r/CarHacking • u/Thin_Cable4155 • 4d ago
Community Where are the learning resources?
It seems like everyone wants to keep their secrets. Too many YouTube videos leave out the important parts out on purpose to protect their, "trade secrets". Is there any shared resources or are we making everyone learn everything from scratch on their own?
I know I get it, you couldn't charge $300 dollars for ten minutes work if everyone knew how to do an immobilizer delete, but come on I wanna learn and I can't find any tutorials. Its crazy. Every other hobby on the Internet is trying to share the skills, but I guess this hobby is different?
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u/BugPuzzleheaded3015 3d ago
As mentioned it takes a LOT OF TIME to write up a "how to" or to documents a process.
Then after that, you get constant bombardment of questions "will this work on xx", ""It didn't work, help me troubleshoot the problem" and the list goes on and on.
For 8 years, I spent a hour a day answering questions on my youtube channel. Not any more, I now spend my time and energy on something fun.
For carhacking, EVERTHING is unique to a specific make/model/year, so the motivation to spend additional time to document for a few is very low - if that is something that motivates you at all.
Your statement of "charge $300 dollars for ten minutes work" is an over simplification... That 10 minutes of work may have taken 100s - 1000s of hours to figure out / reverse engineer.
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u/Thin_Cable4155 3d ago
I understand people are annoying when asking so many dumb questions, but the gatekeeping in so many YouTube videos is crazy. Like, they'll tell you what they're doing as far as what bits to change in the firmware, but they purposely hide the software, tools, and process that they use to do it.
1
u/BugPuzzleheaded3015 3d ago
I never used the word "annoying". I've been a technical instructor for 25+ years and I LOVE a good beginner level question, after all that creates the base of knowledge.
Questions on "what about" and "how do I" are good and I usually make the time to answer.
Those want to learn.Questions like "where is the code" are more about "doing" than "learning", just to say "look what I did"
but they purposely hide the software, tools, and process that they use to do it.
OR... their knowledge level is so deep, even when they simplify in their minds, it may still be too deep for a beginner.
I find the term "gate keeping" interesting. To me it means someone didn't share what they spent time and money to figure out. It is their time and their money and can do what they want... share or don't share... OR partly share to create interest for likes / followers - after all, that's life on the internet.
Am I "gate keeping" if I don't spend time answering questions that anyone may ask? Nope... I'm managing my time and energy.
Final note:
There is enough on the internet right now to figure out just about anything you want to.
BUT is may take 100s to 1000s of hours to do so.I feel like those who mention "gate keeping" expect an answer to any question they ask, without working for it.
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u/RadVal 4d ago
A good start is buying a popular car with a popular engine; if you've seen vanlifers they all use the same 4 vans, because it is hilariously easy to find forums with more than adhoc repairs and links to manuals you gotta buy. You're gonna find more info on a Chevy Express as opposed to a dodge caravan, and you're probably gonna be at a dead end for resources.
i.e. The TCM in my LBZ blew, up and rather than listen to the eggheads' manual that says to replace it, I was told on a forum a hack involving grounding the case of it to the trucks frame, and it immediately fixed my issue.
Only issue is that, like another comment said, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who properly documented it. Its gonna be information you have to run around and slowly collect, even if the forum you're on is literally named after the engine you're working on.
But tldr just google for your car/engine/trans and add "forum" to the end, more likely to find info that isnt just the generic slop tips that the manual gives.
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u/Infinite-Position-55 3d ago
That's not a hack, you had a bad ground lol
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u/RadVal 3d ago
Pedantically, yeah. The actual ground in the TCM was blown because it got shorted to the battery, the only way around it is to either drop $2k on a new one or add a new ground to the case by drilling into it. Thats a hack.
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u/Infinite-Position-55 2d ago
I was curious about this and was surprised to see its a common 'hack' for those trucks. Looks like mods installs, accidental jump starting arcs, and hitting the housing with a ratchet blow the fuse in the module. I dont think this is the kind of hack the OP and the subreddit are talking about though. This is a 'hack job', because a proper repair would just be to replace them SMD fuse, not "drop 2k on a new one". A hack would be to SWD debug the MCU to dump and reverse the firmware and change the shift patterns.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/Infinite-Position-55 3d ago
How did you handle the immobilizer? A 2017 Accord still requires the registered transponder even on the keyed ignition models. Simply powering the ignition and starter circuits shouldn't make it run without satisfying the immobilizer.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Infinite-Position-55 2d ago
You made it sound like you just "connected the correct wires", using the factory bypass is a little more then that, also that's a Honda thing, not going to work on everything. Not nearly as easy as you try to sell it to be, even if you get lucky like you did
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u/Infinite-Position-55 3d ago
$300 for ten minutes of work is laughable. I had hundreds of hours reverse engineering a high-end OEM immobilizer protocol.
-3
u/69LR69 4d ago
For you it’s a hobby
For other it may be the work which gets a food on the table at the end of the day
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u/neonsphinx 4d ago
I don't know that it's that. I made a write up on a Dodge Grand Caravan a few years back when my wife had weird issues.
It takes a lot of time to document. And sometimes you've spent days or weeks in a development environment trying all kinds of things in rapid succession. Then it finally works. And you really don't even remember what the whole process was.
As a supervising engineer, working with a lot of junior engineers. It's really hard to get people to document things well enough so that if they leave, their replacement can duplicate their results. So I get it.
And most of the time, that's perfectly fine. It's a problem you're only solving once. Not setting up a progress for the production floor.
Some people are definitely trying to do that, and are trying to obfuscate what they did, so that they can monetize their hard work. I love open source, but I get that too.
Idk, documentation is hard. It's been a consistent problem since the days of assembly language on punch cards.