[zehboss]

Hey guys,

I was talking to a Honda Engineer who told me that many of the functions of the insight generation 1 car can be controlled through an ODB2 interface. He said that the car was more of an engineering exercise than meant for a real production car. Honda lost over ten grand per car.

Does anyone have experience doing this. He said the interface was used during engineering testing to activate lean burn, auto stop, and other functions by simply sending a signal down the bus.

This seems like a very simple way to play with the car during operation. A blue tooth adapter and a PC or Android tablet and a little programming to control the interface.

Thanks,

 

[Thermactor]

Did he say anything about control of assist and regen through OBD?

 

[samwichse]

Well, the OBDIIC&C can control the computer's SOC and the battery cooling fan through OBDII, but I suspect that what can be controlled has been found by Peter already.

 

[retepsnikrep]

Interesting conversation.

I can duplicate what the Honda dealers can do with the dealer diagnostic tool.
But ASFAIK that does not allow control over the systems you mention.

The Car ECM probably has lots of hidden functions but without a lot more very detailed information or access to one of the development tools with these OBDII functions it would be virtually impossible to reverse engineer them. Throwing random codes at the ECM or writing to unknown memory areas within it could corrupt vital info or cause other damage.

Activating or forcing auto stop and lean burn when conditions are not right or the same as when they operate in a standard car might be also fraught with problems.

 

[biododge1]

I know my scanner can manipulate certain sensors (egr, fans, ac clutch purge valve etc) so its fair to believe they have ways to do even more. like peter said though, the code to do so is endless. Now if you could get that engineer to cough up a few codes or event parameters maybe we could hack the rest

 

[Hugh-Falls]

............. He said the interface was used during engineering testing to activate lean burn, auto stop, and other functions by simply sending a signal down the bus.This seems like a very simple way to play with the car during operation.............,

Please ask your engineer friend to furnish a list of the "signals" or tell us where they can be found and we will do the rest.

Reverse engineering has yielded limited results. For instance, the Toyota Prius CAN system language is well understood, yet there have been few if any successful hacks over these many years. In the case of the Insight, no standardized CAN "language" appears to be used throughout. This is further complicated by the use of what might be called "fuzzy logic" which has the effect of shifting goal posts. Some of this back and forth shift may be hardware induced so that hacking must involve an analysis of the hardware as well.

Not so simple unless you engineer friend can furnish the "signal" list.

 

[retepsnikrep]

Hmm this has intrigued me now.

As I have quite a few spare MCM's I might get my G1 A123 car up on axle stands and throw a few codes at the MCM memory locations which are currently not in my data list. I know the memory areas for the Soc and fan commands etc but there are a lot of gaps that might be worth a 'Poke' I'm not going to try the ECM yet as I don't want to corrupt it, and it's more difficult to replace plus keys etc would need re-programming a royal PITA. I need to write some OBDIIC&C code specifically to scroll through some memory and poke each area in turn now.

I know my scanner can manipulate certain sensors (egr, fans, ac clutch purge valve etc)

Can you provide a lot more specifics on this.

Exact List.
What it can manipulate.
Type of scanner.
Pics of it in operation. (Have you actually tried to manipulate things you listed?)
Thanks

Edit

Ok I have written some quick and dirty OBDIIC&C code to step through the MCM memory areas so I can poke it and see what happens.

 

[zehboss]

I rode on a flight with the Honda engineer. During our conversation he told me he worked for Honda. I enquired if he had anything to do with the insight since I have been playing with the two I have. We chatted about it for the last 15 minutes of the flight as he explained several directions that I might try to play with. We did not have time to go over all the specifics. He did say that some of this information is online but did not give me the specifics of codes, signals, memory locations, or a web address. He said that most of the systems could be controlled and were during engineering testing through the interface. I am trying to find more information on what all I can do which is why I posted this enquiry.

Please post the results of your endeavors into this subject.

Thanks

 

[retepsnikrep]

Well FWIW I poked a few locations in the MCM memory. All around the ones we know about that provide fan and soc control.

Nothing startling happened.

One caused the IMA to flash out a fault code.

Once caused an immediate SOC reset to zero bars and an IMA fault code P1649.

Sadly nothing that exciting or useful either. Without a lot more info to go on that's that avenue exhausted.

I might look at the ECM side over the summer. If assist or regen is being commanded in response to OBD (write/control) commands that's probably where they are coming from.

 

[biododge1]

to answer your question. the scanner is a snap on 2500mt. As for codes itll pull all the emissions, abs, and srs with little issue. The IMA codes/ and function are limited in use, But heres what I know can be done with it. On the obd side I can operate the egr and see how much % of lift its at, can control idle speed, purge valve, check all the values of each sensor, ac clutch on/off, cooling fans on/off, and fuel pump on/off, and iirc has a value that shows fuel ratio (that may be a different cartridge for a different car so don't quote me on that 1).

ABS functions, values, codes are readable. The eps im not sure of-ive never had a need to look. The IMA side I don't get much. I can read the voltage, turn on/off the contactor, and operate the fan (low speed only). The other scanner im looking at (more advanced) is the soleus from snap on. It seems to have more ability in IMA stuff and better data logging features. Ill know more though if I do purchase that one-
Ill snap a few pics or vid next time im up at my shop and ill see what else I can do with it-(I know a lot more can be done with it, but didn't want to post on those things till I know for sure)