American Horsepower

[Windy Miller]

Anyone any experience of dealing with American Horsepower in Germany? Been emailing back and forth since Sunday on a pre sales enquiry and aside from getting blood from a stone, the guy does not sound very knowledgeable about the products he is selling. He is supposed to be finding out what button one of their products is mapped to over CANBUS, but can't seem to be able to say. Just "that it works on a button!"

Anyone any experience of this company?

[sidewinder500]

I'm from Germany but unfortunately have to share your experiences as companies like this are just jumping on the US car train without much knowledge or will to serve a customer.
As they are specialised on Mustangs from 2005 they do not really cover that enthusiast part...
The good guys (there are some) are ridiculously expensive.
My experience is really to get everything from the states, with all the tax stuff it is still cheaper and quicker in delivery.
And you can talk to knowledgeable people...
What part is it, and what car?

[Windy Miller]

Not sure it readily exists in the States, as its for a German exhaust system - The Grail Automotive one that AEC put on these Dodges for EU / UK noise compliance. Mine is a Challenger Hellcat Redeye Jailbreak, but the exhausts look pretty common across the platform, including the Chargers. Exhaust was on the car when it was new last May, so not minded to change the whole thing yet.

At the back end of last year, I got several issues with it sorted, in that the active valves now work properly. Prior to that, one was stuck open, and the other would open and close as per the Grail control module, to ensure noise compliance. Now that its doing what it should, with both valves going closed when required, its a bit vanilla sounding. Even on "loud mode", the valves close automatically at 16 mph rising, and open again at 11 mph falling. So trickling about town, the valves are opening and closing of their own accord and it sounds a bit odd. The valves don't open again till about 5000 rpm.

Now, I could simply just cable tie them open, but that loses the ability to be quiet when its desirable. And when the one valve was stuck open, it would throw Fault Codes and illuminate the Engine Fault Light. So the preferred alternative is to gain more control of the valves. Now, American Horsepower offer a "Race Module for Grail Exhausts", which the guy from AH says "Will do all the current module does, and more" and "includes ability to keep the valves open if desired, but with an automatic fall back to quiet, next time its started". Sounds ideal, but our guy at AH is having a lot of trouble explaining exactly how it would work, and what button in the car is mapped to the module to control it.

Now, I could try reprogramming the existing CANBUS module, but though the Carsig CarsGraf software is free (and already downloaded), I would need a USB / CAN adaptor, and even then, I am not sure if I could get into the existing module, not knowing its address, and further not knowing any of the other CANBUS device addresses. So a ready made module sounded ideal! Despite searching, nothing else comes up anywhere, not even on the Grail Automotive site, so this is either a "under the counter" Grail product, or something AH have developed themselves. If the latter, you would think they would at least be able to explain how it works.....

[sidewinder500]

Ah, I see.
Had a Grail exhaust system on my 2017 Mustang and was informed that these parts up to 2020 or so are not TUV certified anymore. I know what you are talking about the noise, so that's maybe why they discontinued it.
This seems to be a home built AH thingy, but I suspect you are way more knowledgeable than probably most of their staff. The only thing what could help is to write them and ask your specific questions

[Windy Miller]

Kinda drawing a blank on this one. American Horsepower now confessing they do not know very much if anything about this product, so must be a Grail one, even though there is no mention of it whatsoever on the Grail site. The best I can conclude is that this gateway module sits on the LIN bus between the PCM and the exhaust valve actuators. In default power on mode, it sends a continuous 0% open signal to the valve actuators over the LIN bus, unless the RPM (as sensed on CANbus) exceeds about 4000 rpm. Meanwhile, it "lies" to the PCM, telling it that the valves are in whatever position the PCM is asking for. So no error codes get thrown. If the RES button on the wheel is pressed for 3 seconds, then the gateway picks this up via a CANbus tapping, and allows the LINbus data from the PCM to go directly to the actuators, without molestation, so the valves behave as Dodge originally intended, following the maps in the PCM for RPM vs Torque with different maps for different driving modes - Sport, Track, "normal", etc.

As far as I can conclude, the "Race Module" is just a similar gateway with '100% open' mapped to the RES button instead of '0% open'. Not a lot for €600 and I would have hoped that there was additional functionality, i.e. choice of 3 modes - "Always Closed", "Always Open" and "What the PCM desires"

But no-one seems to be able to confirm or deny that, and short of trying to read the current gateway using CarsGraf, seems there is very little knowledge of this module out there, even from those supplying it. Without knowing the CAN ID of the gateway module I have, even reading it is going to be challenging....

I think I may need the 'Trunk Monkey - Active Exhaust Edition' to suspend under the car and operate the valves manually (monkually?)