Steven

Fishing from Mick's verandah?

with so much water around I'm an early "no" for this week. Real shame, TOCAU Brisbane has been a bit anti-social so far for 2011 (not that we can help it)

Started my PCB, only things on it so far are the DPDT relays and the wiring connectors for power and sensors. Can't design any further until I get my switch in the mail and see whether it's a momentary or toggle switch. Pics of both my PCB and the switch-to-be attached. Also Daryl did you try removing the overflow bottle to give yourself more room to access the harness? I popped mine off and fed the plug underneath the brake lines and I figure I have plenty of loom to play with and be sure the connections are solid.

I like the postponing idea.

You bring the paint and beer and you got a deal :)

Did some modifying of my headlights. Got a bit ****ty as the passenger side was covered in streaks on the inside when reassembled, turns out it's just because it's the original light where as the drivers side is brand new (from the truck). Some polish got it a bit better but it will never be as good as the driver's side. Also disassembled my old sportivo taillights to practice painting there reflectors black as well, only to discover they're black from the factory! It's just the red tinted lenses that make them look like a dark tint. It's very risky though as it involves actually cutting the taillight lens off then gluing it back on -> not too keen after the last fiasco. With the new look headlights the eyelids don't really seem to match anymore - makes the front end seem too busy, so I'm leaving them off until I decide to paint them body color or just sell them.

Unfortunately this is dependent on what tyres you have, suspension setup, car weight, even the surface of the road and ambient temperature. The traction control will only kick in when you lose traction, and there are simply too many factors that decide on traction for there to be a simple answer. Best you can do is trial and error with your own car and see what works best.

disassembled and painted my headlights black. Looks good except the headlight I cleaned with wax'n'grease remover on the inside, which is now showing some awful streaking once the lights are on. Have to bite the bullet and pull it apart again to clean properly. :( Otherwise it looks Horn!

Just thought I'd pipe in here with anyone considering this mod also considering taping off the convex surround of the projector to keep the chrome part Don't bother. I took heaps of time masking off this area with high quality masking tape and started painting. 5 hours later the tape came off, and so did most of the chrome. The coating is only extremely thin and not too strong. Normally I'd blame poor quality masking tape on this but with only 5 hours of cool ambient temp using 3m masking tape, I don't think I'd have much luck with anything else. So FYI, it's black or bust

I was afraid there wouldn't be enough room in the engine bay. I had a quick play with it this morning and marveled at how you got even that little bit done yesterday. Behind the dash close to a switch seems to be best - I think splicing into the sensors would be best done elsewhere as well. At least we now know this idea is viable so I will be making it a priority whilst the car's off the road, however I feel I will want at least a full day with every component ready to do it properly. <sigh> so many projects getting sidelined without any getting completed.

How about now? ZOMG!@!!@!@! Excitement. The theory stands correct. After picking up some relays, switches etc (because I was confident), I took the wiring harness off again and got to work. Firstly I have just ran a metre or so of cable from the ECU plug so it will be ready for a permanent setup, but I wanted to be absolutely sure so just connected the rears to the front input to try it out. Started the car... no CEL. Good. Drove carefully down the street.... no CEL. Good. Ripped a skid out the street... no CEL, no flashing TC light, no interruptions, big grin on face. Good. Drove on the highway for about 20km to make sure it is fine... still no CEL. Good. Headed back towards home... huge rain storm. Good. Detoured through to an industrial estate to take advantage of the fresh liquid horsepower. Spun the wheels all over the shop and went for a little bit of sliding... no CEL. Very good. End verdict. This is a plausible solution. Definitely not a task for the faint hearted though. There is not much slack on the ABS ECU wiring harness and it is a real prick to try to work with. Even with my small hands, I dread having to open the connector again to tidy it up. But all in all, In an hour or two, I will have a TC off button on my Aurion. I have noticed 2 side effects however: 1) Speedo is actually more accurate now. Quite good actually. Before at 100km/h, GPS would say 92km/h. Now it says 97km/h. 2) It's addictive. I can't believe this hasn't been tried before (to our knowledge). Congrats Daryl, this mod will be a hit with the Yanks I'll bet too! I'm still waiting on my genuine TCS switch to arrive in the mail, I need to find out whether it is a momentary or an on/off type switch before I decide on what wiring design to go with. I know how you mean with the wiring harness though, thanks to those brake lines it's a real ***** to work with. Still very excited now! I wonder if your speedo reading more accurate off the back wheels has something to do with tyre wear?

Excellent, so now we know the sensor values are different, indeed actually preferable to what we want to do. I do agree it's odd that the range is different to what the manual specifies - it would seem to suggest that it's always out of range and the ECU doesn't care. Either way it's good for us. Now we can only hope by piggybacking the sensor inputs we can the desired result - as much wheel spin as possible. If this works I was thinking of drawing up and making a proper PCB with soldered relays etc (small, solid state ones = immediate switching, no noise and hopefully reliability) and also a small footprint that can hang off the skid control ECU without looking like ****. The software is readily available after all. Reckon you'll have a result by tomorrow Daryl?

sudden change- work has called and virtually begged me to come in and I really can't afford to say no. Sorry guys, hopefully I can at least come out on Thursday night.

Had enough of your Ford venture already? Or just planning on keeping it as a weekend car?

