I retrofit MCU2, IC2, Tuner2, and FSD Computer into my HW2.0 Car

Here's my story of my DIY HW2.0 retrofit for MCU2, IC2, TUNER2, and FSD Computer:

I want to begin this post by offering the most honest caveat I can: I do not encourage you to repeat anything I have done. In fact, now that Tesla is offering the MCU2 and FSD Computer retrofits officially, I highly recommend you go do that. MCU2 + FSD is wonderful. I am presenting this post to hopefully provide some guidance and entertainment to members of this great community – a place that I’ve found endlessly fun for the past several years during my Tesla ownership. I make no claims that the guidance offered below is correct or suited to your circumstances.

Towards the end of January, late one night while tinkering with my Tesla, I had a realization – I finally knew enough about the Model S/X hardware & software architecture to attempt one of the most involved retrofits I’ve ever done on a vehicle – an MCU2/IC2/Tuner2/APE3 retrofit into my HW2.0 MCU1 Model S. After a LOT of research, and with tons of help from others in this community (thank you to those that helped; you know who you are), I wanted to share my success story of retrofitting MCU2/IC2/Tuner2/APE3 to work in my car. All told – I have a fully working MCU2/IC2/Tuner2/APE3 with all the Theater, Arcade, Caraoke, FM Radio, Web Browser, Dashcam, Sentry, FSD visualizations and other goodies you would expect.

“But Tesla now offers an official MCU2/APE3 retrofit!” you say…” Why would you want to do a retrofit yourself?” Good question…there’s a couple reasons I chose to do this myself:

• I completed the retrofit a couple months before Tesla finally came out with a public announcement that MCU2 retrofits were officially official. I’d been waiting for Tesla to follow-through on Elon’s never-ending tweets promising a retrofit was coming and finally just decided I’d do it myself.
• Tesla charges $2,500 for the MCU2/IC2 retrofit and does not include the XM/FM Tuner2. I thought I’d try getting Tuner2 to work – which I did.
• I found a person with a wrecked 2018 Model S who was willing to sell me the MCU2, IC2, Tuner2, and wiring harness out of the car – everything I needed from a hardware perspective for a reasonable price. All in, I saved roughly $1,000 doing this myself compared to asking Tesla to do it. Honestly though, I probably put 100+ hours into this project and went from knowing nothing to knowing a lot. I didn’t really save time/money; quite the contrary. I did this because it was a ton of fun.
• I got the APE3 (FSD Computer) unit on loan from a friend. I did purchase FSD from Tesla and will have Tesla install my forthcoming APE3 unit whenever they actually do it.

Come along as I take you through my journey of retrofitting the MCU2/IC2/Tuner2/APE3 hardware into my HW2.0 car.

 

[rob4448585]

Where does tesla offer 24 hour access for Toolbox?

sign up here Welcome | Tesla Service (highlighted the individual section)

 

[rob4448585]

from here - Tesla Service Cable Ethernet FakraHSD for Toolbox 1.5ft Model S/X | eBay

In order to use this cable, you will need an active account on service.teslamotors.com, you can then download Toolbox at toolbox.teslamotors.com (needs a Win7,8, or 10 PC), the base rate for a subscription is $30/day up to $3000/year (not included with this cable). I CANNOT provide ANY support for the Toolbox app, nor can I provide access free or otherwise, please do not message me about this.​

 

[berkeley_ecar]

Wow. As a fellow DIY-er who knows his limits, I would never have taken this on, but I'm full of admiration for your mix of gutsiness and grit. And for your sharing such a thorough and well-illustrated document of the entire process. Having recently had MCU2/AP3 upgrades to my Mar 2017 model S, I was concerned about the loss of AM/FM/XM radio, but I understand better now why Tesla elected not to offer it as part of the MCU2 upgrade. XM was never something I used, but I would have liked to have preserved the option. Use of tunein as a FM replacement is not as smooth/worry-free as some in this thread have suggested: 1) not all local stations are available; 2) I experience frequent drop-outs and pauses (I assume the system is buffering due to transient communication-loss); 3) it is not as helpful as traditional radio on road-trips; 4) I'm concerned about civil emergencies, when wireless communication required by tunein may be down, but selected local radio stations may still be broadcasting.
I rarely used AM, but the same arguments can be made. Another thread on the forum documents other's attempts to connect non-Tesla radio tuners to the MCU2, but they are thwarted by the limitation you point out -- they are unable to do the requisite software provisioning for the added device. I do hope Tesla eventually addresses this problem.

