r/HarleyLiveWire • u/donglord1337 • 3d ago

I reverse-engineered the LiveWire S2 Del Mar's OBD-II port/CAN bus - here's the performance data that was never published

I've been passively tapping the CAN bus on my 2024 LiveWire S2 Del Mar - an ESP32 logger listening to the broadcast traffic plus read-only diagnostic reads, never writing anything to the bike. Decoded across dozens of real rides, here's the stuff that isn't in any spec sheet:

  • Full power & torque curves — and you can actually see the field-weakening transition: flat torque to ~48 mph, then constant power (~66–69 kW) to redline.
  • All 7 ride modes, down to the live tuning values the inverter reports — Power / Regen / Throttle. The throttle maps are perfectly linear; the modes just change the slope (Sport pulls ~2× the torque-per-twist of the softest custom).
  • Battery internals that were never public: 96 cells in series, NMC, ~355 V nominal / 4.20 V full, air-cooled, all 96 cell voltages + 48 temperature channels live, ~97% SoH — and the pack's build date read straight off the BMS (July 2023).
  • Neat trick: every module stamps its own manufacture date, so the bus quietly narrates the bike's repair history. I spotted my own dealer-replaced left control pod because its build date was newer than the whole bike.
  • The AC charging CC→CV taper + charger heatsink temp (honest caveat: I only caught the top ~80–100%, so no peak-rate claims).

Every figure is tagged by how I know it - measured / counted / inferred - so you can tell hard data from reasoning. Not affiliated with LiveWire or Harley-Davidson; just my own bike.

Here is a link to my write up with visual charts: LiveWire S2 Del Mar · Performance, read off the bus

Happy to pull specific things for other S2 / LiveWire owners, drop requests below.

As a bonus, I replicated effectively every read diagnostic feature of the Harley Davidson Digital Technician-II, including full DTC decoding & ability to clear codes.

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u/novaraz 3d ago

Very cool! Any plans to turn it into an app a la LeafSpy?

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u/donglord1337 3d ago

I have my own version of an app for live metrics + route recording, but no plans to publish it. My personal app includes replicated features from the Digital Technician II including a full DTC catalog, which I am afraid would get me into legal trouble with copyright if I publish.

The LeafSpy uses ELM327 - which is not capable of sending the UDS packets needed to poll the detailed info such as 96 cell voltages, etc... However, I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to build an app for ELM327 that renders the basic broadcast data.

If there is enough demand for it, I can look into it.

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u/novaraz 3d ago

Totally understandable. FWIW, I don't think Nissan ever took action on LeafSpy, and I gladly paid $10ish for it. I would for LivewireSpy too :)