SWAS - How to disable

[Dano]

So we’ve been seeing a lot more cars experiencing erratic rich conditions which are typically in the lower gears and at throttle tip in or between gear changes. This CAN be caused by enabling LC/FFS but it can also be caused by the SWAS [Steering Wheel Angle Sensor] kicking in and switching the logic to alternate tables which causes the car to fall flat on its face. You don’t even need to be turning the wheel for this to happen or perhaps a very slight turn induced by TQ steer will trigger the SWAS.

Disabling TCS/DSC does not disable SWAS unfortunately so the only way to disable it is to unplug it. A very easy task I’ll outline now. No pics cuz its just too easy

Edit: 09/09/11 DISCLAIMER ::: DISABLE THE SWAS AT YOUR OWN RISK

so I had a lil fun the other day on a freeway exit ramp that was due to disabling the SWAS and thought it worth mentioning. So without the SWAS enabled DSC is truly blind/deactivated unlike just pushing the DSC switch which actually just disables traction control and does nothing to disable stability control. on to the story.

a curved exit ramp [actually a partial clover leaf] I routinely exit at higher than posted speeds I typically run that ramp to the edge of control...just before tire squeal...well this time...way before any hint of squeal the car decided to rotate the ass end around a la @FreeFlyFreak video from years ago. I didn't go quite that far but suffice to say I was drifting in a FWD car LOL. Power application was needed to straighten her up and by the time I got to the light at the bottom of the ramp I had barely got her straight and skidded to a stop...ROFL...it was funny to see the looks on the peoples faces waiting at the light

anyway point is, in the past DSC was apparently kicking in on that ramp and applying brake pressure to control the car and without SWAS is was not. For the road racers/ autox guys out there with difficulty getting the car to rotate, i wonder if they are disconnecting the SWAS.





Doing this from memory so here goes.

Gen 2 version can be found here: Thanks @Monotonous ONE for the writeup

SWAS - DISCONNECT ON A GEN2

Step 1: Disconnect your battery and drain all fluids [ just kidding about the fluids but DO DISCONNECT THE BATTERY!!!] Then wait for 15 minutes to ensure there is no power left in the system. We will be working around the air bag connector which could cause the air bag to deploy and we don’t want that.

Step 2: remove the lower portion of the dash by pulling kinda out and down at the top seem right under the instrument cluster. It will pop lose fairly easily. Next remove the hood release cable mount from the bottom, a Phillips screw holds it in. Now the lower dash panel will be out of your way.

Step 3: You can now reach the 3rd of all 3 screws for the lower steering column cover. Once the screws are out you can pop the cover down and disconnect it from the top half. You will need to pull it to the passenger side to clear the ignition switch then is comes completely off. You will see a bright yellow wiring harness [Air bag] and just underneath that one is the SWAS connector. Don’t disconnect the yellow harness. Pull the connector down to unplug it then tuck the harness back up into the column and put everything back in reverse order.

No more car falling on its face now.

The little car squiggly will always be on now in the dash...a small price to pay for power.

I still always disable TSC/DCS when I get in the car.

Up next, I’ll try to figure out a way to auto disable TCS/DSC. I have seen it done somewhere on here with some sort of relay. If you know how please PM me.

what happens when air bag goes off

russian airbag test - YouTube

russian airbag test - YouTube

[Tokay444]

Thanks.
In for reading in detail later while not drinking.

[Metal409]

I've honestly never unhooked the battery on the couple cars we've done this to, but safety first. For what it's worth, could have been a fluke, but over this last winter I had the sensor still disabled. Coming home one night, the roads were freezing over and coming down a side street there was a slight arc in the road (center was higher). The car started to slide a little and from what I could tell the DSC freaked out not knowing where the wheel was pointed. The back end kept forcing itself to come around and no matter what I tried to do I could feel the car fighting me. Ended up turning DSC off, letting the tires hit the gravel/dirt/snow on the side of the road and forcing it to straighten out the car. Drove the rest of the way home with DSC off with no problems. I never had that problem before. So for winter I hook the bitch back up. lol.

[Titanknight]

Good to know cause this has happened to me b4 and i had no clue... thx for write up but some pics would be nice for us who are not very auto savy

[Dano]

I was told to disco the battery and so I did LOL

I don't want a face full of air bag. When you are RIGHT there...it would prab take you head off

have you seen the video where some russians set off a bag under a guy sitting on some tires???? holy shit!!! It launched his ass 5 feet into the air...I need to look that up and put in OP for a safety video.

edit: OP updated with said vid.

[Post pwned]

In-

[helmetface]

I've seen that video it was lols then and its lols now

thanks for the post

[NJSPEED3]

This thread should have been made a long time ago! great write up Dano

Keep up the good fight Perm squad!!

[Monotonous ONE]

I just did this to mah gen2

Thanks to dano

Imma make a gen2 how to shortly. I took a couple pics but it really is self explanatory.

