m3bs

I had looked at those but was concerned they might not be fast enough, as they are on the low end of what’s available these days. Glad to know they work. Just one more rung on the learning ladder…. Thanks, guys.

lgusto

Returning to the OP's questions, after three years of DE I can say that both Catalyst and AIM will each give you something that mere mortals can never get out of the other system. It's kind of like asking if a 991 or Cayenne would be best. You need both systems if you want to really dig in. Costly for sure (spent about $3k for both systems and miscellaneous add-ons) but compared to tires, brakes, registration fees, travel expense, etc. the devices wind up being a pretty small percentage of the overall budget especially considering the life span of many years.

If you're able to invest the (considerable) time, the AIM solutions can answer just about any question you'll ever have about your driving. If you can't devote the time, the Catalyst is an awesome "easy button".

Getting good help on either system is key. Matt has been amazingly generous with his time and Peter is always willing to share his vast wisdom whenever needed. They're both a blessing for anyone trying to improve their driving with objective data.

Ziggmeister

The Catalyst went on sale so I bought one. For the camera location, how important is it to be centered, vs. being as high up as possible? I see 3 possible mounting locations, is one of these clearly better than the others?

Ziggmeister

I think this will work out OK. I borrowed an idea I found online and got a 17mm-25mm adapter. This will let me use my Rennline phone mount for a phone and the Catalyst, and it keeps it below the windshield.

lgusto

Camera placement is everything. There are a lot of threads on the Facebook Catalyst User's forum. I can tell you that based on your picture the Catalyst will struggle with the rearview mirror mount in the top left of the frame. I initially did the same thing and wondered why the Catalyst showed my track lines as all squiggly instead of smooth. Ross Bentley took one look at it at Sebring and said "AH, there's the problem". The camera view needs to be unobstructed except for the hood of your car.

ProCoach

certainly not any lower than that.

Ziggmeister

I'd seen your post about the squiggly lines. I thought I was ok, but now I see what you're talking about in the top left corner of the camera view. I have a track meet this weekend so I'll see how it goes.

ProCoach

if there is anything stationary to the car in the lateral white box in the camera calibration, that's a no-no.

Ziggmeister

Thanks. I'll check it outdoors, there's too much stuff in the background in the garage. I think I can turn the camera a bit to the side and keep the white rectangle clear. The real test will be at the track next weekend.

ProCoach

The camera has accelerometers in it. In the calibration procedure, your setting lateral acceleration baseline by the level left to right abs the long acceleration (used for establishing brake points, how much, how long) and acceleration using the green outline, all of which should be above the hood and fenders of the car.

The white box is about forty to fifty feet wide in front of the car to gauge percentage of track use, apex area, turn in and track out radii and other coaching and qualitative factors to your driving.

SUPER important the camera position. Less so how central, far more the calibration.

Ziggmeister

That's smart to put the accelerometers in the camera, the tablet wouldn't be able to measure G forces accurately if it's swinging around on a mount with a long arm.

MaxLTV

I might have reached the limits with Catalyst, at least for familiar tracks - it only says "Brake later", especially close to the end of a stint when the tires are going and I HAVE to brake a little earlier. But even when I legitimately need to brake later, it does not say how to make it work. So when I do it, it often causes me to delay throttle application or scrub speed oversteering. AIM data with video allows me to see why - sometimes it's the rate of steering input, sometimes it's timing and rate of brake release etc. Another thing that's extremely useful is looking at the variability of each corner. There are several corners that I do picture-perfectly on my fastest laps, but looking at all laps, I can see that I do these corners well less than half of the time. Looking just at best laps does show that, so it's easy to miss this opportunity. Both Catalyst and AIM can help with this, but I found it easier to get it out of AIM.

ProCoach

I think you can dig deeper, specifically the braking tab and apex tab on each opportunity, then the speed heat map. There’s a ton of good stuff that tells you what is working when you go better. Or not…

What specific measures are you using with AiM? What maths? Are you calculating brake aggression? Brake attack? Brake release smoothness?

Are you calculating your gSum drop between max sustained longitudinal deceleration and EoB, then from turn-in to max lateral g?

Odd your braking efficiency is falling off that much? Have you calculated how much? How about lat g? Have you tracked that over time or laps for deg?

MaxLTV

I meant the limit of usefulness of the real-time voice in headphones. I can definitely find useful stuff in the data after a session on both Catalyst or AIM.

As for what I'm looking for - just manually corner by corner comparing changes in speed, G-sum and lat & long Gs, steering angle, F/R ride heights, and gear shift timing to understand why sometimes I can carry more speed through a corner. My car is somewhat pitch-sensitive with a rather basic and finicky suspension, in many corners most of the deceleration and shifting happens after turn-in, and engine drag has a massive effect on rear traction, so timing of downshifts matters a lot too. So by comparing all these variables I find gems like sometimes earlier but lighter braking more than pays off by allowing higher cornering Gs due to a flatter and more stable car, or that the last downshift just before apex is not worth it because it destabilizes the rear thus requiring lower apex speed to hold on. So it's not one thing all the time but different ones. But mostly what I find is consistency issues. I can't carry my maximum possible speed through a corner because I do something slightly differently without realizing it, usually brake release. It's so hard to nail braking in high-aero cars - it's so short, violent and "correct" amount depends on so many things.

It's not that much, and not as much braking performance as lower lat Gs. The change in grip through a race can be significant because of our logistics and us still figuring out new to the series tires. We start on practically cold tires, but a lot can be gained or lost on the first 1-2 laps, so most optimize tire pressures for that early part of the race and sometimes end up with above-optimal pressures by the end of it, especially if battling a lot.