[dstrickland]

Guys,

Does anyone know exactly how the DS mode is activated when moving the shifter to the left.

Point asking is I've been thinking about trying to find a way to make the mode accessible through the voice recognition button on the steering wheel being I don't have that option installed.

After watching a repair video on the shifter, I see something is mechanically moving but is it just grounding a wire & connecting something?

Any ideas?

[Misty]

i know the wire under the shift boot has something to do with it the little blue plug in the illuminates the orange led

[tlow98]

Interesting idea! I like it.

[JayTriggy14]

This would be a cool project! You could leverage some of the M button functionality from the E92 M3. Taking a look on how it engages m mode would definitely be a great first step.

[dstrickland]

The m3 is a different shifter, transmission, wiring harness, engine & DME .So learning the functionality of one wouldn't be something I could apply to the e90 streptonic.

[cdgatti]

i find it petty easy to pull the shifter over to the left. sometimes you should pick your battles wisely.

[dstrickland]

It absolutely easy to move the shifter over, but when you've had the car for so long, doing fun mods is what keeps the car interesting.

[cdgatti]

agreed, just saying you might want to stick with the many fun diy in that folder that are tried and true fun mods.

[tlow98]

Cars can be fixed and I don't use half the damn buttons anyway.

Moving the shifter over is an annoyance.

The downside for me is that I would need the paddles to take full advantage. Hmmmmm

[dstrickland]

Bump....

Has anything put any thought into this? Maybe someone knows how the paddles work? Is it simply just grounding the signal? Maybe we can move the paddle functions to the steering wheel buttons?

[hassmaschine]

the steering wheel buttons communicate over CAN. it's not just grounding a wire - it sends a signal over the CAN network when you are pressing a button. It's not impossible but you would have to hack into the CAN bus and figure all of that out.

[dstrickland]

So Ive got something Im going to try today. Heading out to grab a 335I sport wheel with paddles in just a few minutes to test..

So we've all see the paddle shift retrofit blah blah blah, and switching the paddles function from 335i style(each paddle can upshift(pull) or downshift(push) to M3 style(Left paddle downshift, right paddle upshift) is as simple as disconnecting/switching some wires at the paddle/multifunction button connector.

Ive already helped a few local guys do the paddle shift retrofit & convert it M3 style, thus leaving the "push" function on each paddle empty. After looking at the attached diagram, we already know on the 4 pin connector under the gear selector pin 2=downshift, pin 3=upshift, what hasnt been played with is pin4 which is EGS_MGA. Pin 1 seems to just go to the gear indicator lighting.

My thought is to see about wiring pin 4, to the "push" function of the paddle & see if it activates sport"ds" mode. Im certain if it does, to keep it active youll have to actually hold the paddle forward to keep the circuit grounded, but if we can get it to actually activate, finding a way to integrate into a button somewhere to stay grounded shouldnt be an issue.

[dstrickland]

Got the sport wheel picked up. Hopefully will have an airbag tomorrow. Opened up the trunk & pulled the wiring with the pins from where the mulf unit would be if I had Bluetooth to use as the wiring harness.

I've confirmed that pin 4 initiates sport "DS" mode. I pulled the pin, put the car in drive, grounded it & DS activated.

As of now, I've got the "push" function on both paddles disabled & have it wired dct/lci style. Im going to wire the DS mode to activate when either paddle is pushed. Problem is to hold it in sport, the paddle with have to stay pushed forward.

Not ideal, but will do until I find something that looks or operates OEM-like. Once I get the sport airbag & get everything wired up, I'll open up my old steering wheel buttons & see if I can come up with a way to activate/deactivate a continuous ground when pressing the button.

[mad1stgen]

Excellent work. Ever since the N54 swap and finding myself driving in the sport mode, I've been thinking about it. Honestly I wouldnt mind the S mode on all the time, so a simple hidden switch would work excellent for my driving style.

I wonder what circuit is built into the DCT shifter with the separate sport button. Maybe you can utilize it ? It would be such a great upgrade.

Another option would be a latched relay.

[dstrickland]

Originally Posted by mad1stgen

Excellent work. Ever since the N54 swap and finding myself driving in the sport mode, I've been thinking about it. Honestly I wouldnt mind the S mode on all the time, so a simple hidden switch would work excellent for my driving style.

I wonder what circuit is built into the DCT shifter with the separate sport button. Maybe you can utilize it ? It would be such a great upgrade.

Another option would be a latched relay.

Alright guys, going to need some help troubleshooting. I guess I don't understand the paddles as well as I thought I did.

