Hack Your Car 838
gurps_npc writes "The New York Times has this story about hacking your car's chip. You can get significant horse power and torque boosts (+18 horsepower and +70 foot pounds of torque in the given example), as well as improve (or decrease) fuel efficency. The car companies do not like (surprise surprise) people personalizing their vehicle's programming and warn of burning out your engine with bad code, and voiding your warranty."
This is no new thing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you peruse eBay, you'll see people selling replacement chips for around $400 that are supposed to add this many horsepower.
But if you think you're going to get another 70ft/lbs of torque in a Honda Civic by just doing that, think again.
As well, changing these values can be dangerous. I have a friend who quite messed up his Buick Riviera (he added fuel injection) by messing with the values. There was a huge table of values to fill out, and each had to be precicely tuned to achieve the right mix of performance and mileage. This is no easy task.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:2, Interesting)
i can understand (Score:5, Interesting)
basically, any technology which has the power to kill me, and is used in primarly public places that I roam in.
can anybody else suggest other technologies that are used in everyday life, owned by most people, and used often in public places that have the power to kill me if they happen to 'go wrong'?
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you can. Have you seen the unshielded power supply?
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:2, Interesting)
I love my Tivo, I never would have believed it would change my life like it has.
I will just tinker with my Mandrake machine and the wife's computer.
Hacking Bluetooth enabled cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is no new thing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you peruse eBay, you'll see people selling replacement chips for around $400 that are supposed to add this many horsepower.
And unless you buy a matched kit with cam, inlet, exhaust, etc, you're just gambling that it will work better than your existing setup. If you're paying $400 for a chip, you'd be better off buying [link-electro.co.nz] (or building [megasquirt.info]) a programmable computer instead. Then spend some dyno time and get it set up right.
New EPROMs are silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Dan from DansData has written on it in a much better fashion than I ever could though...
His main "hotchip" article [dansdata.com]
Scroll down to the EPROM stuff, he addresses his experiences with "Powerchip" [dansdata.com]
*Sigh* now the NYT is going to cause a bunch of people to waste money. People that don't know enough about cars are going to get preyed on by companies like "powerchip". Just like people in electronics stores that don't know enough about computers.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:5, Interesting)
Like the guy that patched my tire...except, several hours later, they couldn't find the patch, after I had to return because the tire was flat again. Or the guy that 'fixed' my completely disconnected exhaust system (the bolts loosened and fell out): as soon as I fired it up, I could hear an exhaust leak. The manager couldn't believe the mechanic missed it.
And don't get me started on the crooks...
--RJ
Keep in mind the car in question (Score:5, Interesting)
As many others have pointed out, chipping a car is nothing new. However, many people have unrealistic expectations about reprogramming their ECU. In the article, they mostly mentioned turbocharged vehicles like the Jetta TDI or 944 Turbo. The BMW owner mentioned was unsatisfied with the change because naturally aspirated (NA) cars don't benefit well from remapped ECUs.
Modifying a car's ECU mainly just adjusts air/fuel mixture, but on a turbo car it can also increase boost pressure. This is where the main hp gains can be found, but is also where you'll likely blow your engine. A NA car will need more modifications than just a chip to get anymore than a nominal power increase. Intake, headers, and exhaust are all necessary to increase airflow to take advantage of a performance chip. Even then you can generally only expect to make another 10hp at the very top end of your hp curve, and you might even lose torque at lower rpms (torque gets you up to speed, hp keeps you there).
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:1, Interesting)
How many times have you made a change to someone else's code only to end up introducing a new bug? It's pretty easy to do especially if you aren't very familiar with the whole program. Heck, people often introduce new bugs into their own code when they make changes.
I assume that the car manufacturers do rigorous code testing: unit testing, bench testing, simulation testing, integration testing etc. This is an instance where a single bug could end up killing or severely injuring someone.
Re:Well, for what reason (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worse when you find CODE errors (Score:3, Interesting)
When you have to fix a manufacturer's coding mistake, it's a pretty sad situation. For the privileged few, it's a very nice and interesting hobby.
The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because a fishtank valve can give a Supra another 100hp, does not mean the rest of the equation is up to the task.
