OBD-II to Personal Computer question

[5-90]

I know you can get adapters that will give P-class DTCs out there - I have one (ELM327 & Torque Pro, I mentioned that elsewhere.)

However, is there an adapter/application pairing that will give access to ALL of OBD-II? You know - find out what that brake lamp is doing lit, or clear that damned airbag light (after I finally make that "fence" for behind the seat, so nothing else hits the wiring under there?)

Or am I going to have to accumulate coin to drop on a "Pro" scan tool. I'd rather not - and I like being able to use my tab to watch things (like realtime fuel trim - we were driving around the other day, and I was keeping an eye on fuel trim and noted that there was some sensor lag and "off" to Bank 2 Sensor 1.

(Then the CEL came on. I told my wife what it probably was, then told her how to view the codes. Man, I hate being right...)

 

[bjoehandley]

How easy was Torque Pro to use and did it read the O2 sensors for you too?

 

[5-90]

Torque and Torque Pro are both quite intuitive - took me about 30s to figure out how to navigate and work with either.

HEGO readings? Not direct - but how do you think I was monitoring fuel trim? You can put an indicator up for each sensor and read it that way - a "zero" reading is stoich, a positive percentage is running RICH, a negative percentage is running LEAN. You can put up an indicator for each sensor (I put up two for each - a realtime gage and a history graph.)

Essentially, if the ECU reads it for the powertrain, you can read it on Torque. You can even run, say, two speedometers - one off of the OBD bus, one off of GPS (if equipped,) and see if you're off.

Accelerometers, logging (I output to .csv - opens right up in Excel for review,) and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. I hope he takes me up on my offer to help write a manual - some of us do better with them, and I'd really like to be able to play around.

I'm an information junkie - being able to "read the ECU's mind" is very cool to me...

The application is well worth the five bucks. The adapter? I think I need to find a better one...

 

[bjoehandley]

Thanks for the info John......makes me want to get the stuff for one even more now!

 

[WTF_LOL]

As for things like the airbag light you would have to have access to the rom itself. From there you can create tables and alter hexidecimal values to make basically any change you can imagine if you can discover the proper address. There are projects out there like openecu.org that I have experience with for evos and subarus. As far as I am aware nobody has cracked the Chryco Ecu yet though I understand there may be some good progress on the SRT8 ecus. I have not looked in over a year, so I am interested to take another look. I know there are people out there that have done some work with it. I do have a few different openport cables which would allow flashing the rom (unlike the elm chips).

As far as I have found you can only do the things you are asking with our rigs with a "pro" type licensed device as you mentioned

 

[bjoehandley]

I didn't know they were still working on the older stuff, I know a whole bunch of us 3.6l V-6, 6-Speed Avenger/200 owners want programers for our cars, especially ones that have done the CIA/TB/Exhaust mods and better tires want the ability to tweak the computers to take full advantage of those mods.........I'd just like to reprogram that damned drive by wire so it behaves more like a cable set up:banghead:

 

[WTF_LOL]

It seems like the hardcore code diassamblers out there that have figured it out with jeep ecus just aren't posting much about it. I have had trouble in the post though it seems some individuals out there have gained control of quite a bit of these ecus...not so sure about OBD1 though

 

[5-90]

As for things like the airbag light you would have to have access to the rom itself. From there you can create tables and alter hexidecimal values to make basically any change you can imagine if you can discover the proper address. There are projects out there like openecu.org that I have experience with for evos and subarus. As far as I am aware nobody has cracked the Chryco Ecu yet though I understand there may be some good progress on the SRT8 ecus. I have not looked in over a year, so I am interested to take another look. I know there are people out there that have done some work with it. I do have a few different openport cables which would allow flashing the rom (unlike the elm chips).

As far as I have found you can only do the things you are asking with our rigs with a "pro" type licensed device as you mentioned

Except I'm not working with a Jeep/ChryCo OBD-II setup (people don't want to bother with ChryCo because ChryCo was a pain about releasing their code & tuning tools) - this is on a 2005 Suzuki Verona.

The ABS is definitely a fault lamp - it triggers when something rolls under the seat and bumps the wiring. But, I've no way to clear it once fixed - I'm about to yank the bulb and call it good (I need to get in and strip the TPMS bulb anyhow. Now it's falsing because sensor batteries are going flat, and I'm not about to fork over ~$100 for a sensor to replace a $3 battery...)

 

[bjoehandley]

Supposedly Banks has a programmer for the Pentastar Jeeps, but there is some concern in the JS sedan community that since these cars are just grocery getter mid sized sedans, the aftermarket won't make anything for them.

 

[Johnnie Walker]

Jon, I do not think it is so much the adapter, as it is software. Have not looked into any of it in a long time, but there is pc software that will do the same as a stand-alone scanner.

I have used this in years past with success..
http://www.ross-tech.com/
It's for Euro vehicles, but like any other scanner apparatus, will work with other vehicles just more general/generic