Just before the pandemic hit, I had been trying (in slo-mo) to install the kit devised by TMC members artsci and appleguru (see: 2nd run of camera switch that show a front image on the touch screen) that allows one to install a rear-view cam on the front buffer, and display it on the MCU when driving forward at slow speed, aided by a CANBUS gadget that can tell the camera switch which gear (D/R) the vehicle is in (all of this to avoid having the front bumper colliding with curbs and the like). I'm hoping my upgrades are going to be compatible with that.

I hope you enjoy your new driving experiences as much as I have.

 

[KyleDay]

sign up here Welcome | Tesla Service (highlighted the individual section)
View attachment 561628

I believe the attached is just for Repair and Service manuals, parts, etc.

I do not believe there is a Toolbox capability for individuals afaik

 

[rob4448585]

I do not believe there is a Toolbox capability for individuals afaik

I guess there is only 1 way to find out. I'll have to give it a try and see

 

[verygreen]

I guess there is only 1 way to find out. I'll have to give it a try and see

FYI: MCU2 is not supported by the toolbox v2, it's for mcu1 only.

 

[rob4448585]

FYI: MCU2 is not supported by the toolbox v2, it's for mcu1 only.

 

[S100D]

FYI: MCU2 is not supported by the toolbox v2, it's for mcu1 only.

Green, I have to believe that there is a version of the Toolbox that supports MCU2s. Do you know what version supports the MCU2?

Thanks!

 

[croman]

Green, I have to believe that there is a version of the Toolbox that supports MCU2s. Do you know what version supports the MCU2?

Thanks!

I'm guessing version 3.

 

[EV-Fixme]

Green, I have to believe that there is a version of the Toolbox that supports MCU2s. Do you know what version supports the MCU2?

Thanks!

I believe that is called garage. I think you just need to be employed as a Tesla tech to gain access, Body repair also get it AFAIK.

 

[verygreen]

Green, I have to believe that there is a version of the Toolbox that supports MCU2s. Do you know what version supports the MCU2?

Thanks!

I know some people tricked toolbox v2 to work with mcu2 cars, but it's not full functionality.

Tesla has a new web-based tool for mcu2/model3 I heard and internally they now use odin anyway.

 

[emir-t]

I finally found the parts from a wrecked car and thinking of attempting this retrofit myself. Not only because it will be cheaper to do than Tesla's own but because I'll keep radio and I'll learn a lot while doing it. I'm thinking of rooting it via desoldering and dumping data from emmc and logging in with the info I get from said data dump.

Only potential problem I can think of is if the firmware version of the unit I buy is too high, I might not redeploy without a proper HW3 ape-cache. If it is the encrypted one I could never redeploy even. Also, if I successfully do so, would Tesla keep sending me updates? Is it written somewhere on mothership that my VIN is MCU1 and I should be getting mcu1 firmwares? or is it the car doing the inquiry and will ask for mcu2? From what I remember seeing on the logs it inquires a url with a folder named after my vin. If they don't do the retrofit officially and record my VIN as MCU2 would that create an issue?

 

[KyleDay]

I finally found the parts from a wrecked car and thinking of attempting this retrofit myself. Not only because it will be cheaper to do than Tesla's own but because I'll keep radio and I'll learn a lot while doing it. I'm thinking of rooting it via desoldering and dumping data from emmc and logging in with the info I get from said data dump.

Only potential problem I can think of is if the firmware version of the unit I buy is too high, I might not redeploy without a proper HW3 ape-cache. If it is the encrypted one I could never redeploy even. Also, if I successfully do so, would Tesla keep sending me updates? Is it written somewhere on mothership that my VIN is MCU1 and I should be getting mcu1 firmwares? or is it the car doing the inquiry and will ask for mcu2? From what I remember seeing on the logs it inquires a url with a folder named after my vin. If they don't do the retrofit officially and record my VIN as MCU2 would that create an issue?