[Monotonous ONE]

SWAS - DISCONNECT ON A GEN2

heres mah gen2 thread with pictures


dunno how similar the gen1 and 2 are...maybe it could help others...i dunno

[redbathtub]

Pictures of a 1st gen from another thread:

[djuosnteisn]

Is it just 3 wires? If so, i wonder if the sensor wire could be extended to a switch mounted elsewhere.... that'll make it easy to connect / disconnect in the future.

Oh and i made an auto DSC off circuit for jmhinkle a long time ago. I could always make more if people wanted them.

[Monotonous ONE]

interesting how gen1 and 2 are so completely different

but you can see why i made the mistake i did based on the description w/o pictures

[Dano]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn Is it just 3 wires? If so, i wonder if the sensor wire could be extended to a switch mounted elsewhere.... that'll make it easy to connect / disconnect in the future. Oh and i made an auto DSC off circuit for jmhinkle a long time ago. I could always make more if people wanted them.

I honestly don't remember for sure how many wires there were but for some reason i wanna think 6. I'll take another look and confirm.

oh and I do want the DSC circuit....yes it will be 47576857394575948373 on your list but it would be cool to have.

[djuosnteisn]

I can build some up. If i'm gonna do a bunch i'll actually order boards. The circuit i made would essentially "single press" the dsc for you a couple seconds after start up. But still allowed for the driver to press it later to enable / disable at their leisure. So it kinda just changed the functionality to a "press if you want DSC", instead of "press if you don't".

[Dano]

exactly!!!

[XRJoe]

Are there tables in the ECU dedicated to limiting load/boost based on SWAS input or a multiplier table that limits load/boost based on the values pulled from the sensor?

I wonder if they could be tuned with ATR to still have the SWAS work in extreme conditions like @Metal409 mentioned above, but not cause the car to lose power under spirited driving.

[djuosnteisn]

I'm sure the tables are in there, but i'm not sure about the priority it has on Cobb's radar. AFAIK, there are other bigger fish to fry first.

[Dano]

Cobb has tried to remove some of the "nannies" by making all the DBW tables match as well as CL exit tables in the later version of OTS maps but it doesn't effect the SWAS as of yet.

the conditions that occur when the SWAS kicks in would seem to be driven by a multitude of tables. Fuel and timing for sure and I would suspect DBW could be an easy table to control power but IDK for sure.

[Dano]

OP updated with the below DISCLAIMER story

so I had a lil fun the other day on a freeway exit ramp that was due to disabling the SWAS and thought it worth mentioning. So without the SWAS enabled DSC is truly blind/deactivated unlike just pushing the DSC switch which actually just disables traction control and does nothing to disable stability control. on to the story.

a curved exit ramp [actually a partial clover leaf] I routinely exit at higher than posted speeds I typically run that ramp to the edge of control...just before tire squeal...well this time...way before any hint of squeal the car decided to rotate the ass end around a la @FreeFlyFreak video from years ago. I didn't go quite that far but suffice to say I was drifting in a FWD car LOL. Power application was needed to straighten her up and by the time I got to the light at the bottom of the ramp I had barely got her straight and skidded to a stop...ROFL...it was funny to see the looks on the peoples faces waiting at the light

anyway point is, in the past DSC was apparently kicking in on that ramp and applying brake pressure to control the car and without SWAS is was not. For the road racers/ autox guys out there with difficulty getting the car to rotate, i wonder if they are disconnecting the SWAS.

[frivolous_rob]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn I can build some up. If i'm gonna do a bunch i'll actually order boards. The circuit i made would essentially "single press" the dsc for you a couple seconds after start up. But still allowed for the driver to press it later to enable / disable at their leisure. So it kinda just changed the functionality to a "press if you want DSC", instead of "press if you don't".

Is there anyway to reroute the button, like put it to one of the radio controls on the steering wheel? so us 3's can launch first and second with trac on and then disable it for 3rd?

[Tokay444]

So dano, when you say you used to disable traction control, were just pushing the button, or were you doing the hold while starting the car method? Because I've never had a problem with the car rotating before. Meaning, that snap oversteer has tried to kill me more than once.
Could unplugging swas, be the equivalent of holding the button while starting the car?

[Dano]

hum...possibly...I heard the "rumor" about holding the DSC button down while starting but never took the time to really test out the theory.

I was only referring to hitting the button after start up.

"snap oversteer" is EXACTLY what happened.

[AZSPEED3]

Perm crew comes through again with yet another MS3 break through. Damn without out you guys the MS3/6 community would not be where we are today. Big thanks.

[Tokay444]

Yeah. My car has almost killed me a couple times from that. I tested the button pressing options in a snowy parking lot, but it was to slippery to bs conclusive. I will say this definitively though. When you press and hold the button on start up, snap over steer is prevalent in a long highspeed sweeper. I've learned to deal with it now that I'm expecting it. I'm gonna try it out with JUST pushing the button and report back. We may not need to go to all the work of disconnecting the swas all together.

