SEEKING COLLABORATORS TO CREATE CUSTOM ECU

Dear friends,

Some of you probably remember me, while others of you don't even know who I am. That's okay. I'm Dan, the Prius owner and nerd who does stuff like on-board computers with engine start, power lock and power window control with screen overlay (screen overlay never did get working correctly).

I also like LEDs and have replaced as much as easily possible in the car with LEDs. I like the feel of the cooler colored light in the night time when it glows as I approach it.

I haven't even started the message, yet I digress.

I AM SEARCHING FOR A COLLABORATOR OR MORE TO WORK ON A CUSTOM, PROGRAMMABLE ECU FOR THE MKII PRIUS.

A hacker I know only as Andrey on hackaday.com has created an ECU shield for the STM32F4 microcontroller board. Observe at the link, where he asks it to do some stuff to his car and receives operational data (it's like a gold rush here) on laptop.

rusefi.com • View topic - Project Frankenstein - full ECU shield

I would LOVE to be able to choose my own parameters for many things, and I believe we could do it if we tapped into the computer. Here are some of the things I want to change:

1) delay required before listening to shifter input (flicks are ignored)
2) amount of off-time before wheel-slip protection is disabled (i hate it when the car lurches)
3) engine RPM response to pedal pressure
4) engine shutoff conditions

So, I'm not actually sure how much of it could be changed by modifying the ECU or whether it's part of a larger family of computers for the Prius.

Forgive me if this sort of hack has already been performed, and if it has, please offer me the link so I can do the work with my 3.5-year-old helper, Bianca.

I need only two other people to make it work, and if it works out we should be able to produce a module for all three of us:

1) someone with the gear and knowledge necessary to sniff any proprietary protocols and download the on-board firmware for analysis

2) someone with the EE expertise to help modify Andrey's design for Prius compatibility, if required.

Thanks and please, please let me know. It always feels good to find other people whom I can call "my kind of nerd."

~ dan ~

 

I imagine most of that can be addressed via such mods.
My only worry is whether we'll have to customize the hybrid daughter board ourselves or whether (fingers crossed) the daughter gets its firmware from ecu each boot. If the latter, then it's almost ready for us to do!

 

okay. Excellent. The hypothesis is we need to dig into that performance lookup table and modify it to match whatever new ECU settings are used. I don't plan to supercharge my Prius because I'm all out of money for car toys now that I'm somebody's dad. But I might be able to scrape together a couple hundred dollars for a modded ecu.

 

Problem is, five years ago i would've been pleased to adopt this as my pet project. And i kill those. But i can't afford any more mouths to feed, time-wise. I can only contribute 33%, until summer holiday when i may have somewhat more time.

Can we wait? Sadly, i love breaking new ground as much as the next guy.