# Sensitivity of Canbus



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

So, added a tuner to my pickup truck mainly disable that stupid 4 cylinder mode, but now I also have control over the auxiliary fan. Folks over at the Ram Forums claim to drop the engine driven fan and replace both with an electric fan from a V6 Ram. Issue is you have to disable the grill shutters so they stay open, I have to option of turning the warning light off if I went that route with the flash tuner.

Question is this, instead of removing the grill to unplug the harness for the grill shutter motor, default is open when ignition is off, then removing the grill to plug it back in for winter, couldn't a person simply install a high quality toggle switch in the harness outside the shroud? Tiger Direct has toggles with gold plated contacts. I'm not sure it's even really can bus on the motor, only two wires to it but the PCM can sense wide open and fully shut from amp draw I imagine. Sooner or later I just know gonna bust that pretty chrome plated grill up.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Why not just unplug the motor while it’s open, does it have a spring or hydraulic mechanism to rest at closed and only opens when voltage is applied? Does it ever have to close again?


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Alfaobd might work to set it.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> Why not just unplug the motor while it's open, does it have a spring or hydraulic mechanism to rest at closed and only opens when voltage is applied? Does it ever have to close again?


Gets cold here in the winter, they added the shutters to both get the transmission warm faster and the engine. To unplug it requires removing the grill, sooner or later gonna bust something on that grill. I ditched the stupid 203F factory thermostat in favor of a more sane 192, just driving around it never gets much above the 192, however grab a trailer and she'll climb pretty quick with the factory fan clutch as it doesn't ever seem to lock up till it gets stupid hot. The torque converter in this 8 speed is technically always locked when moving so doesn't warm up very well on its own, runs 40-50 degrees cooler than the one in my cummins when the converter wasn't locked, course in the cummins when the converter locked was practically another gear.

Default position is open, I've popped the grill to confirm this. Hit the remote start and watch it close, hit remote start again and shut the truck off and they open.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

slowzuki said:


> Alfaobd might work to set it.


Not from what I read, the shutter control code is buried very deep somewhere in a module, none of the flash tuners or on board tuners can control it, none of the custom or pre wrote tunes for sale can control it, all the custom tunes can do is deactivate the check engine light if its unplugged. In the warm states there is all kinds of hacks to remove the motor from the shutters and add a couple shim stacks to control movement of it so it thinks its still on the shutters. Some guys just remove the shutters from the frame and leave the motor and the control rail, again in states like California, Arizona etc thats fine and dandy.

I looked into ALFAOBD, only works on Android and Windows computers, I won't give my money to phone racists...


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Interesting, got another reply over a Ram Forums from a tech guy, that shutter motor has three wires, which I will confirm at the plug. Power, ground and a limbus/signal wire, tech guy says to put the toggle in the ground wire.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Its quite a powerful tool, but alpha/beta sort of software. Can control every module on all the buses, but can also brick them if you mess up.



mlappin said:


> Not from what I read, the shutter control code is buried very deep somewhere in a module, none of the flash tuners or on board tuners can control it, none of the custom or pre wrote tunes for sale can control it, all the custom tunes can do is deactivate the check engine light if its unplugged. In the warm states there is all kinds of hacks to remove the motor from the shutters and add a couple shim stacks to control movement of it so it thinks its still on the shutters. Some guys just remove the shutters from the frame and leave the motor and the control rail, again in states like California, Arizona etc thats fine and dandy.
> 
> I looked into ALFAOBD, only works on Android and Windows computers, I won't give my money to phone racists...


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

slowzuki said:


> Its quite a powerful tool, but alpha/beta sort of software. Can control every module on all the buses, but can also brick them if you mess up.


Yes it is, but I've not seen one report of that working either, its like Ram/Dodge/Fiat or whatever the hell it is these days have the same security around the shutter controls as the nuclear launch codes.


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