TXE36

Whatever you do, get a retail brand from a trusted source. Way too many counterfeits on the market to trust the likes of Ebay on these.

I've had good luck Microcenter's store brand cards as well as Sandisk.

-Mike

Matt Romanowski

I want to keep this thread going.

I would also add to make sure you review your data after every session. A quick review of battery voltage, oil pressure, temps, etc can make sure you spot a problem early before it hurts the car or costs you a session.

Rob in VA

Any tips on viewing data in the sunlight? Anti-glare screens?

On motec, I use the black theme which helps see the squiggly lines easier.

ir_fuel

Sit somewhere inside

TXE36

Another reason is to avoid wasting precious track time finding an issue with ones driving because the knucklehead (me) didn't look at the data until Monday afternoon.

Derp.

-Mike

ProCoach

Hats off to Matt for his contribution to this week's Speed Secrets Weekly! Nice recap of Best Practices...

Rob in VA

+1

Matt Romanowski

Thanks guys. I'm glad you like the article.

pmason

Yes read Matt's contribution, thanks.

wparente

Without a doubt a best practice would be anytime Roger Caddell from Aim is in town go to his seminar. I sat through 2 days and it was well worth it even if I knew 1/2 the stuff discussed. Roger is a very open and forthcoming with facts and even occasionally throws in an opinion here and there. The one thing that you soon learn is that this is more than a job for Roger, it's an avocation as well. He is filled with enthusiasm as well as knowledge and above all truly a nice guy despite being a nerd at heart. Thanks Roger

Bill Parenteau

Matt Romanowski

Great one. Roger is great. I would also add to do any data webinars you can find. They pop up occasionally and I have learned a ton from them. One webinar that repeats and is worth every penny is John Block's sessions at www.auto-ware.com. If you do them, make sure you tell him I sent you!

wparente

I have done John's webinar which was also great. However they are two different experiences. John's are more structured with a specific agenda to be covered in the 5 one hour sessions which forces a little faster pace. You know where you are going to end up because of the addenda. Roger's class (at least the one I was at) was in person and was less structured which tended to go where the class interests lie. Rogers class was intended to be more general (not road race specific) where Johns was hard core road race specific. Of interest to me was some of the insight to the how and why of the AIM factory thought process because of his personal association with AIM in Italy.
Both John and Roger were excellent instructors, which means you can't go wrong by following the advice of either. Both were amazingly willing to go the extra mile to help understand the material presented, which as you know can sometimes be as clear as mud !
Bill Parenteau

PaddyMcP

Hi Jeff!

My dash gives me 3 pages and I use a similar strategy. My Warm up page is diagnostic. Put EVERY sensor in on that page. Even if you think you'll never need to see the value. At first I just put sensors I thought were neat to see on the dash… and I had a ton of empty spaces. Then one day I just decided to load it up with every single sensor currently installed on the car. Sure enough, months later we were testing - I lost the 5V feed to my throttle position sensor (god knows how). What would have driven a team around the bend - was diagnosed and repaired in 20 minutes.

I do a completely different configuration for sprints vs enduros. Enduros - diagnosis on one page. On the next I have fuel level, laps remaining on fuel, fuel pump status, reserve pump status, lift pump current draw, time remaining on fuel, and lap time, the other page shows race info similar to a sprint, lap gain loss, lap time, etc.

I never show data I don't need to know on a race page. I always let the alarms do their job. If the water isn't boiling - I don't need to see 170 degree water temp. Hide that info and let the alarm go off when it's needed. Same for oil temp, gearbox temp etc. When the car is healthy - I want to try and go quicker and need channels displayed that can help do that - lap time, gain loss, etc.

There is a tremendous advantage in having a good configuration loaded in the dash. I can only image how powerful some of the pro engineers are with this stuff. Sky is the limit.

I'm terrible at this stuff but me and my codrivers get a ton out of even the most basic data.

-Paddy

Matt Romanowski

I try to instill this is people all the time. Having good alarms allows the driver to focus on driving, not reading gauges or analyzing engine temps/pressures/etc. I go one step further and put critical items on one side (oil pressure, coolant temp, water pressure, etc) and information on the other side (trans temp, oil temp, etc) that you want to know. After that, use the dash for shift lights, predictive time, and when an alarm comes on.

PaddyMcP

Great thread Matt…

One step farther on the alarms…

Don't get hung up on the term alarm. It can do much more. Think of it as a notification on a channel change or condition. A great example - we had a driver who wanted to be reminded when he was 30 minutes into a 2 hr stint. He said call it in on the radio if you don't mind.

We set the dash to give him a message that automatically cleared itself to notify him he had been running for 30 min - then an hr, then 1.5 hrs. The crew chief with the radio was probably off taking a **** 30 minutes in…

Want to know if that previous was the fastest time of the session? Set an alarm to tell you you just ran a lower value than your reference lap.

Question for Matt and Peter - what are some super simple math channels you can create for driver to co driver performance comparisons. I always seem to get lost when creating new math channels in MoTec's i2. (I'm limited to i2 Standard )