Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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thesameguy
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

Post by thesameguy »

Well, Bruno is super responsive to emails and he said he'd work on it. Rather excited about this!

Also excited to have gone down this road, as I want to investigate his Fiesta EPS solution for the Falcon. :D
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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thesameguy wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:22 pm Well, Bruno is super responsive to emails and he said he'd work on it.
Yes, I've been trading e-mails with him as well. Initially he wasn't aware at all of the application and tried to sway me towards one of the EPS solutions he currently has a module for. But then he came around pretty quick.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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Haha... maybe with a few people asking he'll see the wisdom. Seriously, I would fork over money for a few of these doodads!

I'd like to learn where else this pump ended up. I think Hyundai used it too, but it seems largely isolated to the C/P1 platform.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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Well, if he can come up with something, sounds like he has a few buyers waiting. Cost/Demand... :)
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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I would be especially hesitant of using EPS on the XR4Ti... putting the power assist near the wheel means putting the entire load on the rag joint, which is probably not what you want. Well, it's not what I want. My rag joint isn't in the best shape these days.

My other application for this tech would be on a Saab 900, which has a somewhat unique steering column and not-super-stout u-joint. Even if a motor could fit, I wouldn't want it applying force to that u-joint!
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

Post by DPDISXR4Ti »

This is a 10+ year-old thread that has lots of content as well as lots of links on using the TRW (i.e Volvo S40) EHPAS pump...
https://www.diyelectriccar.com/threads/ ... ing.44828/
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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That thread is likely what pointed me towards this pump in the first place. Previously, I had worked with MR2/MRS pumps but they are getting tough to find!
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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I lied .. I had NOT seen that thread before, or didn't read it completely. Great find! Seems to support a lot of my guesses on how the pump does and could work....I didn't not know about the config ID, but that may be the bus ID, in which case it makes sense. CAN devices will only talk to one another when they are programmed to, so you would need the controller and device agreeing that they should talk.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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I had to head back out to the junkyard last week and when I saw an electric power steering pump in a ~2006 Mazda 3, I figured why not? Worse case, I could just flip it for a few bucks. Here it is next to the S40 pump. It's similar in configuration, just with the remote filler. I did a little digging and I don't see mention of whether this one has a default mode of ~70% like the Volvo pump.
VolvoVsMazdaPwrStrPumps-1.JPG
VolvoVsMazdaPwrStrPumps-1.JPG (1.13 MiB) Viewed 7771 times
VolvoVsMazdaPwrStrPumps-2.JPG
VolvoVsMazdaPwrStrPumps-2.JPG (959.2 KiB) Viewed 7771 times
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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Interesting... this is similar to the earlier Mazda ones where the steering angle sensor connects directly to the controller rather than through CAN. Did you happen to grab that sensor? I wonder what it gets through CAN... maybe just vehicle speed? One maybe upside of this device is that it's used on a few Mazdas, and over a longer period of time and more recently than the Volvo pump. Mazda 3s are definitely more common than any Volvo! The "external" steering sensor could be a nice bonus too.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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thesameguy wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 2:36 pm Interesting... this is similar to the earlier Mazda ones where the steering angle sensor connects directly to the controller rather than through CAN. Did you happen to grab that sensor? I wonder what it gets through CAN... maybe just vehicle speed? One maybe upside of this device is that it's used on a few Mazdas, and over a longer period of time and more recently than the Volvo pump. Mazda 3s are definitely more common than any Volvo! The "external" steering sensor could be a nice bonus too.
I did not grab any sensors - hadn't really done any prior research to know if I should grab anything else. Interesting to note that there are three electrical quick-connectors on the Mazda pump vs. the two on the Volvo. But the Volvo looks like it has a provision for a 3rd connector - it's just capped off and not used.

I did a little post-acquisition research and found that there had been a recall on these pumps by Mazda. The tag on the pump seems to be suggesting a 2/21/2011 date, which would have made it a replacement pump.

Keep in mind too, the Volvo S40 and Mazda 3 are both based on the Focus MkII platform. We never got the Ford application here, just the Volvo and Mazda.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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DPDISXR4Ti wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 4:22 pm
I did not grab any sensors - hadn't really done any prior research to know if I should grab anything else. Interesting to note that there are three electrical quick-connectors on the Mazda pump vs. the two on the Volvo. But the Volvo looks like it has a provision for a 3rd connector - it's just capped off and not used.
The cap is a vent
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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Well, if you go back look for the sensor. :D

Cars that I am familiar with that have a steering angle sensor (Ze Germans and Saab) have them integrated into the column electronics, impossible to separate. On those cars, steering angle goes over CAN, but the Mazda having a separate connection for the sensor makes me wonder if it's not an integrated sensor. Maybe that's useful... maybe it's not! :D
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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I don't know what I am doing, but I wonder if something like this could be a part of the puzzle:

https://www.mrs-electronics.com/fileadm ... way_US.pdf

It's a simple CAN gateway - an analog sensor on one side (say, vehicle speed) and a CAN interface on the other. There is no pricing anywhere, for the device or the required software needed to program. Guessing "cheap" isn't part of the discussion. :D

Or, basically, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gnXKMoFwkc

Arduino, CAN shield. Analog sensor is read by Arduino, sent to the shield, then sent to the bus. With the right message and ID, you're controlling the pump instead of running an LCD display.
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Re: Volvo S40 Electric Power Steering Swap

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thesameguy wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:08 pm I don't know what I am doing, but I wonder if something like this could be a part of the puzzle:

https://www.mrs-electronics.com/fileadm ... way_US.pdf

It's a simple CAN gateway - an analog sensor on one side (say, vehicle speed) and a CAN interface on the other. There is no pricing anywhere, for the device or the required software needed to program. Guessing "cheap" isn't part of the discussion. :D

Or, basically, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gnXKMoFwkc

Arduino, CAN shield. Analog sensor is read by Arduino, sent to the shield, then sent to the bus. With the right message and ID, you're controlling the pump instead of running an LCD display.
Yes, issue is getting the correct message....
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