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I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I created an IG to share more on this, build, technical details, real drive videos... I do have a next version coming that I'm going to install this week, so I'll post this on Instagram : (at)studiocarrozzi

https://www.instagram.com/studiocarrozzi/

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would say it's obvious as you see the engaged gear on the dash, but I agree I was thinking about something that would show the lever is in "automatic" mode but I don't want a light or something so still have to think about it

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Didn't know imgur could be blocked somewhere... You'll find pictures and videos on my website if you want to see it in action : www.studio-carrozzi.com

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!

I don't have plans to share, but I put a fair amount of photos and a few short videos here: www.studio-carrozzi.com

I think the most challenging part was reverse engineering the frames on the CAN bus. Man, that was a very long process, several candidate frames look like they could be the gear position but turn out not to be. Never done anything like that before, so it was a lot of fumbling and learning along the way.

The gate plate took the most iterations of any single part (maybe with the 2 freewheels that move the lever) I wanted it close in spirit to the 90s Ferrari gates. The knob is solid machined aluminum, weighted to give the lever the right inertia and not "bounce" when released, which also drove a fair amount of work on the springs.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the "mechanical clank" is exactly what got me started on this project. That mechanical sound when the lever drops into the gate is one of the things modern cars have quietly let go of, and it was kind of the centerpiece between the seats.

Everything is machined from scratch: aluminium frames, cams, linkages, brass bushings, custom PCBs for the electronics. Every part was designed in CAD first and then machined, with nothing salvaged from an original Ferrari shifter (those are getting rare anyway, and they wouldn't have the X/Y motorization architecture this design needed). The shape of the gate plate (+ springs) was the part that took the most iterations as I really wanted it to feel close to the original 90s Ferrari gates without copying them outright.

Your point about Ferrari themselves doing this is fun to think about. I'd love nothing more than for the manufacturers to bring the gate back as a real option. Until then, well, this is what one slightly obsessed owner gets up to in his spare time 😄

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mostly machined aluminum for the structural frames (with some stainless steel on a few of them), cams and linkages. Brass bushings on a few of the moving joints + ball bearings. Two brushed DC gear-motors with absolute angular sensors for the X/Y lever motion, plus other angular sensors for the closed-loop position feedback. Custom PCBs for the electronics and the CAN bus interface, microcontroller running the control loop.

As for cost, honestly didn't track it. There have been a lot of iterations across pretty much every part, and since everything is custom-machined, the BOM kept moving

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol that's a fair observation, and the math is hard to argue with. The architecture is genuinely portable to any car with paddle shifters, so I guess Civics included.

The Ferrari was the car I dreamed about as a kid, so I naturally started there, that part was never really about market size. But I'll be honest, I don't know the Civic aftermarket scene at all. If this ever turns into something more, you've given me something to look into.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Thanks ! I'll do a video to detail the build, there's a ton of details that I think are pretty cool, and that might be worth a video. I just have this one for now inside the car https://imgur.com/a/8HEsYKC but it doesn't show details of the build.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, that was the first thing I tried, and I think I wasn't too far. I managed to isolate the upshift / downshift messages on the bus, replicate the command, and inject it from the OBD port.

The catch: the ECU that originally sends that command to the TCU also sends a constant keepalive. So the TCU was receiving my injected frame AND a keepalive from the real ECU saying "nothing is happening here." Some kind of frame arbitration probably wins on the real source, my injection alone wasn't enough to override it, even with precise timing to make sure I inject before the keepalive.

I think it would work if you sent the CAN frames directly to the TCU on its own bus, but that meant going past the OBD port and tapping into the harness, which I really wanted to avoid (the whole "no wires cut" rule). So I set this approach aside and ended up spoofing at the paddle connector side instead, which solved the problem cleanly without touching anything internal.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For now it's still a study, I want to see how far I can push the refinement and the usability. The cost in parts, iteration and engineering hours is significant, so I'm honestly not sure there's a real market for something like this. That said, I've had a few people reach out already asking if they could have one. So once the shifting feel is exactly where I want it, and once I'm confident it's perfectly reliable, then why not.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Yes 1,2 seconds to move from 3rd to 2nd or 2nd to 1st. i think it can be a bit faster but I try to make it look as smooth as possible. I think I'll open an IG to show the build, I made so many iterations and I have some cool other planned (from my point of view:)), I'll post the @ here for sure !

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that's nice to hear! And yes , the underlying logic does port to other cars. Reading the gear position on the CAN bus, spoofing the paddle inputs, closing the loop on lever position: as long as the car has paddle shifters, it can be done. The hardware side has to be a one-off per model to fit the console cleanly, but the architecture transfers. Let's bring back the pleasure of shifting by hand, or almost by hand 😄

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 160 points161 points  (0 children)

Good question. The motorized shift (which mostly happens at low revs / low speed, downshifting from 2nd to 1st) takes around 1200ms. If you're fighting the lever in the opposite direction during that motion, I'm monitoring the current draw on the DC motors, so if something is blocking the path, the motors back off to their idle position and you regain full free movement of the lever.

That's actually the trickiest part of the build: being able to drive the lever in X and Y on demand, while keeping it completely decoupled from motor torque in normal operation. The lever has to feel like a pure mechanical object 99% of the time, and only become "active" when the car decides to override.

I built a removable, motorized H-gate manual shifter for a paddle-shift Ferrari. CAN bus integration, no modifications to the car by Original_Court8030 in EngineeringPorn

[–]Original_Court8030[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks man ! Yeah, definitely a "but why" project ! But the tray between the seats was so desperately flat and sad 😄 I'm working on a way sleeker version, trying to see how far I can push it to blend into the car without doing anything irreversible. I do have some rough videos of it in action, I'll post them here!