Coding Out Factory Air Suspension

[azndonx]

Hello everyone, 

I have a 2018 Volvo V90 CC equipped with rear air suspension and adaptive shocks.

I would like to lower the car with a coilover setup, but was wondering if doing so will throw "Suspension Failure" fault codes?

I understand installing coilovers would remove the connection to the adaptive modules found on the shock bodies. 

Is it possible to code out / reprogram "Suspension Failure" fault codes using OrBit? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[x119]

You can change the config of the car so it expects passive shocks. That in turn should remove any errors that would usually pop up.

[azndonx]

You can change the config of the car so it expects passive shocks. That in turn should remove any errors that would usually pop up.

That's really good news! Thank you. 

I'm curious to see how this would affect the lowering/raising functionality of the rear air bladder, and possible functionality of the LED headlights. 

Are the rear air bladders controlled by the sensors in the adaptive shocks, or is it controlled by a different ECU?

[laihu]

您可以更改汽车的配置，使其预期被动冲击。这反过来应该会消除通常会弹出的任何错误。

这真是个好消息！谢谢。

我很好奇这将如何影响后气囊的降低/升高功能，以及 LED 大灯的可能功能。

后气囊是由自适应减震中的传感器控制的，还是由不同的 ECU 控制？

SUM 控件
您可以尝试将项目 58.59.237 更改为 01，

[Power6]

While I don't think anyone has tried this, I don't see why you could not adjust config to match what the car without the rear air would be set to. 

I can try to help when you get to this, I think there may be some not-obvious configurations in addition to disable air suspension, such as the height sensor config, what should it be, which I am not sure about. There are sensors inside the air springs but I am not sure if the air susp car has an external height sensor like the non-air car would have. You can drop me a line at support email and I would try to help you sort that out.

[PoLonY]

While I don't think anyone has tried this, I don't see why you could not adjust config to match what the car without the rear air would be set to. 

I can try to help when you get to this, I think there may be some not-obvious configurations in addition to disable air suspension, such as the height sensor config, what should it be, which I am not sure about. There are sensors inside the air springs but I am not sure if the air susp car has an external height sensor like the non-air car would have. You can drop me a line at support email and I would try to help you sort that out.

I would be interested in doing this as well. About to pick up a 2017 S90 T6 individual with the factory rear air suspension and active shocks

I wish to fit aftermarket air suspension all round and disable the active shocks etc to lower the vehicle 

I’ll be looking at purchasing Orbit if this is a possibility to do

[PoLonY]

Right so thought  i would share my experience with this so far.

I have a 2017 S90 T6 with the factory rear air and 4C shocks package.

I have fitted aftermarket air suspension to mine, i had made a set of DCC cancellers to fool the car into thinking it still had factory shocks up front (I reused the rear oem dampers, so left them plugged in).

I first tested this by unplugging the dampers, giving an instant suspension service fault, then plugging in the cancellers in front and leaving rears connected, zero faults like this for about 1 month of daily driving so i knew it was good.

I disconnected the height sensors from the control arms but left them plugged in and locked them to factory level to prevent headlight level errors

This meant the rear was still trying to self level though when the doors were opened or unlocked etc, leading to compressor running too long as there was no factory bags tp fill up

So i removed the air compressor fuse, and the car only threw a basic suspension service required fault after a short time driving but otherwise worked great. 

I finally got my Orbit to work and be able to code to the car after some issues, so i thought to try tackle coding out the factory system. This is where it went a lil south for me haha

I started by changing blocks 58, 59 and 60 to 01, and checked that 237 was set to 01 as well which is was on the factory config

This threw the car into disarray, with the suspension failure fault now logged, headlight range error, as well as ESC temporarily disabled, Handbrake unavailable, TPMS error to boot.

So i tried to reset everything back to OEM to start again, and the SUM is now default and has to be recalibrated. Which i tried to do after putting all the factory components back, it fails at the Level Input stage every time. I need to drive the car a short distance to reset the SUM and get the compressor refilling the tank etc but this is a lil bit hazardous due to the bags being empty. This means ideally I need to track down VIDA to be able to refill the suspension to recalibrate everything, which is a nightmare for me to do locally without an expensive dealer visit. I am hoping that Orbit can have this option added to ECU tools.

So i refitted the aftermarket suspension components and set only block 60 to 01 to code out the level sensors which allowed the other errors to be removed such as the headlight errors, so i know that works and narrows down the fault to the SUM module coding out, there must be something else i am missing on the components side in order for the car to think it is a factory steel suspension car. I have tried setting 60 to a different VDDM 2 sensor mode but also no luck.

so it currently has block 58 and 59 as 02 and 60 as 01, with the only error now on dash being the suspension failure error, which although super annoying I can at least drive around and live with until i find a working solution.

I will attempt to try again but it is my daily so i have to plan accordingly.


So long story short it is not just a case of setting 58,59,60 and 237 to 01.

[azndonx]

While I don't think anyone has tried this, I don't see why you could not adjust config to match what the car without the rear air would be set to. 

I can try to help when you get to this, I think there may be some not-obvious configurations in addition to disable air suspension, such as the height sensor config, what should it be, which I am not sure about. There are sensors inside the air springs but I am not sure if the air susp car has an external height sensor like the non-air car would have. You can drop me a line at support email and I would try to help you sort that out.

I would be interested in doing this as well. About to pick up a 2017 S90 T6 individual with the factory rear air suspension and active shocks

I wish to fit aftermarket air suspension all round and disable the active shocks etc to lower the vehicle 

I’ll be looking at purchasing Orbit if this is a possibility to do

Hi PoLonY,

Thank you so much for the detailed response! I think your experience is really helpful in figuring out whether we can lower SPA cars with factory air suspension.

