Teves Mk60 ABS install
 

Has anybody tried to install the Teves MK60 standalone ABS system from a BMW E46 into an NA/NB Miata? If so, what did you do for wheel sensors?

This is the thread I used to learn about the swap.

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...tandalone-info

This has all you info about the swap and the parts needed.

TL;DR: E46 M3 Blue connector sensors, Post #9 of the thread above.

Have you done the swap?

Since it's not legal for ST4/5 I put all the parts on the self until it is, if ever.

How about the reluctor rings? Can we use the Miata rings with these sensors?

Teves MK60 is legal for ST4.

You can use pretty much any active wheel speed sensor. I ended up using a 996 porsche sensor in the rear and a bosch motorsport front from the bin on the NC.

I need to get a set of front and rear uprights from the NA/NB, I would like to get a kit going for the older cars if anyone would be interested.

I looked into it at one point, but decided to go a different way. I'm not a EE, but AIUI there are electronic circuits to adapt the "passive" (reluctor, I think) stock NA/NB ABS sensor signals to the "active" (hall effect?) style of signals that the Teves unit expects. I had planned to go down that path, rather than trying to mechanically fit new sensors to the MIata uprights.

--Ian

Yeah, I think there would be some interest for several track cars. Having great ABS, like a S2K or E46, on a ST3/4 type miata would absolutely net time. I'm always amazed at how deep S2Ks can brake and also jealous.

I've been playing around with the idea of retrofitting NC ABS to my NA - but in my research I discovered that there's a lot more engineering that goes into ABS than just monitoring the wheel speeds and reacting appropriately - mostly in dealing with pump cycle duty, volume split between the four brakes. Basically the pump needs to be sized for the brake volume (lines, bore, etc), which kinda put the kabosh on pursuing it further.

I didn't noticed the MK60 was added to the revisions. I wish it would come to 5, I still need a turbo for 4

I would be interested. I have a couple uprights laying around I can send if you are serious.

Charlie, please check your private messages.

It's a good thing that you didn't try as the stock NC ABS requires the stock ECU to even operate.

You're assuming I don't know CANBus.

Maybe you do. I've lost count of how many "experts" I've seen lately in forums, all of them copying and pasting arduino code from whatever source they can find (see: Dunning-Kruger Effect). Not saying you are not knowledgeable, but I've been taking everything everyone says online with a huge grain of salt.

You will need to find a working NC, tap into the CAN bus, and find what sequence you need to send to the NC ABS to make it work. It's not that hard but it's not trivial either.

Fair enough, but trust me when I say that 212 is the ABS module status packet and I discovered it on my own.

All of the NC pro race teams that I've talked to use an RX8 ABS module in their cars that aren't using the factory ECU. 2004 non-DSC RX8 I believe. It works as a full standalone and doesn't need CAN communication to the rest of the car. They all told me that it's tuned really well for track use, but I'd be curious to hear Charlie's thoughts since he went with the Teves system in his NC.

That's interesting - the RX8, iirc, is a matsushita(?) module, NC is Bosch (I think it's called 4.1?). Later RX8's switched to the Bosch unit, maybe the NC was used as a testbed for DSC? Been months since I spent a few days researching and I've forgotten some details.

Edit: Had to look it up via ebay - Sumitomo, Bosch 5.7 with ice mode (bad for track with wheel lift).

I can confirm that the DSC version of the RX-8 ABS also requires the stock ECU to work as an ABS. I haven't seen any non-DSC RX-8s (but there definitely are non-DSC NCs, which still do require CAN).

I have no personal experience and am just relaying what I've read and been told, but I also know of a V8 swapped RX8 (on a private forum) that just got the non-DSC RX8 module working on his car with no CAN communication. He started with the DSC version that came in his car and couldn't get it to work. Switched to the 04 non-DSC unit and almost instantly reported that the problem was solved and ABS was functioning.

0x212 is just one packet from the ABS, you need to actually send multiple other packets that mimic the stock ECU, some of them with continuous checksums.

I recently mentioned this to a few friends who work on oem abs systems and have used the teves systems from continental, my main question is
How are you going about changing the parameters for the teves system

It’s coming soon ...

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e1448e560.jpeg

Which wheel speed sensors did you use? Compatible with the miata OEM abs rings and a direct bolt on or need some adapters?

E46 sensors front and rear
Miata rings and machined Non-ABS front spindles
Rear Miata ABS uprights and a modified ABS bracket

Interesting. Any pictures?
Did you just have the non-abs front spindles so you used those? Or they are necessary / ABS ones won't work?

Also, who's reprogramming your MK60 to the motorsports firmware?
From what I've been reading on the m3 forum, the regular E46 MK60 is programmed for the stock BMW hydraulic pressures, tire diameters, etc. and IIRC also goes in some kind of safety mode (lower thresholds) when CAN data from the ECU is missing. Some people there use rpi emulators to feed the MK60 with data emulating the E46 ECU and other CAN bus modules to make it somewhat happy for standalone installs.

