RT rescued from graveyard

I'll be using this thread as placeholder for my pics and progress in repairing my spyder which i bought after previous owner crashed and bent frame.

Maybe this will be usefull to someone.

This is before I started my work.



There is no front, damaged rear, multiple parts missing, no sensors, bent frame, missing rods, damaged coolers. etc.

Upper a-arms were bought from newer model but unfortunately length was not the same. The ones on older RT are longer.



Some cutting, grinding and welding and it's done.

Everything removed and frame cutting starts. Old USA lathe from 1934 (southbend). Somehow it ended in Poland .

View attachment 186424

After some bending and welding.

Plates on left and right side which are holding coolers were removed. They will be done the same way as in MY2013.
I'm still not sure how front will look like so I'm not doing these right now.




Now with Fox shocks from newer model I need to fit upper mounts for shocks



Engine front mount was removed too (big plate between front part of frame and lower horizontal part) and welded afterwards to fit engine properly in case frame dimension has changed a bit. Engine test fitment below.

Now lokg process of fitting electric harness.



There was coolant temperature sensor missing. I used one for many toyota's and other makes. One of oem numbers is AS2140. I used FEBI.
Thread is M12x1.5. Newer models have different sensor.



Off course sensor was removed by someone and plug was remover from harness as well . I've repaired harness and woila, it works. As i remember specification is 2500ohm @ 20*C for temp. sensor.

At this point I starged the engine and there are problems with DPS and ABS. Basically BUDS is reporting both of them are damaged.

I've tried to fix DPS but it is glued probably with resin to it's housing. I will try to mimic DPS using CAN bus and I will remove electric motor to remove any resistance which is caused by gears and motor inside DPS.

Torque sensor is non replecable. It's produced by Megatech in Canada. I could not find any part numbers found inside DPS.

For now work is in progress so we will see how it goes with DPS.



One error is because of no seat. Connector was damaged so I've had to replace it. It is DEUTCHE DT 3 pin connector.


No harness for cargo as well and no radio so new harness will be produced by me. There are more cables in CIC connectors than on schematics, probably because same harness is used for older models as well to have same production line for many models.


Brake master cylinder was used from LAGUNA III 07-15r. BOSCH 0204Y21951 0204051440. It fits but reservoid needs to be removed and hose fittings needs to be installed in place of laguna reservoir. Also, bolts to hold brake lines are M10 x 1 in spyder and new master cylinder is M12 x 1 so two ends of brake line were drilled from 10mm to 12mm. No leaks and still plenty of space for washers and it works great.

MONK said:

I salute you for taking on a challenge like this but honestly this one might be destined for the scrap heap/parts bin. By the time you bolt the few remaining pieces on a new frame and purchase/install new parts (the tupperware isn't cheap), you probably could have bought a really nice used (but complete) unit.

Not trying to deter you and maybe RTs are scarce in Poland so this is the only way to go but that really does look like a lot of expensive work.

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I've bought this one for 2,5k USD. My goal was to keep within 5k USD but ABS unit did not allow that.
To be honest when I bought this spyder I didn't know how many things could fail because of bad engineering. Normally I don't use cars/bikes with too much electronics. I have older Hilux, Honda from 93 and old bikes like KLX 650 from 94. They all run great. If something happens you can fix them with simple tools. This is not the case with spyder and this is bad judgement from my side. But, I still want to learn how things are done and want to be first to fix problems which are giving people headache.

Also, I hate when things (expensive and cheap) are thrown to garbage.

Eviltwin said:

Very ambitious. But not seeing all the photos in the thread.

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I've moved photos to google. Don't know why but forum server probably rejected them. They were there at the beginning but disappeared. Now they are back.

RICZ said:

You are certainly resourceful, Acquiring parts from other vehicles and making them work on the Spyder. This project will keep you out of the pool hall for a long time.
Where in Poland? I am familiar with your country. I had family who had a one way train ride to Auschwitz.

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It takes some time to find almost same parts and customize them to work with spider but it is fun when you realize you've paid 8$ for brake master cylinder (perfect condition) because it is for citroen and it is working great.

I'm from Kalisz but staying in Poznan for couple of years now. I have friends now far from Auschwitz as well.

Because of fault p551 and p552 and no data in BUDS from torque sensor I know DPS is damaged. I've removed dps housing to check electronic board but it is glued in many placed to housing.
I don't want to buy expensive DPS to help me with steering in low speeds. After steering without dps couple of times I don't need it.

I removed electric motor and made a plug to remove as much resistance from DPS unit as possible.







I will try to mimic DPS with help of Arduino and send CAN messages so that ecu will not show any fault. I'm in process of analyzing messages but I don't have proper DPS and "working" messages so this will take some time and is not a priority.

Right now, I know DPS is sending message 330. At byte 6 there is counter and byte 7 is checksum made of XOR of each byte in message:

0x330 a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 nn cc. nn is counter 00-0F and cc = (((((a0 xor a1) xor a2) xor a3) xor a4) xor a5).

12 messages are sent in pack of 3 x 4:
4x 00 05 52 01 FF FF 0n cc
4x 00 05 51 01 FF FF 0n cc
4x 00 99 99 01 FF FF 0n cc

01 at the beginning is 00, after couple of seconds when key is turned to ON it changes to 01.

When key is turned off there are some messages with C1 as byte 1 but it happens at the end so I don't think it has any real meaning.

BTW I'm software developer with decade+ experience so this is not an issue for me to mess with those things. Hopefully I will wrap this Spyder around your finger

I know some people bought MPI3 with BUDS on sale. You could use BUSMASTER (free app from bosch) to log incoming messages. It would be very helpfull to see messages from working DPS.

In exchange I will analyze messages from YAW sensor (ID 0x303). Guess what will happen if we will trick yaw sensor and acceleration sensor .


I'm not sure if steering sensor is a limiter as well. Before I will actually start using and testing spyder on the road, I will not know how it behaves and why. Right now I have 100 meters on in - not too much. It is not registered also so no help with tricking ecu at least before february 21.