I have a 2018 V90CC, and so far I lowered the front with Heico springs; reusing the factory adaptive shocks.

For the rear, I used a type of "Ghostlink"/ Adjustable rear link for the level sensors. I shortened the link 5mm from factory, so the car lowers itself ~1" without having to mess with any coding or calibrations. 

I do want to switch the suspension out to coilovers, but I know the "Suspension Fault" will be inevitable if I leave the adaptive shock connectors unplugged. My question is -- What kind of testing / resistor did you use to trick the car into thinking it still has OEM adaptive shocks?

I know on other platforms, wiring in a 20W 8 Ohm Load Resistor usually does the trick, but wanted to see what type you used so I can try to replicate it.

Thank you

[PoLonY]

While I don't think anyone has tried this, I don't see why you could not adjust config to match what the car without the rear air would be set to. 

I can try to help when you get to this, I think there may be some not-obvious configurations in addition to disable air suspension, such as the height sensor config, what should it be, which I am not sure about. There are sensors inside the air springs but I am not sure if the air susp car has an external height sensor like the non-air car would have. You can drop me a line at support email and I would try to help you sort that out.

I would be interested in doing this as well. About to pick up a 2017 S90 T6 individual with the factory rear air suspension and active shocks

I wish to fit aftermarket air suspension all round and disable the active shocks etc to lower the vehicle 

I’ll be looking at purchasing Orbit if this is a possibility to do

Hi PoLonY,

Thank you so much for the detailed response! I think your experience is really helpful in figuring out whether we can lower SPA cars with factory air suspension.

I have a 2018 V90CC, and so far I lowered the front with Heico springs; reusing the factory adaptive shocks.

For the rear, I used a type of "Ghostlink"/ Adjustable rear link for the level sensors. I shortened the link 5mm from factory, so the car lowers itself ~1" without having to mess with any coding or calibrations. 

I do want to switch the suspension out to coilovers, but I know the "Suspension Fault" will be inevitable if I leave the adaptive shock connectors unplugged. My question is -- What kind of testing / resistor did you use to trick the car into thinking it still has OEM adaptive shocks?

I know on other platforms, wiring in a 20W 8 Ohm Load Resistor usually does the trick, but wanted to see what type you used so I can try to replicate it.

Thank you

No problem at all

I am in contact with Andrew at Orbit Support regarding this and will be continuing to make changes etc to my config in an attempt to find a work around.

Regarding the cancellers, i went down the rabbit hole on this and found many different results etc, so i took some info from the P2 guys as well as the VAG community on the MQB chassis.

I used a 4.8mH 2.6ohm +-10% inductor and a 5ohm 25 watt 1% resistor (these were what i could find locally that were closest to the suggested 5mH inductor for example) and got the correct plug ends so it was totally plug and play, made myself a lil PVC tube setup and plugged them in. As said the front delete worked perfectly when the rears remain plugged in, with all 4 cancellers plugged in the suspension code popped up, so it may require a higher mH inductor as i also had the inductors fitted over a bolt for an iron core to increase the mH, so i might just be a lil change needed there. I measured the struts as 8ohm resistance so i know that the total value for ohm (7.8ish) i have on my cancellers is bang on. 

So if you keep the rear factory air with the ghost links then my setup will work for the front to fit coilovers.

I used this page as my guide to what the cancellers look like internally in general and for the part numbers for the connectors etc:

https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php...re.380886/

The front wiring from the shock plug goes into the fender liner to the same plug type as listed in that link, so i connected it there and tucked the canceller away behind the liner

[PoLonY]

Right so update here

Huge thank you to Andrew at SpaceyTech Support, he took the time to dive into this matter despite it being pretty niche in the greater SPA scheme of things haha.

It took a couple of attempts but we got it in the end. 

So you need to code 58, 59 and 60 to 01. Andrew had to update Orbit to remove the SUM module ECU when these options were selected.

This removes the air suspension, adaptive shocks and height sensors from the car by removing the SUM module from the config. If you code it back you will need to recalibrate the air suspension as the SUM reverts to factory settings. I wasn't able to attempt recalibration so just moved onto disabling the SUM completely. I'm sure if I revert to stock i will have to attempt to refill the system and recalibrate etc. But for now I can now look at aftermarket rear shocks for the car and remove the adaptive stock rears.

However the SUM module will throw suspension failure errors if it remains plugged in. So removing CF51 fuse from the passenger footwell fuse box removes that problem. I had removed the fuse for the compressor already as i didn't want it over cycling whilst i was messing with the SUM module stuff

I have the indirect TPMS setup in my car, and funny enough removing the height sensors as well as the adaptive shocks will throw a TPMS service required error, it seems the car may use the height sensors as part of the indirect TPMS monitoring system. I changes the TPMS system config to 01 - without TPMS and it removed the TPMS from the menu and all errors associated with that. I found the indirect TPMS rather useless at detecting a flat tyre or low pressure so don't miss it. I may look for the sensors to get the proper reading etc and reactivate TPMS if needed.

No height sensors means the headlights won't self level, and are at a default height but all the bending etc options still function perfectly. I will just set the headlights to the exact height i prefer/need manually if it appears they are too low etc.

You cannot change the height sensors to a normal VDDM option, there appears to be no wiring connecting the height sensors to VDDM module if you have the SUM module, i got various no sensor connected/found on the VDDM errors when attempting this. If you are adamant to have height sensors for headlight leveling then you will likely have to wire in the sensors to the VDDM physically, i don't care so won't attempt this lol

But for now, i have and error free dash board and i can use my aftermarket air suspension system as I wish without headlight errors etc and i can easily revert back to stock suspension and config via Orbit. This was the ultimate goal to be able to disable the factory air in a manner that was reversible.