it. That's 1.3liters BTW.
You're right - it's about power to weight! That's why I've got a V8 in a 2500lb Datsun 240Z in the garage. Bye Bye!
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One thing that's not often realized or acknowledged by many mech hackers on thier way to becoming gearheads is that the hackability of cars varies quite a bit. Accordingly (no Honda pun intended), all hacks involve tradeoffs. You may be able to squeeze another 15 HP out of that 4-banger, at the cost of shortening it's life considerably. (And grenading those expensive upgrade parts in the process...) Optimizing these tradeoffs is not easy.
Case in point: Really high performance cars are hard to hack. This just makes sense if you think about it. The simple fact is that what separates high performance cars from their more proletarian brethren is that they have *already* been "pre-hacked" to improve performance. The law of diminishing returns definitely applies here. Hot-rodding Ferraris, Porsches, Vipers, and Cobras is *hard* simply because all the easy, high bang-for-the-buck stuff has already been done, and then some. What's left is almost by definition in the "not worth the money" category. (Of course, that doesn't stop the legion that has more money than sense, especially if they can afford these cars in the first place. These people ruin a lot of good cars.) If you want to hack for hacking's sake, start with something other than the top end, unless you like low ROI. Otherwise, buy a fast car and enjoy it with no or minor tweaks.
There are cars out there that are designed with very conservative safety/durability margins that are eminently hackable. (RX-7s come to mind, as do Miatas, Mustangs and GM F-bodies. The new Focus is shaping up to be a really good candidate, perhaps becoming the Datsun 510 of this decade, but Ford, as usual, makes it hard to order all the right bits.) Also, don't forget the time-tested method of getting the big win: engine swaps. If you choose a bigger engine from the same manufacturer, these are often not even all that difficult, and usually (at least until you break out the "blue-tip wrench") offer a fall-back position, if things don't work.
Although little Japanese motors can be hacked, I don't think many of them are practical hacks, since you quickly have to start upgrading everythign else once you've started. Thisis why there's still a lot of truth in the old hot-rodder's saying, "There are two ways to win: cubic inches, or cubic dollars." V8s and engine swaps remain popular because they offer the former. I'd put most Asian hacks in the latter category, and if you're going to do that, why not just buy a fast car in the first place, as it will almost always produce superior results?
Remember one last thing: Power is your friend, weight is you enemy. Very few hot-rodders put much effort into weight reduction (and it's hard on many modern cars), but keep that in mind when buying a car - A Miata is relatively at least as hackable as a Mustang because of this. Starting light and going lighter can make a tremendous difference. If you really want light, buy a Lotus: Colin Chapman once said he designed Lotus race cars with the following in mind: "The perfect car disintegrates as it crosses the finish line." *That's* performance optimization, gentlemen.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I just want to replace my on-board diagnostics port with something useful... like maybe SNMP. Seriously, who creates an interface standard that specifies a connector but not the electrical characteristics of the connector? Give me 9600 or 19200 bps data from a 9-pin RS-232 connector in a standard, well-documented format. I should be able to download the MIBs for a Honda Accord to my laptop, plug it in to the port, and watch all of the engine parameters in a standard viewer.
If you go here you can find the assembly code readouts for most GM cars. These are really well documented, and this is how I tune my Firebird.
Modern GM cars come with what is called a memcal. This plugs into the ECM, and it contains the PROM, some filter networks for the knock sensor, and some basic circuitry to run in 'limp home mode' if the PROM fails.
There are people retrofitting these systems to every possible configuration, the most popular is the Buick Grand National/SyTy/Turbo Sunbird ECM because it supports boost conditions, or the 90-92 Firebird ECM because they are so easy to find.
There is even an open source tuner program for Firebirds and Camaros to watch the ALDL datastream and see everything that is going on inside your engine.
It's a real hacker culture, and I enjoy reading all the discussions that go on.
/.
I have a car with at least 40 separate processors connected to an internal network, that is currently getting 43 miles to the gallon (I expect to hit 50 mpg in warmer weather), seats five, accelerates briskly from a light, and has not only digital readouts but also a centrally mounted touch screen that I can run diagnostics from.
OK, I admit it... IT CAME THAT WAY FROM THE FACTORY! Go buy a Toyota Prius today, it's a three month waiting list and $20,000 US but the price is going to go way, way up as soon as Detroit gets their hybrid on the road (due to George Bush the Elder barfing on the Japanese prime minister, or something like that).
If your car gets less than 33 mpg, you are not a hacker, you're an end-user (unless you get less than 15 mpg, in which case you're at best a script kiddie). And let's face it, driving a gas-guzzler is unpatriotic - American soldiers don't need to die just so you can impress girls with your supercharged V8.
There's a guy on the priusmods list who has a Russian surplus light-gathering snooperscope wired into his LCD, and he can drive almost silently with the lights out at night, only tire noise and the quiet singing of the inverters can be heard. THAT'S *real* *hacking*.
And yes, there is an active prius hacker community that has already cracked part of the communication protocol - despite Toyota's inability to help us (Toyota bought the AVC LAN technology from Hitachi, unfortunately under a non-disclosure agreement they now regret).
--Charlie
My brother is a mechanic for one of the top diesel engine manufacturers.
He tells me that there are a number of performance tweaks on modern OTR (Over-the-Road) diesel engines which can be done through a laptop interface. That is, it's already implemented from the factory, all you have to do is adjust some parameters.
However, should a customer want something tweaked, they pay several thousand dollars (i.e., more HP). Sure, it only takes 15 minutes for my bro to tweak it, but the $$$ is to pay for the increased rate of failure-under-warranty. Occasionally, he'll do the tweak but not charge for it if the engine is out of warranty.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
4 bangers just NEVER sound cool.