That said, i've seen some VERY impressive software upgrades in deisel pickups. I only wonder if the radiator is up to cooling the uprated potential heat generated and if the transmission is capabile of living under the added stress.
(in the interests of fair reporting, this comes from a guy who built a 475 hp/500 ft-lb Corvette...and upgraded teh brakes at the same time...only to be stuck with a tranny bill when said motor had it's way with it.)
Re:i can understand (Score:5, Interesting)
There are lots of self-loaders out there who think that adding more powder makes them shoot better. Or they modify their weapons because they read somewhere on the Internet that it would shave off a microsecond or two from the firing rate or lessen the trigger pull. Funny thing is that the people who have used the most bizarre rifles tend to shoot the worst.
Airplanes you say?
I live about 100 yards from a small airfield in South Florida. I was driving to work one morning and noticed a bunch of fire trucks and police a few doors away. Heard on the news later that day that an experimental plane had crashed into a house. I've seen a couple of these accidents so far (well, not the actual crash, but the after effects).
Home wiring...
I've visited lots of friends' houses that have really bad wiring jobs. I've seen lots of outlets that would fail inspection. At my last house the previous occupants had been running a small business from their converted garage. They had installed extra outlets to run the electrical equipment (heater, various electrical motors, etc..). Everything was connected to an extension cord with a bunch of daisy-chained power strips *behind the wall*.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want more power get a different car in the first place. The cars mentioned are not exactly cheap. You could get a second hand car designed to go at those speeds for the same price.
I find the problem with driving a performance car is the fact that you still have to drive on the exact same roads. Oh and the git who is driving twenty feet away from my tailpipe does not understand that if I slam the brakes on my car will stop in less than 4 seconds at 70mph. So he will have run right into the back of me before he reacts to my brake lights.
Just how fast do you need to go down an on-ramp in the first place?
Tweaking the engine does not affect the performance of you brakes or the handling of the car. If you remove the speed limiter you can go above 155mph, but your tires won't be rated for that speed. If you are lucky you will just wear them out fast, if you are unlucky you will get tread separation. There is a reason why tires for supercars cost $2000+ each.
I would like to know how to hack the telephone system so I can use a standard motorola phone. Jaguar want $2500 to upgrade the phone the car came with to a GSM version. Not happening, but I did like having the phone controls integrated into the car controls.
I wouldn't modify mine (Score:2, Interesting)
Once I was waiting at a Zebra crossing and this really old lady -- the type that is one step away from needing a walking frame -- was walking along. She gets to right in front of me, and then what does my engine do? It ROARS to the redline, and sat there until she finished walking across.
The car was sitting in neutral, with my foot on the brake, so it didn't move at all, and she was safe. But that day I discovered the meaning of the term: 'a dirty look'.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
But if you were going to hack your car... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Car manufacturers can be such bullies sometimes. Luckily, there are things such as the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act to help protect consumers.
Does that cover accidental disabling of your anti-lock breaking system and airbags?
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:5, Interesting)
Most car stuff is pretty simple because there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. You can also trivially check the connections you've made to see if they are good before you crawl out of the spot you're in. Some things have to be tightened/loosened in stages and in a specific order, so provided you're following the proper instructions for the job, if you do it at all, and you do it properly, you can't leave something out.
Now let's say you're upgrading your brakes. In order to do this you're going to have to change (at least some of) your fluid, because it's going to have to come out of the system, because you're going to have to bleed it. So you change your calipers (one at a time so all the fluid doesn't fall out of the system immediately, which is inconveniently messy) and you install everything. Before you put a wheel back on, you check your connections; it's an obvious thing to do. Two bolts typically hold the caliper on, and there's one fitting where the brake line connects. (Drum brakes are much more complicated, I'm talking disc here.) But before you even put the wheels back on you're going to be bleeding the system, and any leaks will be apparent at this time because you're going to have to visit each wheel to accomplish this. In fact typically brake bleeding involves two people; one at the wheel to open and close the bleeder valve, and another in the car pumping the brake pedal appropriately. (There are tools which make this easier, the best of them is the speed bleeder. Most of the pumps and stuff don't work.) So just by the nature of the job you're going to see if there's something wrong. Most automotive work is like this.