All that is solved with the motorsports firmware (which also gets rid of the DSC stuff, you need the 813.3 or the 817.3 MK60 hardware for reflashes to work) but AFAIK only very few people have that and charge crazy amount of money to do a reflash (because they can since the software never leaked for public use). These same people have flashes prepped not just for BMW for other applications like 997 Porsches (who dump their Bosch units for MK60), etc.

We've got numerous parts cars laying around. The ABS front spindle will not work. It places the sensor basically in contact with the ring. The Non-ABS spindle have to be machined to work.

We have a few contacts on the programming side and we have the 813.3 with the standard program and 817.3 with the ZHP program for testing.

We are working on putting together a kit for the Miata. Probably going to be really track specific though. Don't know many who would want it on a street car.

I have driven this system in other racecars. Very good and very abrupt when it intervenes. It gets in and out of operation very quickly. It's certainly not your Grampa's ABS on his 98 El Dorado.

If you’re using a fault light like this harness: https://www.bimmerworld.com/Brakes/B...IaAjiaEALw_wcB
youll also need the motorsports reflash to get the light to turn off.

There are at least 2 or 3 OEM ring type NB front ABS setups - outboard ring (near the studs), inboard rings (near the spindle), IIRC Mazda also changed something with the ring diameter/sensor sometime in 2004 (most likely the ring diameter changed) ...
Which of the rings were you testing with and was the contact minor or?

It is the race section of the forum so I guess everyone here is interested in a racing application :)

The ones you drove - was that with the motorsports flash? Personal impression on how was it while hard trail braking in corners /abs engaged while cornering - better feel than the NB one channel rear?

I have run into that before (an ABS ring that was barely in contact with the sensor). At the time I didn't have much to lose so I just spun the hub/ring around and used a hand file on the ring to turn it down to a smaller OD. Worked totally fine.

No, they were the unflashable 818.3 units. I have never driven the Miata 3 channel ABS so I have no knowledge of how it feels. They were on C5 Corvettes, with which I have quite a bit of experience, and the standard Mk60 setup was way better than the stock C5 or 6 ABS. You could tell when it engaged and when it "got out" of intervention. One of them I drove was one of Louis Gigliotti's C5's with it in misty damp conditions on slicks. I couldn't go or turn but I could sure as hell stop. The other was a Vorshlag car on the street so limited in what I could do.

I just ordered an 813.3 off ebay (off an M3 with 40k miles on it) with the lateral g, pressure sensors and connectors included.
The goal is to install it in the rear right under the car (taking the spot of the OEM fuel filter)
Now, where is the flashing sowtware? :noes: :wavey:

I have a spare complete MK60 out of an e46 m3 if anyone wants one. I can also provide a point of contact for a Bosch engineer that can re-flash the unit. :)

You should specify whether it is a 813.3 or a 818.3 unit - because that's what's most important for those buying it for racing.
Bosch engineer reflashing Ate units - that's interesting. Is he willing to give away the software since it belongs to the competition? :bowdown:

We've installed a lot of these in a variety of cars, almost all of them reflashed with the motorsports software.

Any insight on what specific parameters/numbers one needs to prepare for the person who'll be entering the data and generating the motorsports flash for the specific car?

813.3 is the unit I got. You can't reflash the 818.3 unit. I sort of figured that information would be explicit, my bad.

Got a set of E46 sensors and saw what you meant. They probably could be hacked/trimmed plus using a thinner bolt to get them to line up, but using non-abs spindle where one drills the proper holes is the nicer solution.
So ... I got a set of non-ABS spindles too. Seems the way the E46 sensors are shaped/oriented, the front-left one will fit the space on the front-right Miata spindle and vice versa. (Assuming the flat side of the sensor housing is the one where the trigger wheel has to be on?)

Are you making new brackets or just hacked the OEM ones? Seems the bracket should be much thinner where the sensor mounts so, it gets close enough to the trigger wheel.

Also, does anyone know if BMW/Ate have published any specs on what the gap between these sensors and the trigger wheel should be?

Flat side of the sensor

You can do either. Mill the original or just make new ones the correct thickness. We are planning on making new brackets for the rear for the upcoming kits along with sending in your front spindles to be machined to accept the BMW sensors.

Why not just use Miata sensors? It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to insert a little bit of analog electronics than to machine a bunch of suspension hardware to mount different sensors.

--Ian

Not sure that will work with the BMW system. From what I understand the BMW system actually has the capability of fault checking the individual sensors through a circuit built into the sensors themselves. Using a signal conversion box might not play well with the Mk60 system. I would say give it a try though.

With lathes and mills in my shop it is easier for me to machine a solution in this case. It's not that complicated and BMW sensors are known to be very robust and cheap.

