winders

So, a racer is buying an MXL2 or EVO4 with dash for his race car so he can figure out where he can improve. What do you coaches out there think needs to be logged? What are the must have data besides GPS position and accelerometer data?

Speed (GPS or wheel?)
RPM
Throttle position
Brake pressure
Steering wheel angle

Is that a good list? More? What other data is nice to have but not required?

Scott

ProCoach

Good list!

For driver improvement:

RPM
GPS Speed and track position (mapping)
Lat and Long G actual accelerometer measures

All three are part of your specified choices.

In addition, I think it's a must to have:

Throttle position
Brake Pressure (front circuit)
Video (capability of overlaying RPM, throttle, brake, speed, lap timing and friction circle ON the video for review)

Nice to have:

Steering angle
Rear brake pressure (to establish and confirm bias on adjustable front/rear circuits)

If you have the budget:

Four linear (shock pots), can establish ride height, aero changes, roll and pitch rates and quantify shock adjustments
IR temp sensors for the tires (to confirm setup)

For years, I could do a LOT with a simple Traqmate (accelerometers and filtering were SO good, you could tell part throttle from full throttle, plus brake pressure profile approximation) and GPS Speed and position, so those are all that are ABSOLUTELY needed. RPM was the next add.

But for many, the next step was throttle position and brake pressure, on top of video real-time WITHOUT matching together two separate files (like MoTeC, Traqmate).

The cool thing to me about the AIM software, Race Studio Analysis, is that you can leverage simple measure to continually find improvement. You can do that in MoTeC, too.

But the system HAS to do it all FAST and in an automated, low-maintenance way. Not much time between sessions and it's SO important to be able to cut to the chase. Simple sensors do that.

Matt Romanowski

I would agree with Peter except I would move steering into the must. If you are doing all the rest, the additional cost of the steering sensor is not significant and can tell you a lot. It's not that you can't see the results from lat g, but it's nice to be able to see exactly what the driver did with the wheel and when. It also gives you great insight into if the car is under/over steering and if the driver is driving around those problems.

I would also add engine temps (oil and water if applicable), oil pressure, and any other engine parameters the driver/engine builder considers critical. Putting everything into the dash lets the driver not pay attention to the actual values and to just watch for alarm lights. It can free up a fair amount of mental capacity people don't realize they are using to watch gauges.

From my experience using them, I would do IR brake temps (1 front rotor, 1 rear rotor), then IR tire temps (much harder to mount), then shock pots. This is all assuming you don't have a shock engineer and large shock budget.

2BWise

+1 THIS! Being able to quickly and easily quantify understeer is a huge advantage.

ProCoach

I used to sell a LOT of steering sensors. I found after several years that few people used the information.

I agree that it is valuable, but it's not widely used, even if people have it. I even go so far as to put steering angle on the SmartyCam HD video in degrees!

You can tell the extent of understeer by looking at the video, at the club level...