Hacking your ECU usually primarily involves altering rev limits, and a "fuel map" which is a two dimensional matrix of throttle position to RPMs. This is where you can get into trouble, because you can make the mixture too lean which will cause pre-detonation or "knock" which can damage your engine (pistons, valves, rods, crank can all be damaged by early detonation.) But today's fuel injected cars are often fairly idiot proof in that unless you completely change their code and don't just change some values in a lookup table, they have assorted failsafes which they use to alter the behavior of the car even after the fuel map is consulted. For instance you can stop detonation by retarding the timing (beyond a certain point) and if your engine has a knock sensor (most things made in the nineties and later do) the car will automatically retard timing when it detects knock. It will also make the mixture leaner or richer based on feedback from the O2 sensor for the purposes of emissions, but this is also good for power, because the more efficient you run, the more power you will get for a given amount of fuel delivery. There is certainly more to it than this, but it's a broad overview. Altering rev limits is pretty risky too, because if your engine is not balanced well enough to make more RPMs than the limiter, you will destroy parts of your engine, like bearings, by revving it up that high. It's definitely not a good idea for older motors which haven't had a rebuild in some time.
Cars are moderately complicated, especially these days, but anyone smart enough to work on computers successfully is smart enough to work on cars, too. It mostly requires the inclination.
It's just machinery - learn! (Score:5, Interesting)
You really can hack real stuff! Get your hands dirty, try things out, don't just spend all your time in front of a screen. Go to Burning Man, meet babes, do woodwork and risky art projects, try gardening, cook with ingredients you've never used before, make beer, spend time in the real world!
There are things you shouldn't do to cars unless you know what you're doing, and maybe that means taking an evening class in auto mechanics at some nearby high school. Brakes, for instance, are things that you should be really really sure about before doing anything other than looking at them or refilling fluids, and steering's kind of that way. If a car won't stop, that's bad, but if it won't go anywhere, that's not good, but at most it's usually just money and hassle. So don't be afraid of working on the engine. Of course, that was better advice back when I was in college, when cars had real parts like carbs and distributors instead of just computer controls, and the cars I could afford mostly needed to have their real parts tinkered with a lot to keep them happy. I never got really deeply into it, because I wasn't that good at it (:-), but it's still worth playing with a bit, just to know what's going on.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, the brakes don't get any better, but if you are capable to handle driving your car at 155 mph, odds are you can handle it at whatever speeds above it that it can hit. As for the tires, as long as you have properly rated tires you should be fine. Besides, nicer tires don't cost $2000+ each. You can get 4 Y-rated tires for around $1500 easily.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want more power, you buy a cheap car and then aftermarket parts. You pay the insurance for a cheap little 4 banger, but get the performance of a big block v-8. I have a Nissan Sentra SE-R SpecV (yeah that's annoying to say I wish they just called it a SpecV.) It was a bit over $21,000 fully loaded (around $17,000 base.) If I spend $7,000 on performance parts the car will be able to drag against dodge vipers that cost around $60,000 (I think a dodge viper has a 12 second 1/4 mile time, I know some SpecV's with under $10,000 of work that run 11 second 1/4 miles)
Just how fast do you need to go down an on-ramp in the first place?
Faster than the cars already on the highway? I live in Arizona so that's about 75mph, and that's just the speed limit, most of these people do 80-90. And besides don't forget after the on-ramp is the wide open road. Then there's the legal use of performance parts, drag strips, local tracks, auto-x events, tons of stuff you can participate in where just an extra 20hp might make a huge difference (yeah I know in auto-x and most track events handeling is better than horsepower but the horsepower helps a lot.)
Tweaking the engine does not affect the performance of you brakes or the handling of the car. If you remove the speed limiter you can go above 155mph, but your tires won't be rated for that speed. If you are lucky you will just wear them out fast, if you are unlucky you will get tread separation. There is a reason why tires for supercars cost $2000+ each.
No, tweaking the engine doesn't affect your brake or handeling performance. But people don't tweak the engine for that, they tweak the brakes and suspension for that. If you're car can go 155mph your tires are probably Z rated, mine are and they came on a Nissan Sentra, it can't go up to 155 (131 was my top speed through the Salt Flats in utah) and it's an economy car. Sure I did get performance packages but still, the people who will buy these chips will probably have the tires to handle the speeds.
