FixedWing

Curious if anyone has any experience with using a Data Logger in their Porsche -- either on track or road ???

Of so, what are your impressions? Anyone made any practical use of them (i.e. for tuning or set-up)??? Or possibly to improve one's driving/laptimes???

The link is to an example of one available for £499:

DL1 Data Logger

There are others available in the market as well.

Stephen

TM

Hi,

you might want the check http://www.2d-datarecording.com/home.html too.

Cheers
Thomas

fuse

http://www.aim-sportline.com/

I use this on my kart as well as my SCCA racecar. I prefer it over the Stack that came with my Lotus Elise Motorsport.

http://www.stackinc.com/

GuyR

I have the AX22 from Race Technology.

Its a great bit of kit (similar to DL1) and records to compact flash, buy a big card and you can data-log many hours. I bought the AX22 as it has the live display, as I'm more interested in live speeds for road-use than on data-logging for circuits.

The software seems easy to use and they are making continuous improvments to it.

I bought it so I can datalog a genuine 200mph in my car, for my own satisfaction, not just rely on speedo numbers. It also records all acceleration increments and times in grid form, which is cool, so we'll be data-logging acceleration soon as well (just waiting for a day we've booked next month at a 2.2mile long airfield runway).

I'm also going to data-log a couple of friends road-legal Skylines, which run 155mph in the quarter, to get some acceleration times in the usual 0-60 and 0-100 rather then the drag-strip distance based times.

Guy

FixedWing

Interesting Fuse!

Which model do you use? Is it one of the models with an in-car display?

Curious, how do you use the data? Are you able to use it to improve your driving? Or is it mostly for tuning and setting up the car??

Stephen

FixedWing

Guy, I also saw the AX22. Also very nice! And cheap. I guess the advantage of the AX22 is portability and ease of installation whereas the DL1 seems to offer more potential for recording other data channels?

If all you want to record is speed, then why not just a GPS? I have a aviation based Garmin 196 which I've used for speed runs and that seems to work very well.

Some of my Ringers friends are using them to compare different drivers in the same car at the Nürburgring. By looking at all of the braking point, etc. they can see where fellow drivers are able to handle certain corners slightly differently and faster and copy them. That way they are collectively able to improve.

Interesting stuff.

Stephen

SeanGT3RS

Stephen

I and a number of friends have the DL1 and I am very happy with it.

Cheers Sean

FixedWing

Sean,

What uses are you making of it? Are you using it to compare different drivers in the same car? Different drivers in different cars? Are you able to use it to go faster?? What other uses??

Thanx.

Stephen

macfly

I have a DL1, but can't use the damn thing because VirtualPC on the Mac can't read it's flash cards or the serial port outlet GRRRRRR!! The issue isn't with the Dl1 or it's software, which works fine on VPC6, its with Microsoft, but they say it is a known issue that will be fixed in VPC7, so hopefully I can join in on the learning too!

I guess if you're in PC world it is an ok tool, but beware if you are in Mac world, as the interface is still some months off.

jyoteen

yeah, used it around Thunderhill (actually, the DL90) for a bunch of laps just to test it out. Chris Brown of CB Racing has these.

I don't have a PC, so it's pretty useless, but I did find the data interesting...or at least depressing and showed how much of a newbie I was at the track years ago..

Check out the sample data.DL90 example data of my car on the track

Remember to download the app so you can see the data. It's easy to setup in the car

GuyR

Two reasons.

Firstly I'm interesting in using it to log the acceleration times and for quarter-miles, both for my own and friends cars.

Secondly, I had a Garmin handheld and we had some problems with accuracy at high speeds. I worked OK most of the time, but occasionally we would get readings that were well off and inconsistent. Garmins also only refresh at 1Hz, whereas the DL1 and DL90 do so at 5Hz and interpolate in between using the GPS and also accelerometers.

It also helps that the DL1 has an external roof-mounted aerial (magnetic) so gets a great GPS signal, whereas in-car GPS has much poorer signal quality and may have been made worse by the full metal roll-cage.

Guy

FixedWing

The Garmin I was using was the Garmin 196 which is primarily targetted at aviation and I found this one quite accurate.

But no question a GPS combined with an accelerometer is better. In fact, we're talking about just that on the Ringers list at the moment.

Stephen

fuse

I use a MyChron for both my kart and SCCA SpecMiata. I found that most of data loggers are very good...couple of things that are super important to me were...software and sampling rate. The MyChron is an inexpensive model that has basic 4 channel logging at relative low sampling rate, but good enough for most uses other than damper measurements. The 4 channels I use is water temp, oil temp, oil pressure and throttle position. The main feature is the analysis software that is very good, downloadable from the web and is always being updated with features and formulas. It was recommended to me by a company that supports Indy, IRL, Atlantic, ALMS teams with data acquisition. They worked with Motec, Stack, Pi and so on...and explained to me that the software features are competitive at such a low cost. One thing to keep in mind is that...much like a dyno, the data is best used to compare data.

I use it to review my driving compared to other racers that drive my car, as well as compare from car to car and lap to lap. You can see how quickly the car accelerates, what gears you are in, shift points, braking points, brake force, brake distance, throttle application, g-force and so on...basically it will tell you your driving skills...very obvious when another driver drives your car. It also maps out the track accurate enough to break the track down to different sectors and see the difference from lap to lap, sector to sector, you to another driver. Basically, I can see on the data change when I make a change to the car or drive a different line, taking a corner in a different gear. One neat feature is that based on the sectors you have defined, it will show your performance by sector break down, which is a good way to figure out how to tackle a corner or a group of corners. Kinda hard to explain without looking at data. You can download the software for free and play with the sample data on it. Since I started using the data, I improve from my typical 10-15th finishing positions out of 30+ cars to top 5 finishes...in about 3 race weekends. It made my practice more objective and differentiate between driver problems and car setup problems.

Download the software and take a look. I would recommend the MXL. We had just installed in my friend's F-Production SCCA car. It has 8 channels and has a much higher sampling rate...with a larger and better display. I would have bought the MXL instead if it was available at the time.

FixedWing

Here is a very interesting page on installing the DL90 data logger in a Boxster:

Installation Example in a Porsche Boxster

The same should apply to the DL1 and GT3.

Especially interesting is that the author explains how to hook the data logger into the OBD-II port to obtain RPM info.

Stephen

FixedWing

Discussing this topic on the Ringers list someone said:

Anyone know what software he might be talking about? Anyone happen to have a copy??



Stephen