You're generally on the right path, but mcu2 does not have tokens - so you cannot read the emmc and then expect to use anything on it to login to mcu2 (unlike mcu1). From a basic standpoint -

1) You need to write some of the /var/etc and /home contents from mcu1 to mcu2 (can be done with emmc read/write (without desoldering, but using easyjtag box).
2) You need a way to write a new gateway configuration file to the gateway computer - something that requires root or other tricks to talk to gateway.
3) you'll get updates. It's even possible to get ape3 cache file as part of your redeploy. This isn't too hard, and yes you'll get updates from Tesla going forward.


Figuring out #2 will be the challenge. If you have a way to do #2, the rest is doable.

 

[emir-t]

Wow you mean to tell me there is no /var/etc/saccess ?

as for #2 I thought this was the easiest. I’ll try and do that with a friend’s MCU2 first and if I can reach gw I’ll pull the plug on purchasing the parts.

I’ll have to lookup easy jtag’ing the intel atom board. I figured this would be toughest part. Sad thing is even if I can do the upgrade, I can’t keep my root? I enjoy driving around with a rooted car. I thought if I could get the tokens from emmc and rm -f the token replacing process I’d be bueno.

I remember pinging an mcu2 cid (ice) from another mcu2 car’s diag port. When I did ssh tesla1@cid it prompted me a password so I’m surprised you saying there are no tokens.

 

[KyleDay]

Wow you mean to tell me there is no /var/etc/saccess ?

as for #2 I thought this was the easiest. I’ll try and do that with a friend’s MCU2 first and if I can reach gw I’ll pull the plug on purchasing the parts.

I’ll have to lookup easy jtag’ing the intel atom board. I figured this would be toughest part. Sad thing is even if I can do the upgrade, I can’t keep my root? I enjoy driving around with a rooted car. I thought if I could get the tokens from emmc and rm -f the token replacing process I’d be bueno.

I remember pinging an mcu2 cid (ice) from another mcu2 car’s diag port. When I did ssh tesla1@cid it prompted me a password so I’m surprised you saying there are no tokens.

There are no tokens

 

[DarrenK]

I believe that is called garage. I think you just need to be employed as a Tesla tech to gain access, Body repair also get it AFAIK.

Are you saying a friendly bodyshop could get this done if everything else was in place? (Tuner2, correct cable, etc.)

 

[EV-Fixme]

Are you saying a friendly bodyshop could get this done if everything else was in place? (Tuner2, correct cable, etc.)

No, sorry for confusion. Tesla has replaced "toolbox" with "garage" and I think only tesla employees have access and body shops wont. There may be possibility but nothing is confirmed.

 

[DarrenK]

No, sorry for confusion. Tesla has replaced "toolbox" with "garage" and I think only tesla employees have access and body shops wont. There may be possibility but nothing is confirmed.

That's too bad.

 

[gaswhat]

I finally found the parts from a wrecked car and thinking of attempting this retrofit myself. Not only because it will be cheaper to do than Tesla's own but because I'll keep radio and I'll learn a lot while doing it. I'm thinking of rooting it via desoldering and dumping data from emmc and logging in with the info I get from said data dump.

Only potential problem I can think of is if the firmware version of the unit I buy is too high, I might not redeploy without a proper HW3 ape-cache. If it is the encrypted one I could never redeploy even. Also, if I successfully do so, would Tesla keep sending me updates? Is it written somewhere on mothership that my VIN is MCU1 and I should be getting mcu1 firmwares? or is it the car doing the inquiry and will ask for mcu2? From what I remember seeing on the logs it inquires a url with a folder named after my vin. If they don't do the retrofit officially and record my VIN as MCU2 would that create an issue?

Did you ever do it?

 

[Cyp896]

Great post! It encourage me to do the same on my AP1 Tesla
Just about to buy all parts (MCU2 + IC2). Considering also to buy radio, but not sure which one should be applicable.
For EU there are at least 3: 1052609-00-A or 1052609-01-A or 1143709-00-C.
I suppose, I should use the last one.

Regarding Tesla SC - they are starting to offer also radio upgrade
For another 500$ (so in total 3000$).

Last question: for what purpose is fakra green port? I think I do not have such in MCU1....