Hacking the Predator
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From: Webster, TX
Hacking the Predator
Lately, I've turned my Electronics Engineering knowledge over to purpose of evil. I am unsatisfied with the way DiabloSport has a stranglehold over the Predator and it's abilities, and I'm doing something about it.
Technically, the Predator is a unremarkable piece of antiquated hardware. It's really just a OBD-II scan tool with a firmware EEPROM, a slightly more powerful processor and a chunk of storage NVRAM. I could build a clone for about $ 55 dollars in parts sourced from Newark. Then again, does it really need to be all that sophisticated? Nope. The computer in our trucks aren't really mini-Cray's, either.
What I can tell you so far from my probing is:
* The NVRAM capacity of the predator is 10,144,000 bits or 1.268 Megabytes. NVRAM is where the "tunes" are stored.
that equates to 6 tunes, however I believe 256K is reserved for tune modifications and or the stock program, therefore about 4 tunes in memory should be possible.
* The EEPROM (for firmware) is a 4MBIT EEPROM, (512K) and about 384K of it is used.
The first thing I am going do to is eliminate the annoying messages that pop up during the ECU programing process. I need to first run a binary character conversion on it to get the correct character codes, as it isn't using ASCII. I don't believe the code has encryption, but if it does, it's not going to be too difficult to break.
Technically, the Predator is a unremarkable piece of antiquated hardware. It's really just a OBD-II scan tool with a firmware EEPROM, a slightly more powerful processor and a chunk of storage NVRAM. I could build a clone for about $ 55 dollars in parts sourced from Newark. Then again, does it really need to be all that sophisticated? Nope. The computer in our trucks aren't really mini-Cray's, either.
What I can tell you so far from my probing is:
* The NVRAM capacity of the predator is 10,144,000 bits or 1.268 Megabytes. NVRAM is where the "tunes" are stored.
that equates to 6 tunes, however I believe 256K is reserved for tune modifications and or the stock program, therefore about 4 tunes in memory should be possible.
* The EEPROM (for firmware) is a 4MBIT EEPROM, (512K) and about 384K of it is used.
The first thing I am going do to is eliminate the annoying messages that pop up during the ECU programing process. I need to first run a binary character conversion on it to get the correct character codes, as it isn't using ASCII. I don't believe the code has encryption, but if it does, it's not going to be too difficult to break.
Last edited by Master Of Pain; Oct 21, 2004 at 12:17 PM.
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 4,297
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From: Clifton, NJ, USA
I'd be very careful about marketing anything you toy with on your own. The rediculous DMCA act has some very sctrct (and just as ludicrous) anti-reverse-engineering laws in it.
Tim, our friendly lawyer, may be able to shed more light on it.
--Daniel
Tim, our friendly lawyer, may be able to shed more light on it.
--Daniel