I would like to know how to hack the telephone system so I can use a standard motorola phone. Jaguar want $2500 to upgrade the phone the car came with to a GSM version. Not happening, but I did like having the phone controls integrated into the car controls.
You're probably going to have to do that on your own. I don't think any company will waste the time figuring out how to do that since most of the people who buy that car won't have the problem and there isn't a huge demand on figuring that problem out. Sure if you're lucky someone will do it and they'll post directions online but I'm sure it'd be very difficult.
Re:Why why why (Score:3, Interesting)
Hackers aren't engineers. That's why the hackers work WITH engineers to do a proper job. I reverse engineered the Subaru WRX computer as part of my job and I wouldn't even think of trying to change major values myself. That's left up to a trained professional who develops the maps using a chasis dynomometer and software that I've written.
This is 'useful' in certain circumstances (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, a company in Florida apparently imports the Opel chips and will put them in the engine in the Saturn - although I've not read a report on effects.
To be honest, I wouldn't do it for several reasons, not least that the bank owns the car; it's still under warranty; its torque and gearing means it smokes most similar cars off the line anyway; and I'm not sure I'd want my family in a modded car!
And beings as it costs $400 for that, plus whatever tweakery is extra, I'd rather drop the money into a bitchin' sound system.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
But it can remove artificial limits.
Here are my current car's specs:
280hp
254ft/lbs torque
All Wheel Drive
FB: 16" 2-pot Ventilated Discs (ABS)
RB: 15" Ventilated Discs (ABS)
Tires: 215/45 ZR-17 (ZR=Sustained 240+km/hr)
Nothing has been changed on the car to improve these specs.
Said manufacturer also chose to limit the top speed to 180km/hr as agreed among all Japanese makers for domestically sold cars. The car does 160km/hr in 3rd gear!!
So what is the cars real top speed? 260km/hr.
Weirder still, you can buy, directly from the manufacturer's performance-parts section, a replacement 260km/hr speedo.
Some cars are meant to be chipped.
An even better example is the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Many people (especially non-car nuts) outside of Japan have never heard of "the GT-R", but this is without doubt the highest performance Japanese car made. (See skylinegtr.com [skylinegtr.com] for detailed information.)
In short though, the Skyline GT-R is limited to the same 280hp as my car. But Nissan has designed the entire car as a 600hp car, and chipping the car very quickly gives you nearly 600hp. SIX HUNDRED!
As I said, some cars are meant to be chipped.
Ian
Used to be EPROMS (Score:3, Interesting)
of the masters had a sticker with the model of a car (newest Fords and Audis I vaguely recall).
Well when I did finally mention it, that's what they were... souped-up firmware replacements for the boy racers. Glad to see this art is still alive.
Re:But if it wasn't for the smoke... (Score:3, Interesting)
Tree huggers... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you know what? Their numbers are so small, and the cars aren't THAT far off(proper power requires engines be in good shape!) that this is a non-issue. What's an issue is the millions of trucks, trains and ships burning high-sulfur diesel fuel...or the clowns who drive around with their cars belching blue smoke. Then there are the SUVs which of course are nearly exempt from emissions testing! Don't get me started about the coal burning power plants...
Optimum power is achieved on a slightly richer than perfect fuel ratio, and yes, that will cause a modified car to go over the limits set by the state emissions tests. However, under most other conditions, the cars are fine emissions-wise.
Sorry, but the tree-huggers have gone too far in many cases; they're yapping not just about SUVs but they expect everyone else to turn in their cars and drive Honda Insights. It's disgusting. As a result of all this, so many awesome cars can't be brought to the states simply because they don't meet our emissions tests...even though they'd represent a tiny fraction of the cars on the road, possibly be driven less than average...not to mention, more likely to be kept in excellent condition(ie, not get left burning oil for a year or two until it finally explodes). But no-sir, you're .01% over on the HC's, you can't register that! No sir, your car's manufacturer didn't go through full EPA testing! Even worse, homebuilt cars are coming under increasingly strict reg's too; in some states, it's getting to be virtually impossible to have your own home-built car, because you can't get it to pass inspection.