Because the NA/NB Miata use an archaic system with inductive sensors.
Modern ABS use active sensors which can measure low wheel speed too - you can't quite do this with the inductive sensors. Modern Bosch ABS usually use hall effect sensors (3 wire) and the ATE Teves Mk60 uses magnetoresistive sensors (2 wire).
The signals generated are different between the inductive, hall effect and the magnetoresistive ones.

I guess one can make an electronic converter which turns one signal shape into the other, but IMHO this is way more pain than just mounting the BMW sensors and also what's the point of mounting a good ABS if you're going to mess it up with crap sensors.
Keep in mind these systems don't just do antilock but brake proportioning too - i.e. they measure the wheel decceleration speeds under braking and actively play with the front and rear brake pressures if they measure the wheels deccelerating differently. The more accurate the signals = the better the calculations they do.

I remember mentioned somewhere on the BMW forums that the MK60 measures the sensors for faults even when the vehicle is not moving so with a signal converter (which unless very complicated won't be generating anything when your trigger rings are not rotating) who knows in what kind of safety mode it may end up engaging if it decides you got faulty sensors.

A set of all 4 brand new E46 sensors for the MK60 on Amazon:

Single Miata dinosaur sensor:

Also, one can buy all the needed connectors, pins, etc. for the BMW individually (and the prices are relatively low), while for the Miata you have to hunt for used harnesses on Ebay and pay extra.

The BMW sensors have 3 pickups. So each tooth is being measured 3 times. That way the system can have a much higher resolution, including being able to measure individual tooth acceleration, not just speed. A lot of this has to do with the traction and stability control, but it does mean no other sensor would work.

When I was looking at swapping it into my car, I spoke to a shop that had some some swaps and said they'd successfully done it by electronically adapting the sensors.

--Ian

If you ever plan on mucking with TC or what have you the digital signal of a hall effect sensor is loads easier to work with than the analog of an inductive sensor from a control perspective. Although I've yet to see anyone fit HE sensors, a signal condition box to retain the mazda abs, and aftermarket/custom TC...

I have a RaceLogic TC system and NB2 ABS in the car. I was looking into replacing the NB2 system with the BMW one, but have since shelved that project because I switched to a different car for track use.

--Ian

Gotcha, I guess that should have been "if you ever plan on mucking with custom TC".

Either way you're correct in that it is fairly trivial to convert the analog waveform to digital encoder format.

Just a quick update, final got the car together and took it for a quick spin around the block a few times last night. ABS works. No faults. It just works.

We will be testing the system at the upcoming WRL race at Barber on March 16-17. What a way to try it out, with a pair of 8 hour races.

Which car will you be in? I'll be there in a red NB with a hilariously tiny wing. I definitely want to check out the ABS system in person.

The car with ABS will be a Silver 99 with a Maroon top #711.

I will be in the #45 white 99 Miata.

Shaky Dog Racing.

Awesome!
Any plans on testing a manual proportioning valve (adjustable) in the rear line, between the master cylinder and the ABS unit. Or leaving all the proportioning to be done by the Teves?

I have one installed currently. I will be trying different knee point levels to see if it makes a difference

Any news in how did ABS perform over the 16 hours? :)

Well, it works. How well I still don’t really know. We literally didn’t have any time to test the car before the race.The guys driving the car during the race were complaining about some weird characteristics during trail breaking. I think we had the front/rear bias set a little too far to the rear.

Before I could get into the car and test it myself, they suffered engine failure. I have since dropped a spare motor in the car and I am waiting a few parts before I start testing it on my own.

I have had a chance to play with the Mk60 ABS in the Miata. Wow, it's really good.

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to drive the "Big Bad Wolf" on One Lap of America. (If you don't know the car, look it up as s2000 big bad wolf) The ABS system is basically the same on the 2 cars. During One Lap I was able to go SOOOOOOO deep into some very fast corners and just stand on the brakes and let the system do the rest. I haven't had a chance yet for the really (relative) high speed stuff in the Miata but at <100, it works just like the Honda system.

So good.

We will be running it at Hastings in the WRL race on June 29-30. Maybe praying for rain to see how this thing does in the wet stuff.

We ran at Road Atlanta last weekend, The car placed 3rd in class (GP3) on Saturday and 4th in class on Sunday and set the fastest lap of the weekend in class. (1:44.500) I was able to easily brake at the 200 marker into turn 10A , just after the start of the right side curb entering 5 and halfway down the left side curb at turn 3. Try that consistently with no ABS.

We also has a chance to race in the pouring rain at RA. That was where the ABS really shined. It was like we had "magic" tires on the car when it came to braking.

Also, not a single flat spot or off track excursion due to brake lockup. This system is a must for any serious racers.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...214066c12f.jpg

Any experience with an NB ABS system? I know full well how good the BMW system is, but with ABS in the near future for our Lucky Dog car, as Chief Mechanic I need to make sure I can convince the Chief Budget Manager that the Mk60 is worth it over the NB ABS system.