Nope. But if I do, I'll get them in chrome. That way everyone will know how serious I am about paint protection.
It'll be a while though. My mod budget is tapped out at the moment. I built a GM dealer programming setup on the cheap.
So, quick background for anyone who's not up on C7 Corvette infotainment options (IE anyone not named Matt Janusch
)
In 2016, GM added Android Auto and Apple Car Play to their cars. This required upgraded hardware, which meant even the regular non-Android/Apple stuff was faster and smoother as well. GM's official position is that if you want these features, you should buy a newer car
By some small miracle, this newer hardware is actually plug and play (sort of) on 2014-2015 C7s. There's one small problem though. If you have a Z51 like me and Matt, or a Z06, you've got an active exhaust system. There's a menu that allows you to customize when the exhaust is loud or quiet, and you can also tweak the steering weight. This is independent of the drive mode selector knob on the center console.
Installing the 2016 hardware breaks this menu. 2016 and up cars still have it, but there's some incompatibility between the 2016 infotainment and the rest of the 2014-2015 car.
There are vendors selling this upgrade for $750-1000. I didn't want to pay that and lose stuff at the same time.
Thus began the eBay stalking and reading a whole lot of GM service bulletins.
I lucked out and got a GM Multiple Diagnostic Interface (the blue thing) super cheap. This is the GM dealer scan/programming tool. Mine is actually made by ETAS too. It's not a Chinese clone. The seller had it listed wrong. I was the only bidder
Now that means I don't need to buy pre-programmed modules from vendors. At this point, I thought I might know a workaround for the broken drive mode menu. I can buy used parts and start experimenting.
After a whole lot of research, I found the parts I needed. An upgraded HMI (human machine interface) module, and the newer radio. I got them for $165 total
The last thing I needed was a subscription to GMs Service Programming System. They recently changed their subscription model to $40 for 24 months of access to updates for a single VIN. I needed a 2016 VIN in order to get the appropriate software for these parts, so I took one off a totaled car on an auction site. I could have used one off a car for sale, but since I was subscribing to an official GM system, I didn't want my tinkering messing up someone's records with the mothership.
The HMI module is up inside the drivers side dash, just above the hood release. It's annoying, but not too bad.
The radio, on the other hand, was a nightmare. It's buried in the passenger side foot well, behind the carpet, underneath a metal bracket, and on the back side of another bracket behind the body control module (BCM). That last bracket is held in place by several pain in the ass nuts, and some really thick harness bundles.
This is the BCM. The big red thing is the battery cable coming from the trunk. The radio is behind this. It sucked. It really, really sucked.
I want to find the GM engineer responsible for this and make them replace this part, then see how smart they think they are while their hands are bleeding like mine did.
Anyway, I got it done.
Once everything was powered back up, the radio was in theft protection mode. It took nearly 30 minutes to reflash the damn thing. That's what the big silver box in the first photo is for. It's the GM recommended high end battery charger/maintainer. It supplies very clean power for use during reprogramming. (Power spikes can cause reflashing to fail) That was another eBay buy. I actually bought it for diagnosing the Audi when my starter went out
After that I reprogrammed the HMI module to tell it it was in a Corvette rather than a Camaro. Fortunately that only took a few seconds.
My idea about the drive mode menu didn't work, but I don't really care. The exhaust and steering stuff still work via the drive selector knob. I just can't customize it. After playing with it some more, I doubt I'd have gotten much use out of it anyway. But the faster UI and Android Auto will benefit me every time I drive the car. I've got Google Maps navigation now. My car didn't have a factory nav system.
I did pull off two other wins while I was at it. For some reason, GM offered HD radio on the Corvette in 14 and 15, got rid of it for 16 and 17, and then brought it back in 2018. It was available on other 16-17 GM vehicles though.
So I just used a radio that came out of a truck
The aftermarket upgrades call for changing the USB jack for some reason. This is based on an upgrade GM offered on early 2016 ATS-Vs that got build without this hardware. The newer USB jack doesn't have an SD card reader.
I left mine alone. The USB ports and the SD card reader work fine. That saved another $30-50.
So all in, I've got just over $200 into this between hardware and the GM SPS subscription. I kept my HD radio and my SD card slot, I gained Android Auto, and I lost a menu I don't think I'd have really used in the first place. I don't count the cost of the MDI or the battery charger since they'll have value beyond just this project.
It took me longer than expected, but it was still wrapped up in around 4 hours. That "1:42" in the screen shots was AM
But the time and achievement still beats the hell out of a lot of my other projects