Lastly, lots of chips pass emissions specifications(not just the gas-station test) just fine- the problem is that the certification process is very expensive, so not every tuner can afford to do it.
Re:But if it wasn't for the smoke... (Score:3, Interesting)
With regards to you MPG comment - If you want more power from your engine, and all you're doing is reprogramming a chip...... you'll pretty much need more fuel from *somewhere*.
If you want real performance with diesels, I'd probably look into LPG injection. From what I've heard, it gives you 20-30% more power straight up, and less soot to boot.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:2, Interesting)
What happened to the other half of my post?!?! Grr, guess I have to type it again.
Whats the point of drag racing a VIPER? Its a track car. Meant for road courses. Not drag racing. Straight line speed is about as useless in determining a car's overall performance as autocross. You want a real test of performace? Go to a track. And make sure it has more than just left turns.
Funny stuff (Score:1, Interesting)
There are a number of funny things about this article, which breathlessly "exposes" car chipping which has been going on for more than 10 years. *yawn* But perhaps the funniest thing of all, is the reaction of the Slashdotters here, who by and large have reacted with horror that anyone dared modify a computer controlling a car. Oh my!
Could it truly be, that geeks draw the line at anything with real grease on it? Or does the courage to hack extend only as far as tearing up an Xbox in order to brag about running linux on it? Or pestering some working sysadmin trying to earn a living by running a few servers for his boss? woo. Boys play games, Men build machines.
Here's the thing - by and large, all that ECU really does is exactly the same thing a carburator and distributor cap used to do. No more, and no less. Oh sure, maybe it turns on a fan to bring the water temp down a bit, or implements a rev limiter. But for someone who understands the way a car runs (read, any 8th grade dropout working at your local car dealer), with a bit of programming experience, there's nothing magical, intimidating, or even particularly challenging about rolling your own.
Modding chips, is not rolling your own. That's just poking a few new hex values in a two-dimensional array stored in an eprom. array(i,j) of Injectorsquirtduration, AmountofAir. Simple as that. Any fool can do it, and many do. It's essentially the exact same thing as rejetting a carb, or turning the airscrew. No biggie.
Rolling your own means starting with a computer of some sort, putting an OS on it, and writing code that reads a lot of sensor data, and outputs some voltages, all largely to simulate a distributor cap and carb. The hardest part, is figuring out the voltages and what they signify from the various sensors (manifold absolute pressure, throttle position, O2, water temp, air temp, cam (or crank) position (the clock), etc.)
I'm running an MS-AVR microcontroller, using code I modified and compiled myself - on linux, using GCC. My car runs like a top. I had hella fun doing it. Beats modding some lame game box big time. And oh yeah - My car runs on Open source :)
Here's one example of a DIY ecu. [squirrelpf.com]
Re:The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
What the hell are you talking about? The biggest restrictor in increasing turbo boost, or changing timing and stuff like that is the engine's internals. The car doesn't check "Hey can my brakes handle all this raw power?" If you put 1,000 hp into a car the brakes won't change a thing, unless you find yourself doing 100 mph between traffic lights. Car manufacturers tune their ECU's to be gentle to the car's engine, and they try to go for good emissions and gas mileage.
(in the interests of fair reporting, this comes from a guy who built a 475 hp/500 ft-lb Corvette...and upgraded teh brakes at the same time...only to be stuck with a tranny bill when said motor had it's way with it.)
You have a Corvette and it's tranny couldn't handle 475hp? Strange... I figured such a beast would have a tranny that can easily handle that hp. I have a Mustang that came with a 4 banger stock and an automatic 3 speed tranny. Now it has a 5.0 Cobra engine in it, the tranny is handeling it (although it's a HUGE restrictor on the cars acceleration.)
Re:Upgrading Chips != More Cheap Horsepower. (Score:1, Interesting)
In an n/a car, a new ecu will really not do much unless there have been significant changes in the airflow of the engine - i.e aftermarket cam, nitrous, etc. And usually with that, the fuel injectors and system should be upgraded to prevent the mixture from leaning out and causing detonation/pinging.
