Canbus

Trying to get my head around canbus a little, I want to fit an AEM Infinity to X car but try to retain the OE wiring loom and OE cluster. I assume there's no way to create a custom can profile within the AEM Infinity so the only way to do this would be to piggyback off AEMNet and convert it to the canbus profile you wanted?

Cheers,

Andy

What is the vehicle?

We've got a couple of vehicles in mind, a Ford Focus and a Nissan Micra (don't ask). The Micra in particular requires some can signals for the benefit of the electric power steering.

What are your goals for the vehicle? Are you sure you need a standalone ECU?

Micra, we will be doing an engine swap and want to run stand-alone. Ford Focus, no, we could remap the factory ECU to achieve power and do so daily but we want to leverage some aftermarket functions like anti-lag, launch, traction strategies etc. Either way, if I was speaking hypothetically I'd still like to understand what Can Bus features, options there are and how people overcome this if they have and their experiences.

There are devices called CAN gateways or a CAN bridge for converting 1 CAN protocol and/or baud into another. However you need to understand the fundamentals of CAN well to be able to use them. Even reverse engineering the stock Micra messages could take a professional many days. Typically it wouldnt be economical for a 1 off install, if you plan to do 5 cars the same it may become more realistic.

Here's a couple of gateways:

https://www.mrs-electronic.de/en/products/detail/universal-gateway-5x-can/

https://controls.is/mpc1.html

Hey Adam,

Thanks for that, really helpful :)

Cheers,

Andy

You will need software that can read the CAN messages and you will have to reverse engineer the signals.

Have a look at the following webinars for a basic overview of CAN bus communications.

https://www.hpacademy.com/previous-webinars/102-can-communication-decoded/

https://www.hpacademy.com/previous-webinars/034-introduction-to-can-on-vipec/

What Ford Focus do you want to mess around with?

For the Mk2 there are some standalone ECU solutions.

Hi andycash, Which Micra are you looking into? I happen to use one K12 for rallying and I have already done some reverse engineering on the CANbus for data logging purposes (temps, wheel speeds, TPS, RPM,...). Let me know if you need any help.

Hey, could you please tell me also how to wire the electronic power steering of my hond L15 to the haltech elite 1500 standalone ECU?

Hi andycash,

I came across this thread again after 2 years... How far have you gone with the Micra CANbus? I have managed to reverse engineer quite a lot, so if you are still working on this topic, you can get in touch for info exchange.

Cheers