MoTeC Global Forum

My friend bought an Australian 1996 Turbo'ed Land Cruiser that came along with an M4 serial number 2244 that was installed as a piggy back on the stock ECU. We now rewired it to work as a stand alone but are not able to connect to it.

I made sure the power lines are good by testing the 5V output from Motec which is working. Since it had a female serial cable I quickly plugged in my USB to Serial adapter but couldn't establish connection. Googling around a bit brought up to me that the pre 3000 serial numbers are TTL and not RS232. I had a bluetooth module that I have been using on TTL's for quite some time but couldn't get that to work with the M4 either. Saw a nice clip on youtube showing how to turn your arduino into a TTL to USB (by grounding the reset pin) and that didn't connect as well. Finally, I had a true TTL to USB cable based on the CP2102 chip that came along with the Arduino Pro Mini that doesn't have the RS232 chip embedded. Results? No, that didn't work either!

Software used was EMP M4-V6.2 on windows 7. Although didn't find anywhere in the Motec software to change the baud rate still went in the device manager and changed the baud rate to 19200. Bottom line is that I tried everything I could possibly think of! Tried to even get something out of it using Hyperterminal but didn't see a bit of response at any give baud rates.

Ripped open the Female D9 and saw that the wiring was as follows:

Serial D9 Motec M4
=============================
Pin 2 Green Pin 22
Pin 3 Blue Pin 23
Pin 5 Yellow Pin 21

Based on the Motec's D9 Connections manual, it says that the above setup should only be for post 3000 series. For the pre 3000 series a Male connector should be there and the difference in these are that pin 5 of the D9 becomes pin 11 of M4 (Red) which is the serial ground. If these idiots identified each pin with their correct labels it would make life a lot easier.

If you want to learn how to complicate things you need to graduate from the Motec school. You might want to call this prejudice but I careless, I know the top guy in Motec is some smart guy in his own pants but the dumbest guy in the world that he doesn't know about.

Please if somebody can help me out with this connection it would save me from binning this shiny piece of useless crap.

I advise you to stop now and move onto an ECU that's been made in the last 15 years. It's very difficult to keep the older EMP software running as computers and operating systems are moving forward. Can it be done - yes, should you do it -- no.

Wish I could stop.

For some tech handymen like me staring at a device laying on the table without the ability to make it work brings a strange feeling. Almost like an impotent man staring...

OK, but here is an example of what you're in for:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2811

Posting useless bad comments about a product is a surefire way to get no help.

The drawings are quite clear, use one set of pins for above 3000 ECU's which don't need a PCI cable. Below 3000 you need the PCI cable.

Just go out and get a PCI cable cable and the recommended USB to RS232 adapter from MoTeC. The combination is known to work.....

Hi, I can confirm you need the PCI cable to connect to the older M4's. We've done this recently with a 3.7 version of the M4. The next challenge you will run into, is upgrading it to the latest version. For that you need an additional SUU connector. I know someone who has this unit, but you first need the PCI-cable!