Either way, turbo cars benefit a hell of a lot from an upgraded ECU, but for an n/a car, the chip is just the "icing on the cake" after a hefty round of modifications. For example, I drive a 1995 camaro z28. When I had the average boltons (headers, intake, exhuast), I decided to go witih a more aggressive camshaft and larger ratio roller rockers for more valve lift. I netted about 20-25rwhp hp from the camshaft and valvetrain upgrade. Once I sent my PCM in to be reflashed with a new program suited for the cam, I gained another ~20rwhp.
Chips aren't the only thing making cars go fast these days. If I had a turbo car, the first thing I'd buy after intake/exhaust is a chip. On an n/a car, the chip comes far later.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, if you're going to be driving at 150 mph you may not be suited to make your own repairs, but for regular road driving there shouldn't be anything that a hacker can't handle. (Except for maybe heavy lifting or walking around for more than 15 minutes carrying exhaust bits or random chunks of metal, if you're anything like
Re:But if you were going to hack your car... (Score:5, Interesting)
You simply make an adjustment on the computer and then upload the new engine map (map of fuel mixture, timing, etc.) to the ECU. His RX-7 pushes close to 500 HP at the rear wheels (an exceptoinal number, even more so when you consider that most manufacturer's horespower claims are at the crank shaft, before any powerloss due to drivetrain) and can still get 22MPG cruising on the freeway. City driving is much worse, but that's beside the point. But he basically can adjust the fuel mixture on the fly for better or worse gas mileage, and for drivability. It's really fascinating stuff if you're at all interested in modifying cars.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing had four benches, and he took 10 people at a times for rides.
On Interstate 91.
Going as high as 60 miles per hour to the delight of bewildered motorists. Never mind the then 55 MPH limit...
And all this in TOTAL SILENCE. Not a sound, but some whiffs of steam...
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
Mitsubishi is famous for this as is Toyota (well, Toyota was. Haven't made anything good for a long time now).
Re:Don't touch your brakes? Disagree! (Score:4, Interesting)
However, with the idea that brakes are the "safety" part of the car, people feel they should only trust the highest trained mechanic to the job. Please, it's only slightly harder to do than changing your oil.
Rich
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Much better bang for your buck can be found in the VW/Audi 1.8 turbo engine. with just a chip, bigger turbo and exhaust (together under $3500) you can have well over 300 horsepower and torque out the wazoo. A VW/Audi 1.8 turbo car, slightly modified, can do 12-13 second quarter miles easy.
But who gives a crap about drag racing anyways? My grandma can push her right foot down and go fast in a straight line. Real racing involves tight twisty turns (many of them - not boring nascar lets-drive-in-a-circle-500-times). Have a look here [scca.org] to see where the action is.
Another plus for the VW/Audi cars - there is a serial cable you connect to the car that you can interact with all electronic parts of the car - from the engine to the stereo to the anti-lock-brakes. And even better, the protocol spec is open and published for anyone. I can put a laptop on the front seat of my car while I drive and watch the turbo boost pressure, oil pressure, and tons of other cool real-time metrics. Very open-source'esque. You don't get that with the bland "big-three" or the "rice-boy" asian car crowd.
The Stoichiometric Fuel/Air Mixture (Score:3, Interesting)
Haltech has a great system for designers. Install the system, acquire the data from all sensors (o2, map, temp, tdc, rmp, throttle pos, at a min) in real world driving and spend countless hours perfecting proper setup. Great for an engineer and a mess for joe sixpack.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, you sound like someone that's inherently frightened of their car. Do you really think a single miss-tightened nut could put you in traction? If that were true, there'd be a lot of mechanics guilty of manslaughter. (Read there's a _lot_ of monkey-wrench "mechanics" out there).
There's little danger of endangering your life unless you really screw up the wrong thing. (Like you mess up a tie rod which attatches your wheels to the steering mechanism). Cars aren't airplanes. If you do something wrong fixing them the car might leave you stranded, but you're not going to die.
For the most part the danger of working on your own car is breaking something, just like working on your computer.
What shocks me most is you got modded up so high. Geeks should be ashamed of themselves for being so techo-phobic about non-computer technology. It's just as cool, and probbably a lot more practical to know a bit about fixing your car. I'm not talking about replacing a transmission, but any idiot can do a brake job.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bad they are really just rebranded Eclipses (ok so they were a combined initiative but the eclipse name lives on with mitsu). But with all the mitsubishi engineers working on them and the fact that many of their parts are kept up by the mitsubishi enthousiasts, I would not consider them an american car.