[djuosnteisn]

Originally Posted by Tokay444 Yeah. My car has almost killed me a couple times from that. I tested the button pressing options in a snowy parking lot, but it was to slippery to bs conclusive. I will say this definitively though. When you press and hold the button on start up, snap over steer is prevalent in a long highspeed sweeper. I've learned to deal with it now that I'm expecting it. I'm gonna try it out with JUST pushing the button and report back. We may not need to go to all the work of disconnecting the swas all together.

Good idea. Curious on the results. It would be cool if you could video tape em lol.

[Tokay444]

I probably could video tape it. I hais miniDV cam. Just gotta fab a mounting solution.

[djuosnteisn]

V
I
D
E
O
Z


I'll get some if you get some

[Tokay444]

Ok. I'll get on this this week. I was really hoping to get these potenzas through till I put my snows on, but I guess that's out of the question.

[xcoldricex]

i did this a few months ago and was wondering why i waited so long to do this. best free mod ever.

no more trying to pull out onto a busy road quickly only to have the car fall on it's face because the ecu decides to cut boost when you're turning out of a drive

and dustin - would be interested in that board!

[Erich]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn I'm sure the tables are in there, but i'm not sure about the priority it has on Cobb's radar. AFAIK, there are other bigger fish to fry first.

Is unfortunate, because imo this is a pretty big fish.

Originally Posted by Dano Cobb has tried to remove some of the "nannies" by making all the DBW tables match as well as CL exit tables in the later version of OTS maps but it doesn't effect the SWAS as of yet. the conditions that occur when the SWAS kicks in would seem to be driven by a multitude of tables. Fuel and timing for sure and I would suspect DBW could be an easy table to control power but IDK for sure.

I would have to think there are single value tables for SWAS 1st and 2nd gear limiting. The way it behaves, this would seem logical... oh wait a second, forgot we were talking about the MS3 ECU here. Never mind.

[silvapain]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn I can build some up. If i'm gonna do a bunch i'll actually order boards. The circuit i made would essentially "single press" the dsc for you a couple seconds after start up. But still allowed for the driver to press it later to enable / disable at their leisure. So it kinda just changed the functionality to a "press if you want DSC", instead of "press if you don't".

Just FYI, ZZP makes one of those for the TC button on GTPs. It should work on our cars for the DSC.

http://zzperformance.com/grand_prix/...=645&catid=107


I've made it a habit of holding the DSC button when starting the car to illuminate both the DSC and TC warning indicators.

Tapadatass

[Dano]

Originally Posted by Erich I would have to think there are single value tables for SWAS 1st and 2nd gear limiting. The way it behaves, this would seem logical... oh wait a second, forgot we were talking about the MS3 ECU here. Never mind.

exactly LOL

I don't think it could be a singled value table b/c it would have to alter normal timing/fuel and I would guess the throttle plate, all at the same time. at least that's my thinking.

IDK maybe just the throttle plate slams shut but IIRC I didn't see anything like that.

[Erich]

I actually meant a single value for at which angle it occurs. Seems to be .000001 for 1st gear.

[djuosnteisn]

Originally Posted by silvapain Just FYI, ZZP makes one of those for the TC button on GTPs. It should work on our cars for the DSC. ZZ Performance I've made it a habit of holding the DSC button when starting the car to illuminate both the DSC and TC warning indicators. Tapadatass

Holy crap, they're charging $34 for that thing lol. Maybe i should put one together then.

[silvapain]

My guess is it's simply a 555 timer wired up as a monostable oscillator. A couple bucks for a timer, capacitor, and a couple resistors.


Tapadatass

[Dano]

Originally Posted by Erich I actually meant a single value for at which angle it occurs. Seems to be .000001 for 1st gear.

Hahah. Yes it does.


Tappin

[djuosnteisn]

Originally Posted by silvapain My guess is it's simply a 555 timer wired up as a monostable oscillator. A couple bucks for a timer, capacitor, and a couple resistors. Tapadatass

Has to be a one shot. With a long delay on the trigger. I did mine with op amps, but a 555 can easily do the same thing.

But honestly.... for $35, i'd use a $1.00 micro and let the damn thing be configurable hahahaha.

[Dano]

Btw

After 500 miles with SWAS discoed I have had zero stumble. This is now conclusive IMO

SWAS=SUCKS.

Until we can configure either the steering angle trigger or how much power it removes.


Tappin

[Erich]

Originally Posted by Dano Btw After 500 miles with SWAS discoed I have had zero stumble. This is now conclusive IMO SWAS=SUCKS. Until we can configure either the steering angle trigger or how much power it removes. Tappin

100% agree. Didn't need 500 miles either. Just twice WOT in 1st gear was enough to convince me.