Yet Another CAN Bus Thread....
 

Mods, please move this as appropriate.

Hi, all!

I have a long-term fun project, involving installing a Mercedes pre-electronic Diesel (OM617) in a Dodge Dakota.

Cruise control and environmental controls should not need to be sacrificed.

I would like to have the truck be able to communicate data on speed, real-time fuel consumption, boost, EGT, and all other fun stuff with an Android tablet display instead of a traditional dashboard.

I would like to also have a secondary glass dash that handles nav, entertainment, and controlling video from the sideview and rearview cameras (mounted on the travel trailer).

All of this should be logged...

So, with this picture in mind, my options are:
Make it all up as a pile of sensors and miles of wire, the old-fashioned way, which I know how to do, but am sort of dreading.
Learn CAN Bus, build/hack controllers for various systems, and do reporting and control interface that way. More learning, but much less wire and terminations.

My problem:
There's plenty of available professional-level education, some even free, for creating production vehicle systems. Very little of this is useful to me, and it's a bit overkill.
There's plenty of available "how to talk to your existing CAN Bus" for enthusiast car owners, which doesn't posit that you'll be wanting to set up reporting or AC controls, as the cars already have those.
There's very little, if any, "CAN for the DIY vehicle builder".

Does anyone have any pointers they can offer, or had anyone been down this road before?

To reassure the sane among us, all safety functions will be OEM, and the engine will work just fine without the electronics.

Thanks!

Well, I would suggest building your own CAN interface and start doing packet sniffing.

I know that on newer Chrysler vehicles with CAN, there's a powertrain CAN bus and a secondary entertainment CAN bus. Both of them interface with each other via the TIPM or FCM (as appropriate).

What model year Dodge Dakota are we talking about? 2005+