Re:Hacking Bluetooth enabled cars (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:OpenSource ECU code - a real need. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm amazed you convinced BMW of the problem, like you said, not only did it required high temperature, but reformulated fuel for a few tanks AND a different firmware version. It also points to the dangers or risks in safety software that self-learns (and the firmware in the Mini definitely counts in my book as safety-critical).
Digressing...
At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if the company that made the firmware also supplies other companies. The car industry is funny that way, they're quite happy to have a wiper supplier provide to both BMW and Ford subtly different versions.
BMW 330ci (Score:1, Interesting)
I was 'disappointed' to find out that the US version of my 330ci convertible was restricted to 128mph, electronically, and had it's horse power tamed for the US market.
My Europ counterpart's 330ci was limited to 155mph and had 25 HP more.
Shocking.
Of course, $300 later and now the machine is equivalent to it's euro brother.
Why do the restrict US versions so badly ?
Re:Or, this can IMPROVE your car (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Increased Compression
2) Increased Bore
3) Increased Stroke
4) Different Cam Profile
5) Change in Air/Fuel Map
6) Decrease in exhaust backpressure and increased intake flow
7) Increased maximum RPM
Of these options, only the A/F maps and a very, very, very small amount of timing advance can be controlled by the engine's computer alone (I will discuss #7 later).
To directly address one point, all modern engines contain automatic predetonation protection which automatically adjusts your engine's timing based on a combination of the octane of fuel used, humidity levels, altitude, temperature, O2 and predetonation sensors. Therefore, running 93 octane fuel will cause your timing to advance to its safest level on 93 octane for the conditions in which you are driving. For a naturally aspirated engine, that is about as good as you are going to get. No engine reprogramming is going to change that.
In case anyone is wondering why 'chipping' your engine is so popular for the normally aspirated crowd is because most maps are designed to increase power under 'partial throttle'. All performance tuning that gets spec'd is based on engine output at wide open throttle (WOT). At this point the engine is running in a condition called 'closed loop', meaning that the engine computer is not running the show, but is running one single A/F map and feeding gas, which is perfectly fine because at WOT that is what you want. At all other times, the engine is running in 'open loop' mode, which is where you will be driving 99.9% of the time. The 'open loop' A/F mapping is where performance improvements really come into play by adding an aftermarket 'chip'. You will not be gaining any real horsepower from your engine, but it will 'feel' faster and respond faster because, in reality, it is running A/F maps which will eliminate partial throttle fuel economy in exchange for mid-range engine output.
Now, before someone says BHP=(RPM*TORQUE)/5252 when I mention raising the RPM's to gain BHP, you need to know what you are talking about first. That equation is very, very simplified and doesn't take into account factors such as your fuel injectors duty cycles limitations, intake manifold limitations, engine spark limitations, fuel pump limitations, connecting rod force limitations, and intake and exhaust flow limitations. Almost all engines are designed for maximum BHP at redline and any more RPM's will either gain you nothing or will actually decrease BHP output.
The only factors that can increase real BHP output in a normally aspirated engine is a combination of ECU reprogramming and proper engine building. If you want to see real gains in BHP to the levels of 18+ BHP and 18+ ft.lb. torque, you would increase your intake volume, increase your exhaust volume which includes new exhaust headers, a high flow catalytic converter (because your flow is limited to the most restricted part in the system), and a 'catback' exhaust system, ported cylinder heads (if needed), and new camshafts. With that combination, a new ECU program can significantly improve the output of a normally aspirated engine.
For me, I am a turbocharged fanatic, and for me there are a ton of other options available to increase engine output. But, even for a forced induction system, you need to properly build your engine and complete system before any real, and safe gains, can be made.
And to make another quick point, engines which contain technology such as variable valve timing can take advantage of special tuning, because in that exact case, the ECU does have control over camshaft profiles. But, that is another discussion for another time and includes another set of interesting and inter-related factors.
Re:Or, this can IMPROVE your car (Score:2, Interesting)