Data Block Definitios for ECUs

[Buchholz, Steven]

Hooked up my ProDiag equipped Palm M505 to the ECUs in my V8s ... and was
able to communicate with each successfully and read out and cleared DTCs.
At this point I'm still coming up to speed on what it can do ... never used
a VAG1551/52 before.  It seems as though the V8Q's ECU has a rather
rudimentary interface, and since ProDiag didn't come with a model for the
V8Q there is no predefinition of the data blocks or the units in which the
values are given.  I thought I would post here to see if I could find a
reference which defines the data in the data blocks ... anyone know where I
can find this?  I looked somewhat cursorily through the service manual I
have to no avail ... I'll look in more depth over the weekend.

I was hoping that I'd be able to interface with the Instrument Cluster ECU
in the car ... but was not able to do so on either car on any of the
interface connectors.  Has anyone been able to do this with any of the other
VAG1551/52 products available?  I suspect that the reason I have been
unsuccessful is that the interface adapter that I have can only connect to
one of the connectors in the car at a time and the instrument cluster
interface is wired to two different connectors, so I'll need to make an
adaptor of some kind.

I did manage to do a bit of playing ... drove the car to get Chinese food
last night and left it connected.  Logged about 6 minutes of diagnostic
block 0 data.  The program creates Palm "memo" files for the log and you can
log events until you run out of memory.  It was a bit awkward to get the
"memo" files into a spreadsheet, but once there it was a simple matter to
plot the data values over time ... fun toy!  #344 is having a problem with
smoke screens on cold start up and I suspect the coolant temp sensor ... now
I should be able to know for sure.

I'm going to be submitting a couple feature requests to Steve and the
ShadeTreeSoftware team, but overall I think I'm going to be happy with their
product.  As I learn more I'll post a follow up with more details ...

IUD!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)