I grew up on breaker points, carburetors, windows that had cranks and seat belts that were a user-installed option. To lock your door, you pushed down on a button by the window; to unlock you pulled up. So simple. If it didn't work, it was pretty easy to see why.

Then came power windows and electric locks. But they were still pretty simple: a battery, a switch -- and some sort of device like a motor or a solenoid.

Today, however, EVERYTHING down to even the radio runs through a computer. The transmission tells the computer how fast you're going so that the computer can automagically lock the doors above 10 mph and unlock them (equally magically) when you put the transmission in park. The radio keeps playing after you stop the vehicle and turn off the key -- so that you can hear the end of the song (until you open the door). If the locks stop working, is it the solenoid? The wiring? The switch? The computer? Or the transmission?

I still struggle with this advancing technology. I struggle to wrap my head around it, and I struggle to accept it. I long for things that are simpler.

But now and then I try to embrace it. In the mid-1980s I had a Buick Grand National (very fast, and highly desired by thieves). I hid a switch under the dash to interrupt the circuit to the electric fuel pump -- without which that 3.8 liter SFI turbo V6 wouldn't run. (I'd never had either an electric fuel pump OR fuel injection before.)

Then I got fancy: I used the seat belt buzzer circuit to energize a relay that opened the fuel pump circuit. When you buckled the belt and de-powered the buzzer circuit, it de-energized the primary side of the relay and allowed the fuel pump circuit to close. That was my "stealth anti-theft system": the car wouldn't run unless the seat belt was buckled. (I assumed most thieves wouldn't bother.) The switch under the dash became a bypass for valet parking and the like.

Which brings me to the point of this post:

Has anyone ever dabbled with hacking the BODY computer and its embedded software to do things like this? Like powering the fuel pump ONLY if/when the seat belt is buckled? Or any number of other dependencies?

Or: I'd like the power windows to REMAIN powered until the door is opened (or until the key is removed) -- so that when I park and shut the truck off (but have forgotten and left the windows cracked), I can roll them the rest of the way up without turning the ignition back on. Stuff like that.

My "stealth anti-theft system" of a quarter century ago was still purely mechanical/electrical and decidedly non-computerized. Can we today do with CODE what I did back then with wires and a relay? Thoughts?

 

IF you can get "into" the body computer's software, anything is possible, otherwise all you can do is replicate your earlier system, re-purposing pre-existing functionality. I race Neons, and Chrysler made the engine computer very difficult to modify. The one place you can get a modified Neon computer has a former Chrysler computer engineer doing the mods. I use MegaSquirt to run my '95 Neon ACR drag car. Megasquirt is designed for DIY tuning and modification, yet it still baffles me.

 

The power window thing that you want shouldbe in the manual on how to turn that on cause mine is like that (power stays at the windows until the door is opened)

 

Indeed, the focus of most hacking efforts I've seen to date has been the engine management portion of the system: changing fuel maps, etc. There hasn't been much interest or effort in terms of modifying the BODY or CHASSIS computer software.

Our vehicles aren't even controlled by a SINGLE computer; they're quite literally (according to my admittedly amateur understanding) a NETWORK of small computers/modules communicating and interacting over this CANBUS thing. An "occupant classification module" senses and communicates the weight of an occupant (if any), the seat position (from sensors in the seat slider) -- and from that the "airbag control module" reacts in terms of how forcefully to deploy. Power seats automatically move rearward for ease of entry/exit based on whether the seat is occupied and the position of the ignition key -- or even WHICH personally-coded key is being used (i.e., YOUR key can store a different preferred seating position from that stored by MY personally-coded key).

At least some of this chassis control code must be public knowledge, since people are modifying things like whether or not input may be made to the dashboard NAV system when the vehicle is in motion, or whether the front-seat passenger can watch a DVD movie while the driver is concentrating on the road.

Seems like there is lots of room for modifying and enhancing how our vehicles behave -- OTHER than through the "engine control" computer, per se. My wife, for example, would prefer that her car NOT automatically unlock all the doors whenever she puts the transmission into "park" in a dark and deserted garage or lot.

Seems to me that if we're going to go all computer controlled (as we seem to be doing), we need to give the user more options for "configuring" the system -- a "Windows Control Panel", if you will, for the small network that is our vehicle these days.

 

if security is a big concern for you check this site out:

http://www.viper.com/

Some pretty cool gadgets

 

the problem to me seems if you put in a relay/switch to cut the fuel pump circuit you would probabily wind up throwing a CEL ... little thing can be tricked like the driver seat belt warning (see thread on faulty buckle switch)...but all your controls are technically duplicatable...remember alot of the controls operate on a sws type system where the switches all have differant resistance values and when you start messing with the control wire weird things happen

dodge techs chime in if you've ever had to diagnose some quirky electrical gremlin is traced back to a hacked in aftermarket stereo/alarm/remote start grounded to the bus line

this is part of the reason manufacturers are installing factory remote start systems

i herd a story from my friend about aftermarket heated seats using the wrong factory wire as a ground and randomly turning on the wipers

as always thoroughly research any 'hack' you want to do before you start randomly splicing wires

a common hack around here seems to be the 'power wire' hack to make you computer think its incoming air is colder/warmer

here's an idea for any bracket racers out there...get a DBW car and hook up a momentary switch/relay to the gas pedal wires...instant WOT...now get a webcam to watch the start tree and trigger WOT on green...talk about consistent times

</rant>

 

Security, in and of itself, is not an overwhelming concern. It's more about regaining control over my appliances. I don't like it when my tools/appliances/gadgets/vehicles *THINK* they're smarter than I am, or when they *THINK* they can anticipate what I want them to do, rather than just doing as they're told.

(For a trivial but lighthearted example of what I mean, visit damnyouautocorrect.com.)

I'd like to think we'd all benefit from taking control back, in any number of ways:

* determining for ourselves how and when the locks work
* configuring the environmental controls to always power up in a preferred default state, rather than "as you last left them"
* deciding for yourself whether to allow a front-seat passenger/navigator to input destination info to your NAV system while rolling

I'm just saying that the level of computerization we're achieving could/should allow the owner/operator much more control over how the vehicle functions -- on MANY levels. And I'd like to look into some first small & simple steps toward that end.

 

Mitsuraider I couldn't agree more...do you run linux on your desktop yet?...also I forget who but one of the manufactures is looking into an android powered head unit...this could be our gateway into the underlying archetecture

 

reagor, if i remember correctly, that was GM.. looking to compete with the ford/microsoft Sync System.
of course that was before the bailouts, etc.

 

thanks found it
http://wot.motortrend.com/gm-woos-go...sync-7676.html