Driver-Adjustable Shocks for a Race Truck
Challenge
Before this system, the race team had no way to change shock behavior during a race. Adjustments meant stopping, getting under the truck, and turning a knob, which is not an option between stages. They wanted the driver to retune the shocks from the cockpit, in real time, while the truck was moving. At least one prior vendor attempt hadn't shipped.
Approach
The customer fixed the hardware up front: an Enovation MC3 ECU as the brain, a cockpit keypad for driver input, a MoTeC C127 display on the dash, and electronically-actuated compression and rebound shock coils. Our job was to make them behave as one system. The MC3 runs a CODESYS application with three preset-group buttons (nine presets total, each an eight-coil current set), four navigation buttons, and an override button that temporarily drives all enabled coils to a fixed high current. The MC3 drives the shock coils directly, with no intermediate driver, and owns a screen state machine that publishes active state over a dedicated CAN bus running a custom protocol designed for this project. Display screens were mocked in Figma, signed off, then built in MoTeC Display Creator wired to the MC3's CAN signals. Per-channel open and short faults are latched and force the faulted pair to zero current so the truck fails safe.
Result
Shipped March 2026. The driver has full cockpit control over the shocks: nine presets across three buttons, an override for sections that need it, and a settings flow behind a long-press on the nav keys for tuning, persistence, and fault reset. The MoTeC display confirms every state change in real time. Feedback from the race team and customer has been strongly positive.