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It's official. I've written a Eunos Cosmo Maintenance Manual in English.
Today was Release Day. It took Two years, Three months and a lot of effort but I've done it. The ultimate halo project for the RX7/Rotary community. I made the announcement on Facebook this afternoon, and the entire RX7/Cosmo community went completely nuts. My phone was blowing up for 3 hours straight. Even made it to Wikipedia too. As our good friend Aaron Cake once said: It is done, and I mean done. Done like a prom date in the back of a limousine. Done!
Not just a translation, but a complete overhaul and rebuild from the ground up. Every single word, character and image improved upon. Errors corrected (quite a few of them), bad grammar fixed, odd and irrelevant terms were corrected to make sense again and the whole thing re-translated back into Japanese so anyone in the east or west can read it natively. And searchable in both languages. Even with the Car Communication System screenshots, drawn from scratch in the original colors with English subtitled for easy comprehension.
SAE Units were added in Red, paired with the proper Metric equivalents in Black throughout every diagram. All conversions done to 3 decimal places. Precision measurements originally made to 1/100th of a millimeter were done to 4 decimal places in Inches (1/10,000th). I upgraded the unit chart with a Metric to SAE conversion table, plus all of the missing oddball conversions that were missing for items such as going from +mmHg (millimeters of Mercury, positive pressure instead of negative) to PSI.
Optimized for reading sanity at every turn. Both ECU Terminal charts were merged together, placing Voltmeter/Oscilloscope readings right next to DT-S1000 data for every terminal. A few detail-dense diagrams were indexed using the Ctrl+F search feature for easy matching. (A) is (A), (B) is (B) and so on.
Bookmarks for important items such as the aforementioned ECU terminal chart, shift pattern charts and so on. Even the A/C specific procedures, easy as pie to understand, follow and do it right the first time.
From 3147 source files, it took two months of 12+ hour days, 7 days a week to render into the finished product, all 888 pages of it.
This was 10 years in the making, with several failed attempts by others. 27 months straight of all-out work, by one person made it happen. If building my 20B FC, Project OldTree was building Iron Man Mark 1 in a cave with a box of scraps, only five words are needed here.
Arigato Gozaimasu. With the rampant misinformation that has run amok regarding the Cosmo over the years, this had to be done. And as a result, now the entire community can give the same attention to the Cosmo as we have to our RX7s, now that the language barrier has been broken.
Everyone thought ECU to EC-AT communication was via PalmNet. Now we know it isn't. The ECU has parallel control over the two Shift Solenoids.
The Car Communication System was a complete unknown outside of Japan. Now we can diagnose it, and a friend of mine is developing a Screen Replacement Kit due to the original CRTs failing after 30+ years. Took some work, but I found who built it. One of the biggest companies in Japan.
The PalmNet Multiplex Communication System was undocumented. Now we know it is similar on structure and operation to the Canbus system found in the BMW E38 7-series. Palmnet is an acronym, short for Protocol for Automotive Low and Medium-speed Network. Only one mention exists in English about its existence in a single page SAE paper, and it tells us who created the system but nothing about how it works. Over half of the authors were from Mazda. The others are from another company who supplied Mazda with connectors. Locked behind the Japanese language barrier until they bought a company in Atlanta in 2001.
The Non-CCS HVAC system was a black box. Now we know who built it, in order to source parts for repairs if needed. They're in Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
The temperature/fuel gauge and HVAC/miscellaneous display in the Cluster were unknowns too. Now we know they are VFD modules, which I traced to who created them. They're just outside of Chicago too.
That HVAC opened up a rabbit hole that I'm exploring a bit more. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Japanese FC and FD's auto climate control systems were made by the same company as the Cosmo (and HC 929 too, that's how I found them). The regular Logicon in the FC, found in all North American versions is from Denso, we've known this for years now. The base FD setup probably came from them too. But when you get into the Japanese-exclusive climate control systems, out comes the misinformation from the masses.
While working on the manual, I learned a lot about Japanese nomenclature and abbreviations. For example, what we call A/C in North American is shorted to Aircon in Japanese. Another example is Denso. It's a contraction of "Electrical Equipment" by taking the first character of each word and putting them together. 電気 (denki) is Electricity 装置 (sōchi) is Equipment (or Device)
Put them together (電装) and you get DenSo, the short name for the Nippon Denso Kabushiki-Gaisha, AKA the Japan Electrical Equipment Corporation, founded in 1949.
Arigato Gozaimasu. With the rampant misinformation that has run amok regarding the Cosmo over the years, this had to be done. And as a result, now the entire community can give the same attention to the Cosmo as we have to our RX7s, now that the language barrier has been broken.
Everyone thought ECU to EC-AT communication was via PalmNet. Now we know it isn't. The ECU has parallel control over the two Shift Solenoids.
The Car Communication System was a complete unknown outside of Japan. Now we can diagnose it, and a friend of mine is developing a Screen Replacement Kit due to the original CRTs failing after 30+ years. Took some work, but I found who built it. One of the biggest companies in Japan.
The PalmNet Multiplex Communication System was undocumented. Now we know it is similar on structure and operation to the Canbus system found in the BMW E38 7-series. Palmnet is an acronym, short for Protocol for Automotive Low and Medium-speed Network. Only one mention exists in English about its existence in a single page SAE paper, and it tells us who created the system but nothing about how it works. Over half of the authors were from Mazda. The others are from another company who supplied Mazda with connectors. Locked behind the Japanese language barrier until they bought a company in Atlanta in 2001.