If you guys watch the various diys, you'll see how the basic wiring goes. For dct style paddles you do the following. Keep in mind, there are 3 pins per paddle.

Right paddles- remove pin 1. This disables downshifting with the "push" function.

Left paddle- remove pin 3, move pin 1 into pin 3, this takes the downshifting & moves it to the "pull" function, and disables the push function.

Based on this, my thought was obvious, pin 1 is connected to the push function right? Wrong....

Based on the above set up(only pins 2 & 3 being used), and switch the pins to only 1&2 being used, all it does is switch the paddles(left is up, right is downshift). Based on how you go from standard to dct style, you would think moving to pin 3 would disable pull & make them push only right?

Does anyone understand these paddles better?

[dstrickland]

Some progress. It appears the "push" function of the paddle acts as a slave. You can't have "just push".

Basically you can set it up however you like, left paddle can be up/downshift for either push or pull, same for left paddle, as long as the you have the pull function set up to your liking.

I ran out of daylight, and didn't get to test to see if I can activate DS while having the pull functions set up properly, I was too consumed moving wires all around to figure out how the circuit worked. But I'm fairly certain that the push DS function will work not that I have the pulls set up as left/downshift, right/upshift.

I'm building the relay harness now so that just tapping the "push" on either paddle will hold a continuous ground for keeping the car in sport as well & another tap putting it in drive(D).

This is especially important because I'm an 06 model & the paddles only work with DS activated. The entire goal here is to move all sport, manual shifting functions to the wheel.

[dstrickland]

I'm in the home stretch here, there's one final piece to the puzzle, and it may be a tough one.

I have everything function properly, left pull/downshift, right pull upshift, pushing on either paddle activates sport through a relay harness that keeps it activated until you push one of the paddles again.

The problem is, I've got to find a way for the DS wire to not get tangled when turning the wheel. The paddles don't get tangled because there are actually pins for them in the steering column & clock spring, unfortunately there aren't anymore pins available.

Anyone have any ideas how to bypass a clock spring for the extra wire?

[siphor1989]

Originally Posted by dstrickland

I'm in the home stretch here, there's one final piece to the puzzle, and it may be a tough one.

I have everything function properly, left pull/downshift, right pull upshift, pushing on either paddle activates sport through a relay harness that keeps it activated until you push one of the paddles again.

The problem is, I've got to find a way for the DS wire to not get tangled when turning the wheel. The paddles don't get tangled because there are actually pins for them in the steering column & clock spring, unfortunately there aren't anymore pins available.

Anyone have any ideas how to bypass a clock spring for the extra wire?

Have you thought about hijacking one of the existing buttons on the steering wheel like the voice command button?

[dstrickland]

not possible, they communicate over a bus vs basic grounding...There are 12 pins for the steering column...pin assignment is below..

1 Signal, left/right direction indicator switch
2 Steptronic, tip down
3 Signal, terminal 58G Connector, instrument and locator lights X1362
4 Steptronic, tip up
5 Signal, left/right direction indicator switch
6 Signal F-CAN low
7 Ground
8 Signal, high beam/headlight flasher switch
9 Supply, terminal 30 Fuse F59
10 Wake-up signal, terminal 15 Junction box
11 Activation On-board computer function Instrument cluster control unit
12 Signal F-CAN high

Out of these 12 pins Im not even sure what pin(s) the steering wheel buttons use....6&12 are Fcan, so that would be the cruise control related, the only option left would be pin 10, but I would assume thats for the windshield wipers.

As of now Im lost. my only thought is to have a hole drilled straight through the 16mm bolt that holds the steering wheel then drill a whole in the steering column.

[mad1stgen]

Heated steering wheel option gives you two more wires. Not sure if clockspring is different in cars with a heated wheel ?

[mkramer37]

The multifunction buttons on the steering wheel communicate over the K-CAN BUS. If you want to be able to push the button and do into DS mode, your best bet it to use an arduino with a CAN shield.

You could connect the arduino to the K-CAN bus at the Junction Box under the glove box and run a wire from there to the center console to enable DS mode. Using this website, http://www.festival.loopybunny.co.uk/CarPC/k_can.html you could write a short program to detect when a certain steering wheel button is pressed, and then send a signal to go into DS mode.

[matteblue3er]

I doubt the switches are over CAN. If that were the case, you'd see twisted wire pairs going to the switches and back to the modules.

CAN is a inter-module com bus. The switch presses are most likely grounding circuits, then the control module will report status over the CAN bus.

You would most likely need to extend wires from the PCB though and not the harness.