When "switched on", the front speed sensors are disconnected and the ECU input is connected to the rear sensors. One for one. So on the ECU, the FR and RR input gets it's signal from the RR sensor, and the FL and RL input gets it's signal from the RL sensor. In theory, one sensor should have enough of an AC output to drive both inputs, but once again, it can only be determined by trying. Daryl just wondering are you going to first temporarily wire up the front sensor inputs to the rear sensors themselves without a switching circuit just to make sure the ECU accepts those different signals before going through the effort of wiring in a switch etc? I was going to do that myself today as I don't have the needed relays/switches yet, however I can't actually take the car onto the road to see if it will now spin the front wheels without activating the TCS.

count me in, work roster looks okay for the Friday night. Anyone I can scab a lift with?

I've tracked down the wiring to the skid control ECU in the engine bay, only thing that's stopping me right now is a lack of wires/relays etc. Plus it seems as though Toyota used the same color wiring for different components at the same plug so I'll have to remove the wheels and use a multimeter to tell each sensor's wiring apart at the ecu end. The biggest issue though with me is that I can only test the completed circuit for error codes etc. I can't actually test its function on the street :(

It is definitely the option that carries the less risk, however is far more complicated to wire up and would require someone knowledgeable with micro-controllers etc. It also carries less on-the-fly flexibility than option 2. I've been reading over the factory manual time and again and it seems it's very difficult to cause damage to the ECU, neigh on impossible, simply by messing around with the sensor inputs. It's got so many logic safeguards that if it doesn't like what it sees it simply disables that function and logs an error code. I'd only be concerned if I was adding a new Earth or power source to a sensor line. As for the resistance issue, ideally if the rear sensor resistance was in the same range as the fronts then there would be no problem. I can only assume the accepted value is higher for the rear due to the longer wiring between the sensor and the ECU. To combat this, would it be possible to LOWER the line resistance by way of the simple circuit I've drawn below? As the signal is a pulse I can't see it being effected by this... maybe? The only other way I can think of is to double the wiring to the rear sensors, to drop the line resistance. I'm a bit confused myself so I've included both below if someone smarter and more awake than I am right now could comment?

Yeah I had been considering that - the basic circuit I've worked out makes it so that the "switch" will illuminate whenever traction control is ON, and also will default to ON every time the car is started. You will have to manually turn it off every time. Still trying to figure out a way to get some more visible warning on the cluster.

We may as well let the cat out as it's a good idea and neither have of us have actually gotten around to trying it yet. I thought option 2 was connecting the rear speed sensors, to the ECU inputs for the front wheel sensors so that even if the front wheels were spinning the ECU would think they weren't?

I'd like to embark on one more project before I get the Aurion back on the road and seek some help from other clued up individuals here. Basically my goal is to finally figure out a means to be able to switch of the blastard traction control on the Aurion. Everyone has there own reasons for wanting to do so and if you're not one of them I'd appreciate if you didn't post saying so, I'd like to keep this thread as informative as possible and reduce the clutter. I've already chatted briefly to DJKOR about this previously, and in conjunction with that I have considered several methods all of which have pros and cons as listed below 1) Switchable TCS fuse (disconnects TCS fuse circuit in simple circuit connected to a switch) Pros - Very easy to wire up Cons - Could create error code. Unlikely to be able to switch back on without restarting vehicle. If switched off whilst driving or TCS in action may cause damage to circuits/ECU/other components. 2) Connect rear speed sensors to front speed sensor inputs at flick of a switch. Pros - Nil error codes. Switchable on the fly Cons - Switching circuit needs to be quick (less than 0.05 seconds) to avoid error code. Additional wiring must have minimal effect on line resistance. Possible logic issue at ECU end due to other inputs that may be at odds with the new speed sensor signal (engine revs and gear but no apparent road speed) 3) Logic circuit that does the handbrake/foot brake sequence digitally so it's fast and easy to do at the push of a button. Pros - The ECU disables TCS so no ill effects or error codes. Cons - Requires basic logic circuit with multiple outputs. Can't be switched back on without restarting car. May not work whilst vehicle is in motion. 4) Genuine TCS switch wired up to ECU Pros - Disable TCS as the factory intended (or at least made plans to, but never wired up) Cons - Assumes such a ECU output/input exists for a switch to be wired to. I'm not 100% sure on this but don't the new US V6 Camrys have such a switch from factory? If so then it's possible that if that switch was wired up to our ECU in a similar manner it may function. However at this time I've poured all over the 2007-2009 v6 Camry factory manuals and haven't found any mention of such a switch or functionality. Of the above, unless 4 proves ultimately fruitless then I'm inclined to have a go at option 2, which I'll detail in this thread unless anyone else can figure out other ways of disabling TCS on the fly

I was thinking of making my grand return this Thursday, but due to the weather it looks ever likely to be an Albion meet so I'll give it a miss

sounds like it could possibly be transmission related, if it isn't the ABS self-check (which, if you're in park and not moving, it shouldn't be)

I'm keen for steak, however can we get a date agreed on? I'm very busy with work etc but anything can be worked out with plenty of notice

I remember trying the voice activation for my satnav unit before I sold it, I can't remember exactly how it worked but it was less functional than the US version - it was basically useless. Best thing I see in that list is the on/off switch for the VSC/TRC