I am looking to make a diagnostic and performance tool.

I have a '96 legacy GT but it doesn't have OBD-II. I have read some articles about connecting to the ECU and being able to read error codes and getting sensor information in real time, but they were a bit brief. Does anyone know more about doing this or where I could find more information?

I ideally want to build the tool to communicate with my palm pilot.

are you sure it uses the odb interface?

no I am not sure. It has several plugs under the steering column, 1 of which is green with 12 pins and mounted. I assume that this is the plug that my mechanic connects to read the error codes and get the data from the sensors.

well any car made for the us market after 95 should have airbags and ODBII. im not sure about where you live though

FWIW, a couple of my friends took two years to make a system that would read OBDII codes. The first year they made one version, then the second year made a new better version. Although I think their product does a bit more than you hope to do.

 

some details here http://www.cset.oit.edu/stuproj/view_project.aspx?id=9&class=202

 

I would think someone would already have a product like this for a palm pilot. good luck

It kind of what i am looking to do, only a bit simpler. My car is a Japanese inport so it did get the obd2 plug and protocol. I have found a couple of sites that sort of have the right infomation, http://www.scoobymonitor.co.uk/ and http://kaele.com/~kashima/car/gc8-e.html .

I am sure there must be a way to make a connector so that I can program some software to talk to my ecu.

It kind of what i am looking to do, only a bit simpler. My car is a Japanese inport so it did get the obd2 plug and protocol. I have found a couple of sites that sort of have the right infomation, http://www.scoobymonitor.co.uk/ and http://kaele.com/~kashima/car/gc8-e.html .

I am sure there must be a way to make a connector so that I can program some software to talk to my ecu.

 

It looks like that first link will be your best bet.

 

I don't know palm pilots at all, but there has to be a way to get serial input (RX & TX) to it. Once you get that figured out, you'll need the connector and some code. Since he only links to the binary file on that site, you'll have to write your own code to talk to the ECU over the serial port. Or you may be able to ask him nicely for the source code.

 

This definitely sounds like a doable project.

http://www.obdmeter.com/orobmet.html

 

 

There are a bunch of OBDII scanners that display on PDAs, $80 seems cheap enough to not warrant a lot of effort building one. $40 for the software only on this site. I'll probably be buying one, haven't done the research yet.