Ferrari F430 Immobilizer deleted!

Coming soon all the gory details but suffice to say this will save the community many hundreds of thousands in costs in the longer term...

It's now working on both all 360's and F430's and will be included as part of Swiss Army Knife tool... Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

This deserved it's own thread.

My latest Swiss Army Knife immobilizer patching function is now working on its very first F430! That's right a beta testers F430 is now running without the Bosch Immobilizer (Blue box) at all. Gone gone gone and gone with it the potential very expensive bill for flaky wiring, a set of lost key fobs, paired ecu's and so forth, all side stepped. I know many people where happy just to have used ecus virginized but this doesn't solve the problems of hardware failures that we see now on the 360 and I am no doubt guessing will become just as common on the F430 with more passage of time.

It will also make the car more reliable as it gets older, theses systems really are a number one point of failure with older cars. I will be offering an ultra low cost replacement immobilizer and set of key fobs option so that nobody ever fear lost key fobs again. The active fobs themselves being managed yourself via settings in a phone app so no having to go to dealers. They will be a fraction of dealer prices and modern convenience features like ability for any alarm activation's to trigger notifications on your phone, etc.

This immobilizer delete on the F430 was quite a bit more challenging that you'd suspect as I had to literally modify the Bosch immobilizer state machine directly at the machine code level (after analyzing its code to work out what it was doing). Then I could force it down the 'happy path' route every time.

 

Permanent..

Quite involved as I've had to alter the actual firmware code itself because the Immobilizer enable/disable settings where deactivated by Bosch from factory. They really didn't want you doing this!

I've written the special code to find the signatures and patch the code. It needs to be done this way as there are many different versions of firmware for every model year and every market. This makes it ultra safe and guaranteed not to cause any CELs.

.. It also has the option to revert back to stock if you want too. So you could put your immobilizer unit safely away and use Swiss army knife to disable it then return to standard before you sell if you wished.

 

True, I will offer a more secure immobilizer than stock..

 

Even with the immobilizer unit physically removed you get no ECU faults or CEL issues as I did the removal properly and carefully!

Thanks to Russell for the photo! Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

And here are the DTC codes before clearing them which where generated with standard ignition ECU firmware was running and the immobilizer unit was removed. Ofcourse this means the car cannot be started.

After reflashing with patched firmware they don't come back after clearing them and the car can be started without the fobs or immo box being used. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Just a very quick update to this thread. I have yesterday confirmed that my Swiss Army Knife tool immobilizer delete also works 100% perfectly also on the 430 Scuderia. It was the first one I tried it on and yes its just fine.

You simply have your Ignition ecu's reflashed and then you no longer have to worry about the blue immobilizer box, intermittent wiring issues or lost key fobs.

 

I can currently do this via 'manual' means. I am still working on a plug in and play OBD solution which I will finish soon. In the mean time if you must have it prior to my completion of a tool which does it for you I am afraid you'd have to ship the ecu's. I have different partners now in a few different states (basically technically competant members with my support have done it several times now). Failing that wait for the hardware beta test coming soon.

Note: I insist on ownership proof before doing this so be prepared for this if you pm me directly.

Thanks Trev

 

Also works 100% on the Ferrari 612's too (exact same immobilizer functions as F430!) so my automatic discovery routines detect them in 612 rom's too! I'm guessing any Bosch ecu's of this vintage it works 100% with.

 

First prototype obd boards back from China Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

For central locking purposes you can still add fobs in the usual way's..

Swiss Army Knife only removes the 'soft' immobilizer inside the engine Ignition computers. It disables it so that any 'immobilizer box' or wiring failures (or partially failing such as a relay dying which controls the starter) now isn't going to be a problem. So you can use it to track down and eliminate faults too in those areas. If the car starts after immobilizer is deactivated you know its a fault in the immobilizer circuit. Once fault is repaired (e.g. faulty wiring or failed relay) you can always re-activate it.

I would actually advise removal of the whole heap of junk myself. Once immobilizer inside the ignition ecu's is deactivated it is quite easy to unplug and replace the entire thing with either an aftermarket modern keyless entry solution which i will write about shortly in another thread or for now just use your key in the door (no alarm, no fobs, no immobilizer). No worries about pairing or use of used ecu's as long as they are re-flashed with the correct software. This makes repair a lot cheaper as even if the old used ecu's have been previously paired to a different car it doesn't matter once Swiss Army Knife has re-flashed them.

I will provide a fully tested solution with full documentation on how to do this. If there is sufficient demand may even get a plug in and play harness produced which makes it very easy to upgrade. Literally plug in and play. Replacement cards or fobs can then be added or removed by the owner. Not only that I can also replace immobilizer function with something more secure, less intrusive and a whole lot cheaper to fix/replace. Watch this space...

 

Here's some vids of a cheap (sub $50) Chinese clone key being used to open doors and Start an F430 with Swiss Army Knife immobilizer delete.
Local locksmith cut the key...

Open doors...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mfYoqZAxRnFORNJeYjTXPLOLR89E4Qzr/view?usp=drivesdk

Start engine...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NVRFASszkbDWYLQCPZwJMSRh7aAaftL0/view?usp=drivesdk

Vids courtesy of Russell. Thanks man.