WTB: Moates Quarterhorse

[DWS]

Since PCMFlash can't read 97 and older EEC-V and EEC-IV I think trying to find a Moates Quarterhorse 2nd hand is my next best option. Anyone got one they could let go? If you just needed it to hold a custom tune, I can write that tune directly into the eec memory if it's a 98-03 computer, then no worries about the battery dying.

This is for reading the ton of computers I bought that's 97 and older and ideally to make my bin editing website better once I get the main 98+ stuff covered.

Not really my initial intentions, but I do have an oscilloscope and such, so would be interesting to monitor the communication between ecu and the QH, doubt I'd get to a point of reproducing them, but I do think it would be interesting to monitor at least, basically get an idea on how it functions some. It seems like it can read the data from within the computer, so that communication could at least make it possible to read these computers.

Anyway, if someone has one, shoot me a message and we can talk. I know coretuning has some left at $500 with BE, but already have BE and don't really need new for my needs, I'd rather save a little $$$ off the cost by buying used.

[ASEMechanic]

Moates is back online and the QH is available.

Yes, I know this post is 3 years old and you probably have it sorted. This is just in case someone else sees this.

[DWS]

Yep, I was one of the first people ordering on the relaunched website. Nice that they brought it back.

[ASEMechanic]

Yep, I was one of the first people ordering on the relaunched website. Nice that they brought it back.

Glad to gear that! I've know Craig for a long time and was kind of shocked when he and Bonnie decided to take a hiatus from the business. Good people with good products.

I've been working with Craig over the last couple months to get the bulk of the remaining features of the QH into our Minotaur (formerly PCMX) software. The amount of flexibility this has allowed for the software has been fantastic... gauges and datalogging among the two most popular new features. Craig's assistance and input has been invaluable.

Anyway, glad you're good. If there's anything we can help with, let me know. I've been tuning Fords (particularly EEC-IV and EEC-V) for almost 30 years. I have great collection of cals (close to 50k between Ford and GM) as well as a lot of archived documents and software. Always happy to help.

Take care.

[DWS]

That's really neat. I've actually been building up a database of part number, eprom sticker details, and calibrations for the EEC-IV era a bit lately.

EEC-V era 216k I've hit almost every pats version. There's some minor patch or setting changes I need to identify, like some strategies have a 3 min timeout with pats off in the engine computer, but the gauge cluster is still factory settings. Bare min I want to make the engine computer ignore that timeout, best case would be to make the gauge cluster happy so no security light flashing.

I've only been digging around these, mostly 216k era since ~2022.

I assume you don't have a sort of compiled database for part number, calibration, catch code, hwid for the computers?

I poke around the tuning side of the computers a little, but haven't fully jumped into that. I have poked around them in the context of it being sort of like an arduino, a micro controller with supporting hardware to program to do any task rather it's car related or not. Probably not too impressive, but I've made an EEC-IV computer flash an led on and off purely in code wrote from scratch, like 100% my code, no ford copyrighted code.

One thing that I've noticed is the burn2 software is kind of clunky to use for reading calibrations via J3 port. Would be nice to have a better option or something open source so users could script against it. I'm also working on an arduino reader over J3 and possibly see what else is possible. I also grabbed a FPGA to play around with actual running computers to play around with code injection and such.

This stuff has been pretty interesting to poke at, no clue if anything will come from it though.

[ASEMechanic]

I assume you don't have a sort of compiled database for part number, calibration, catch code, hwid for the computers?

This is the latest US Version of the FlashDBS Database that I have, but it still has a lot of global calibrations in it, particularly for Europe and South America.

https://thecohrons.com/downloads/docume ... _02_23.zip

I'm working on a self-service page to make the calibrations I have more easily available, but there's still quite a bit available from the Ford website. I'll post it up once I've got the page done.

Very cool stuff to make the PCM do fun stuff like that. On the surface it sounds simple, but it takes a good deal of effort to take a PCM which has almost no documentation and make it do something cool. Kudos on that.

Best of luck on the other stuff you've got going on. Sounds like you've got your hands full with the Immo stuff. I hate that Instrument cluster business. Has bitten me a couple times. If you need anything, holler.

[DWS]

The gauge cluster issue in one person's case was solved using Forscan and flipping the setting on the actual gauge cluster, basically making it no immobilizer for both gauge cluster and engine computer.

The collection I have going is mostly targeted around unique strategies. I have roughly 500 of the ~860 that exist for EEC-V 216k. The missing ones are all "outdated" ones of course, else can just grab them from Ford's site. EEC-IV era from what I can tell you cannot get from ford though.

The zip linked is a not found error (404).

A self service page would be neat. More calibrations that exist for each strategy helps define them better, and each unique strategy covered helps cover the older code bases even though technically the newer ones should function the best, the default settings might not be ideal, or features that aren't desired.

Getting past the cpu watchdog was easy, lots of examples in stock code, but getting past the hardware watchdog took a bit more investigating till I found the chip that does the reset and what line it talked on to the cpu. In the case of the hwid I was working with, it was LSO6 on the cpu, it has to pulse every few ms or it gets reset. On later EEC-V computers, I haven't worked out the HW based reset yet.

I'm hoping to document all functions each hwid supports and what pin it's tied to physically on the computer. Like the EEC-IV I talked about above with the watchdog line being on LSO6, I'm pretty sure that's also doubled as as the SPOUT signal before it's processed in hardware to go out to the EDIS.

I've noticed that these computers seem to update in waves or generations, like the EEC-IV computer design I worked out I see the chips used and basic form factor used across several hwid's even though they aren't directly related. I haven't dug into what's actually different though. The main factor for design changes seems to be around the ROM, RAM, CPU, not the rule of course, but a pattern.

If you're into a bit of hardware talk, I have a thread going here. Been a bit busy for posting much for updates.
viewtopic.php?t=9340

Here's a list of strategies I've covered so far. Any fills on the missing strategies list would always be of use. I target world wide, so AU only bins are just fine.
viewtopic.php?p=127363#p127363

From what I gather, these computers more or less all run the same orig source code. The hwid physically changes some aspects, and the code shuffles memory locations, some features are enabled vs disabled which effects how the code shows up. More or less, any 8061 code can run on any other 8061 cpu in the computer generation, it's mostly around hardware design, memory addresses, and physical pinout on the connector vs the pins from the viewpoint of the processor. In theory, there should be several computers that physically could interchange if the code was changed to match the hardware/pinout needs. I have some idea's around that stuff, but first have to get my own test os built to document hwid vs pinout vs pins from the cpu's view point, and also working out a solid way to document what pins/features a given bin actually uses for the actual interchange requirements.

I have a crappy emulator started, no clue if it will amount to anything, but taking what I learn and doing what I can with it. In theory if I work all of that out, maybe some sort of basic compiler could be created, or a bin -> source style decompiler.

Anyway, I'm always an idea's person that tends to take on too many projects, so unlimited things to do with a limited amount of time lol.

[ASEMechanic]

My bad. Fixed the link and verified it works.

I'll have to check out your topics and strategy list to see where I can help. Looks like fun!

Cheers!

[DWS]

That's an interesting file, I have something similar already but it wasn't a msdb file, might just be one of the tables of that file or something since the format is really similar.

Yea, the missing strategies will all be "outdated" calibrations, so only possible source is to read from a stock computer.