You obviously never driven the Acura RSX Type S. (smile) And it gets better with the RSX Type R with 230 bhp and lighter weight body that is due early in 2003. They're definitely not rice boy cars, that's to be sure.
Umm..actually, my little jap race car is far from cramped, on the contrary, it's quite roomy for a 2x2. I'd be willing to be that it has more room than a 3-series coupe.
Possibly, but I'm 6'4". I stick with American cars, because they're the only ones into which I fit comfortably.
It also has real Recaro seats, which I may add, are very comfortable; and if you know anything about cars, then you know what Recaros are.No, actually, I've rebuilt engines. I rewired a 1957 Imperial Limousine which was used when the Queen visited Canada. And I helped a professional coachbuilder with the final body assembly of the restoration of a Cord (note, Cord, not Accord). I've heard the name "Recaro" bandied about by those who think they know a lot about cars but don't know a crowfoot wrench from a distributor wrench. I think I know something about cars, yet I don't know why the name Recaro is so important to ricers.
I do know what Simpson seats are, are these similar?
Please, thrall me with your acumen.
In fact, my ex-boss owns an M3 that falls apart far more than my "jap" car. To BMW, you buy a $60k car, and they give you an $8 POS wrench (to fix the crappy car you just bought) that you'll break within the first week.A "POS" wrench? Explain. For despite knowing how to use an English wheel, I'm unclear as to what a POS wrench would be.
Not to mention, my car would beat said german car in any race, straight line or not, thanks to its 2300lb. curb weight,During acceleration, inertia effectively throws the weight of the car back, resulting in less pressure pushing the front wheels into contact with the road. Your little FWD econobox therefore will have a harder time getting traction under acceleration. There's a reason why virtually all classes of professional racing, from NHRA to NASCAR to F1 to Ralleye, do not use front wheel drive cars.
But I'm sure you already knew that, for you are smarter than I because you know what Recaro seats are.
Lotus tuned suspension (Yes, thats Lotus, as in Lotus Elise),"My Celeron will beat your Cray!"
"Why?"
"Because I tuned it."
[sigh]
Dude. Does your car have MacPherson struts on the front suspension? Yes? If so, then the very design of your car introduces a handling error that you cannot work around.
MacPherson struts are popular because they're cheap and light.
Performance vehicles almost universally use a double-A-arm and coil spring or double-A-arm and torsion bar system, because the pivot during steering can be dead center in the wheel if you have the right rim offset.
With a MacPherson strut, it's at the top plates. Measure the distance from your struts' top plates to the centerline of each front wheel. The distance from that pivot point to the centerline of the wheel can be seen as the pivot offset, and would be the longest (non-hypotenuse) side of a right-angled triangle. Turn the steering wheel to the end of its travel, measure the angle of rotation about the pivot point, and use sin (theta) = (opposite) / (hypotenuse) to solve for (opposite). That number is how much your wheel moves forward or back within its wheel well as you steer. Less is, obviously, better.
But I'm sure you already knew that, because you also know that little green Lotus stickers on your fenders make your car go faster, right?
and AWD. Oh, did I forget to mention the highly turbocharged inline-4? Ooops."All Wheel Drive" = transverse mount front-wheel-drive with a chain driving a slipping clutch differential on the rear wheels. Or some similar variant, where the car is primarily front wheel drive and the rear wheels have only differential power applied.
Test for that? Jack up the front of the car. Place it on jack stands. Start the car, put your foot on the brakes and then put it into drive. (If you know how to drive a stickshift, you'd put it into 1st gear and let out the clutch at the friction point.) Okay. Your speedometer is moving, but you aren't: your front wheels are spinning, and the rear wheels are stationary. That's All-Wheel-Drive. Differential effect won't couple power to the rear wheels when the front wheels are slipping. So what's the point?
Slight advantage during cornering, with all four wheels on the ground, but mostly the marketing makes hausfrau think that they won't get stuck in snow.
Wow. "Highly turbocharged". What's your wastegate set to? How convinced are you that his BMW is "falling apart" whilst your "highly turbocharged" motor is gonna last?
Take a Celeron 500. Overclock it to 1GHz. Compare it to a Pentium III @800MHz. Wow. You're faster. But how long will it last before thermal cycling cracks the silicon die?
Oh wait...my car's 13 years old...Ah. "Lotus Tuned" and 13 years old. Wow. You've got an Isuzu. You're so cool. People in Kias must look down on you, but you're the envy of every Excel owner.
Oh yeah, and those Isuzus *do* have MacPherson struts. I've changed them. No, you could *not* outhandle a Beamer. In fact, you couldn't outhandle a 1971 Chevrolet Impala with a loose tie-rod end and a broken sway-bar, but I'm sure you already knew that.
no you're right, german cars do last longer. Now, let me go find a VW Corrado G60 that hasnt had $3000 worth of supercharger problems....Lemme find an Isuzu that's still worth $300 by the time it's 10 years old.
Have you checked where your A-pillars meet the firewall? The Isuzu Impulse and the Stylus both seem to generate tiny little stress fractures there because there's too much body flex. You might want to pull out your MIG welder and box that area a little.
Oh... Mommy won't let you have a MIG welder? Wow, that's a bummer. And yet you're inspiring because you've overcome that sufficiently to be such an authority on cars.
Wow. I bet the chicks just dig your 17-year-old pimply ass in your 13-year-old Isuzu. Does it help you get laid? Can I be your friend?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.