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DIY: Cruise Control & Cornering Lamps in a Ford EcoSport

I had made one request to them that if we're keeping the car, I'll modify it as per my requirement and they said okay.

BHPian jithin23 recently shared this with other BHPians.

Disclaimer: Try this mod at your own risk and if your car is out of warranty, please take a backup of all the modules before changing any setting.

Most of you will be aware of the most recent mod I had done (the cluster swap with Navigation enabled). That's just the trailer of a mod and the real picture comes into play now, i.e. Enabling Cruise control.

I travel a lot in my car and drive about 500-700 kms at a stretch during road trips. Little did I know that without that one button during long drives was going to play havoc with me. So I was casually telling my parents that let's exchange our car for a diesel S TDCi (I'm very addicted to the EcoSport as it offers the right balance of style, power, safety and economy. I'm waiting if another car from any brand can fill up the shoes of the EcoSport). As expected, the answer was a big NO! I had made one request to them that if we're keeping the car, I'll modify it as per my requirement and they said okay. They know that I know my stuff about cars, hence the confident yes.

Let's get to the main matter now:

I was researching across various global Ford forums to somehow find a way to enable Cruise control (Ford cars are one of the toughest to do mods as every module is interconnected and secure) and I did get in touch with some Russian, German and Brazilian folks who told me how the process needs to be done and what are the risks involved if the mod goes sideways.

I got to know that Ford has disabled Cruise Control in the PCM for Indian cars and it was enabled by default for overseas cars and I felt like I was stuck in a dead end. I tried enabling cruise control even in BCM and IPC, no luck. So I wanted to find out how to enable this in the PCM.

Then on researching more (this took months), I stumbled upon this application called As-built Explorer (link to download). This tool helps in decoding features by comparing as-built files of different VIN's but the twist is that everything is in hexadecimal format and it's tricky to identify the right block to make changes.

A person named Idumbakumar was a God send for me. At the right time, he helped me in decoding the correct value for the cruise control in the PCM.

Before I get into how I completed the installation of Cruise Control, these are the sites which gave me an idea about the mod potential of Ford cars:

UCDS forum (very useful website and their tool has immense capabilities).

Powermod (for any mod related to Sync 3 or remaps. Sadly they serve only in Europe though. They support almost all car brands across the Globe!)

The next step was to gather the hardware and some help in installing the switch. Naveen had already installed the ST-line steering in his EcoSport, so I went to his place and took his help so that I don't mess up anything by doing it all alone. Before we touch the hardware, we need to enable Cruise control in the PCM, BCM (it's given as cruise control in the BCM module) and IPC module (enable Adjustable Speed Limiter Device{ASLD}).

Module Names list:

Procuring the Cruise control switch is easy, however it's not recommended unless you have the 8-pin wiring harness (Ford does not sell the harness at all and AliBhai/eBay has stopped shipping to India) and the steering needs to be cut on the side for the Cruise control switch to fit properly. An easier route would be to take a steering wheel and harness from a totaled Titanium+ (2017 Nov-2019 Sep or AT model) or S. I went with the 1st option as Naveen had an extra harness with him.

Cruise Control part number:GN1Z9C888D is available on Boodmo

Cruise Control Switch

I called up Naveen (BHPian nkdev89) and asked him if I can come to his place to get the cruise control fixed, he readily agreed but he gave me a disclaimer saying that the wiring might differ and it may short some module. Then we sat and did an analysis of what are the modules which would be affected if things go wrong. So it boiled down to SCCM, GWM and IPC modules. I told him I'll go for it.

Wiring diagram

In case if you want only the wiring harness and if you're lucky enough to source it from abroad (go for the 8 pin one. I've posted this for reference).

The wiring harness:

Part number to be changed in SCCM:

We cross verified with the circuit diagram from Ford and then we did a test of the switch and wiring in Forscan. The wiring worked without shorting any circuit. I was overjoyed and now the tough part comes - to cut a bit of the steering. We kept on making iterations till the switch sat flush on the steering wheel. This took us almost an entire evening to get it right and oh boy! It worked.

The steering opened:

Cut portion of the steering. Need to drill a hole in the small black circle near the cut portion as the extra thread bolt will be seen which is used for locking the new switch in place:

Switch fitting flush:

Day and night difference after the mods. The cabin looks way more premium:

Another twist was that the PCM was not reading any value at all. I was like all the efforts went in vain. Then I contacted all the people whom I had approached earlier and they told me the issue was with the Forscan tool and send an email to the Forscan team.

After 2 days, the Forscan team sends me another version of Forscan and boom! Cruise control worked in my EcoSport.

Please note that neither of us are going to share the values over here as PCM data is sensitive to be shared.

A video of cruise control functioning in my car.

The speed limiter can be set from 30-150 km/h. Green color indicates that the function is active (applies to speed limiter also). If you accelerate hard beyond the locked speed, the speed limiter will turn off. The resume and cancel buttons are very handy. The best part about cruise control is that even if you accelerate for a quick overtake, the cruise control pauses momentarily and then goes back to the set speed. Long pressing on the Set+/- buttons changes the speed in increments or decrements of 10 km/h. Pressing the clutch or brake disengages cruise control.

The way the car lunges forward when the cruise control is engaged is that you get pushed back and the car pulls ahead clean and likewise while lowering the speed using cruise control, a good amount of engine braking is done.

Also, cruise control helps in improving fuel economy.

Total cost:

Cruise control switch(OEM): ₹600

Wiring harness:₹1,700

Total: ₹2300 and a feature unlocked. I wonder why Ford deleted cruise control in the Titanium+ MT between Oct 2019-present for a part which would cost less than 1000 for them through OEM suppliers. Another opportunity lost.

At the moment, only 2 EcoSport Facelift Titaniums in India have Cruise control and MID navigation (yours truly and Naveen's car).

Credits need to go to my parents, Naveen and Idumbakumar for making this happen.

Now for the bonus mods:(Requires ForScan)

1. For enabling Navigation in MID (might help folks who have 4" MID with Sync 3 V3.4)

Go to IPC module and enable the following:

2. Fog Lamps as cornering lamps

Go to BCM in Forscan and see the highlighted portion of the below image.

Cornering fog lamps video

For Titanium+ and S, the right or left foglamp will light up if you turn the steering wheel to the respective direction.

For Titanium and lower variants, while using right/left indicator, the particular foglamp lights up.

However for both scenarios, headlight must be ON.

I'm sure Ford folks and FASS will be shocked! Now Ford is turning out to be a VW in terms of mods and that's a great thing. I sometimes wonder how these car accessories shops in Delhi add OEM features like cruise control and Auto AC in base models of Creta/Seltos/i20 without changing any module config or do they have tie ups with insiders in Hyundai dealerships?

Upcoming mods are hill assist (not sure if it's feasible, I'll need to research) and TPMS. Till then Ciao and stay safe people!

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