The Non-CCS HVAC system was a black box. Now we know who built it, in order to source parts for repairs if needed. They're in Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
The temperature/fuel gauge and HVAC/miscellaneous display in the Cluster were unknowns too. Now we know they are VFD modules, which I traced to who created them. They're just outside of Chicago too.
That HVAC opened up a rabbit hole that I'm exploring a bit more. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Japanese FC and FD's auto climate control systems were made by the same company as the Cosmo (and HC 929 too, that's how I found them). The regular Logicon in the FC, found in all North American versions is from Denso, we've known this for years now. The base FD setup probably came from them too. But when you get into the Japanese-exclusive climate control systems, out comes the misinformation from the masses.
While working on the manual, I learned a lot about Japanese nomenclature and abbreviations. For example, what we call A/C in North American is shorted to Aircon in Japanese. Another example is Denso. It's a contraction of "Electrical Equipment" by taking the first character of each word and putting them together. 電気 (denki) is Electricity 装置 (sōchi) is Equipment (or Device)
Put them together (電装) and you get DenSo, the short name for the Nippon Denso Kabushiki-Gaisha, AKA the Japan Electrical Equipment Corporation, founded in 1949.
Your efforts are valiant. Though not everything here is factual:
1) It's well known the ECU -> AT comms isn't PalmNet
2) "The Car Communication System was a complete unknown outside of Japan." - Well I've been reverse engineering it for ~7 years outside of Japan and know it well now
3) Who built all these components is on the outside of the units or stamped on the circuit boards inside, it's no secret and easy to find when you own a Cosmo
4) "The PalmNet Multiplex Communication System was undocumented" - not true. There is a 7 and 10 page separate documents/papers describing it technically; in addition to what you mention
5) "The Non-CCS HVAC system was a black box." - Only in colour. I've interfaced to it and HVAC system and written code to control it
6) "The temperature/fuel gauge and HVAC/miscellaneous display in the Cluster were unknowns too." - No they aren't, you don't need to translate Japanese, the workshop.wiring manuals clearly label them as VFD. Also reverse engineered complete cluster.
Your efforts are valiant. Though not everything here is factual:
1) It's well known the ECU -> AT comms isn't PalmNet
2) "The Car Communication System was a complete unknown outside of Japan." - Well I've been reverse engineering it for ~7 years outside of Japan and know it well now
3) Who built all these components is on the outside of the units or stamped on the circuit boards inside, it's no secret and easy to find when you own a Cosmo
4) "The PalmNet Multiplex Communication System was undocumented" - not true. There is a 7 and 10 page separate documents/papers describing it technically; in addition to what you mention
5) "The Non-CCS HVAC system was a black box." - Only in colour. I've interfaced to it and HVAC system and written code to control it
6) "The temperature/fuel gauge and HVAC/miscellaneous display in the Cluster were unknowns too." - No they aren't, you don't need to translate Japanese, the workshop.wiring manuals clearly label them as VFD. Also reverse engineered complete cluster.
There is only one person in the world who could know half of this, my good friend Anthony, the go-to person for having anything electronic repaired on a Cosmo. One thing to keep in mind is that misinformation due to improper understanding has run rampant when it comes to anything Rotary. We've all heard the stories, the JC Cosmo is no exception. And we all know how those stories "evolve" over time too. Multiply it by 20 years and a lot gets lost in a pile of BS. Also, not all have the electronics skills you and Aaron Cake possess. In other words, the Sorcerer Exception applies here.
I definitely do not have anywhere near your abilities with a circuit board. When it comes to soldering, I'm literally a 4 year old with crayons on the wall.
Congratulations on getting the first working prototype up and running for the Car Communication System LCD retrofit. Your determination and expertise is what inspired me to step up and end the misinformation running rampant about anything and everything that is Eunos Cosmo. It makes a stronger, better community overall. Thanks again for the emergency Linux admin support with my drive cloning debacle. I owe you one for that.
For those of us without Facebook...how do we go about looking at this??
It is not free. If you have a Cosmo, it will benefit you immensely. If you have an RX7 with either 13B or 20B engine from a Cosmo, the benefit is pretty much nil as you are likely not using the original N390 (13B) or NF01 (20B) ECUs and their associated equipment.
Got it, not free.
How much?
How to get it without Facebook?
Got your PM. For anyone wanting it, you may email me at cd9asherwood@yahoo.com. Facebook is just a bit quicker to get a response and less likely to get lost in the shuffle if I'm working on something.
Where can I get my hands on one of these I recently purchased a JDM RHD 1994 R1 if that information is needed (RED). Sorry havent made many posts of this forum.
Last edited by rx7cblink@aol.com; 09-11-23 at 12:31 PM.
Where can I get my hands on one of these I recently purchased a JDM RHD 1994 R1 if that information is needed (RED). Sorry havent made many posts of this forum.
I'm working on a Wiring Diagram book to cover all Japanese FDs now.
I am putting togther a 20B. Where can I buy your manual?
Easiest way is to hit me up on facebook. Preferably after coffee finishes loading my brain. That way, if anything tries to go sideways, I can get it sorted on the spot.
05-19-22 | 10:45 PM
