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My SAS Cabriolet has the wiring and computer controlls of a 2009 donor engine, including the OBD II port.

I just ordered a Scantool OBDLink MX, which is a small OBD II reader that connected to your smart phone via bluetooth.   I'm hoping I can see all the sensor readings, including fuel usage, O2 sensors, temperature, voltage, RPM, MPH, vacuum, etc.

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of the Subaru brains made it into this car

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Jethro posted:

Yeah, I'm pretty geeked up about it.   I need to figure out a good non-intrusive way to mount my phone to the dash.

Jethro - I removed the suction-cup portion of my phone mount and bolted it to the bracket supporting my radio underneath the dash. It is easier for me to see the phone display in the shaded area under the dash rather than in the sunlight above the dash.

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Last edited by MusbJim

I tried the iOBD-II bluetooth scanner and app.  Worked OK.  Never had an issue clearing any codes, shows live data most of the time, but seems to lose connection randomly and you have to reconnect, but this only seems to happen when streaming live data for extended drives.  For simplicity sake I just ran our normal scanner most of the time... never fails.

Jethro posted:

My car throws an Oxygen sensor code fairly frequently, which, I believe, is due to the modified exhaust not being what the donor car had.   I want to monitor the codes just to be sure that when the check engine light comes on, I can figure out if it's OK to ignore it or not. 

Throwing that code disables the cruise control.

Try adding a spark plug non fouler to pull your oxy sensor out might need to double them up. It worked for me when I added headers to my 3rd gen HEMI

You won't be able to pass an emission test otherwise.

Last edited by Bill Prout

The weather hasn't been cooperating, so I tested it on my 2011 Touareg (daily driver) today for short period.

I'm very impressed with the amount of detail you can get right on your smart phone.

It comes with 3 pre-arranged dashboards, and you can customize your own dashboards with whatever data you want, and how to display it graphically.

My daughter drives a 2009 Subaru Forester, and the donor for my Cabriolet was a 2009 Legacy.  I would think the motors, and their respective OBD capabilities are very similar.  It will be interesting to see what I can monitor on the Forester versus the SAS Cab  

I finally had time to test the OBDII reader on my SAS Cab.

It read all the same sensors that are on my daughter's 2009 Forester, and even recognized the donor motor in the SAS as a 2009 Subaru.

The only reading that was of any concern was engine temp.   It got up to 210 while in stop & go city traffic.

Other than that, it threw an evap code which reminded me I had not put the gas cap back on the last time I refueled.  So I stopped, popped the bonnet and sure enough, there was the gas cap sitting there unattached

All in all, I'd say this little Bluetooth code reader is pretty cool!

As I recall that car, Lawing put everything attached to the various, original, Subaru computers back into that car, and IIRC, included all of the original Subaru dash gauge cluster up under the hood as a redundant "feature".  

The real reason for including all of that Subaru stuff is that there are several Subaru computers in there that all talk to each other, and the very first thing they all do on power-up is a cross-check of each other to compare their serial numbers (think VIN number).  If they do not all have the same hexadecimal serial number, they all go into hibernation and nothing in the car works (it will not start or run) until they all match again and/or are reset (via the OBDII port) by a Subaru tech with the proper access.  This was originally presented to customers as an anti-theft deterrent.

The functionality available to a Subaru OBDII port is amazing, depending on the application/tool being used.

Have fun with your new toy!

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