Telemetry products for track days?

I suspect you're looking for tools that collect data, rather than tools that provide telemetry of that data. You may wish to clarify.

 

Lots of questions. A few answers.

I'm going to assume that b-mak is correct in his assumption that you mean "telemetry data during track days."

Telemetry is the transmittal of logged (collected) data one way (download from the car) or data to change vehicle operating parameters (upload to the car). Wired or wirelessly.

There are many products out there that do this. They all measure the same forces, speed, location and other inputs with roughly the same accuracy. The more expensive systems have more capacity and much more powerful and customizable analysis capability.

The systems can be divided into three groups with some commonly available examples.

Inexpensive ($700-$1200) GPS-based systems such as:

Traqmate Basic and Complete
Race Technology DL-1
RacePak G2X
RLC
CDS Data Commander

Intermediate systems ($1200-$2800, depending on configuration), some with video, such as:

ChaseCam
AIM MXL, EVO 3 and Evo 4
RaceKeeper
RacePak IQ3

Pro-grade systems (the sky is the limit, start at $4500 going up to ten times that)

MoTeC ADL3
Pi
Stack
MM

As for you last question, it's hard to say what the "best" systems are. The most popular are the least expensive systems, just because their prices encourage their purchase! Often, it's geographic. Sales, support and EDUCATION on how to use the system make a difference. Finally, it's impossible to answer without knowing your needs and desires.

For the inexpensive to mid-grade systems, a strong presence by the Caddell's in the Pacific Northwest make that area a stronghold for AIM products. A fair number of people in the East (including Guy Cosmo, Seth Thomas and myself) use Traqmate because we need an easy user interface and mainly care about driver development side of the data as opposed to the car engineering part of it.

I've recently become a big fan of the Race Technology systems because I can do both on a budget that fits. George Main's support and education has propelled CDS systems forward. Veracity Data in California, Dave and Ellen Ferguson, are terrific and carry a majority of the relevant systems.

Remember, the system is only as good as the ease of use of the software. I have met hundreds of people who have bought various systems since 1997 and never use it for more than a dash display (if so equipped) or a glorified lap timer. Why? Because they or their dealer never taught them how to navigate it, let alone use it. Many of the systems have free "interpreter" software downloads with sample data. Try before you buy or buy from someone who will teach you.

Some of these "interpreter" programs available are:

Traqmate: Traqview or TraqStudio
AIM: Race Studio 2
Race Technology: V7
MoTeC: i2 Standard and i2 Pro

In closing, never has it been easier or more cost effective to purchase what was Grand Prix level data acquisition ten years ago for a fraction of that cost today. What's even better is the GPS solutions and the acclerometers are SO much more accurate, dependable and usable today than in years past. It is now possible to NOT have a dedicated data engineer to help a driver learn where they can go faster, better and with less risk.

Good luck.

 

What do you want to monitor? That will need to be answered first in order to find a system to do it.
Some basic systems are simply placed in the car, maybe plugged in, and they provide acceleration and braking figures, cornering loads, speed and lap times.
If you want to get more date like steering input, throttle position, suspension travel, etc... it requires a lot of sensors that need to be installed on the car and calibrated properly.

 

And this too depends on the system and the car. If you are looking to gain this data from a street/production car, many systems hook up to the OBD2 port that already exist on the car to gain throttle, steering, brake position, and in some cases even yaw/stability control data - thus you don't need a lot of sensors installed. If you want suspension data, etc. you'll still need sensors regardless of the existence of OBD ports.

Based on your post, I'm going to go out on the proverbial limb and guess (total guess here) that you are looking for a system to use in HPDE type events... ? If so, Traqmate has proven to be a very good system for a reasonable price. And with people like Peter (ProCoach) out there who can both sell it to you and help you explore it for your best gains it presents a very high value.

Now, if my guess is wrong go back a few posts and start over.

Cheers & C U @ d'Track!!
C

Chuck Hawks,
Pro-Driver, Coach, Instructor & Facilitator
rEvolution Performance Driving System ©

 

I use the AiM Evo4, SmartyCam & MyChron Dash. Very expandable and fairly easy to use. For data acquisition, the Evo4 is one of the best. You can collect data from almost every inch of your car (shock pots, temps, pressures, steering and pedal inputs). The SmartyCam is a sweet system too. It can overlay any data from the Evo4 to your video...sweet

 

Nice stuff, especially if you need an inexpensive dash solution in the form of the MyChron dash. The SmartyCam is a great little piece of kit that is perfectly suitable for use on it's own. Too bad the Race Studio 2 software is so clunky for driver analysis and only ok for car analysis.

If you're going to start collecting shock data, ride height and stuff beyond engine and basic driver monitoring, it's better to get a MoTeC ADL3 or SDL (if it's still available). The software package (i2 Pro) is unparalleled and makes short work for even a relative n00b to insert math channels and calculate optimal shock settings (double or even triple) quickly and easily and, most importantly, OBJECTIVELY.

When you start "expanding" your data system beyond accelerometers, GPS speed and position and video, it gets very complicated, very quickly with less and less return.

My greatest concern with a driver adopting ANY DAQ system is that the system (mostly the software, as they all measure the same thing to roughly the same accuracy) be easy enough to use that people actually USE it. There is SO much left in most drivers that I believe it is a mistake to begin engineering the car with data before a consistent level of performance is established and sustained.

I've found that I've been able to use three to five parameters to help find significant gains for drivers from rank novices to pro level. The key is using them EVERY time!

Good luck!

 

Stay away from the Innovate LM2. They lockup, are noisy and the company is ignoring the problems and denying the problems exist. Look on Innovates own forum on the Innovate website and see what people that have them are saying

 

For anyone geeky enough to want to wire up thier own I found this 2 axis accelerometer for $24 that I feed into my SSI4 input. http://www.dimensionengineering.com/DE-ACCM2G.htm It's about the size of a dime. I log RPM, TPS, O2 and the accelerometer

 

This is a great way to go and it works but make sure from the device supplier that it works with your car. For some reason there is some issue with sampling rates of various obd2 ports and sometimes they do not work like we think. We have problems with some devices on C5 vettes but not on C6 vettes with the same device for example.

 

I've just spend a bunch of time with Steve Hoelscher of Travinci Systems, makers of the Race Keeper hardware and Comparo software. Pretty good stuff and seemless video integration, especially side-by-side video. Worth a look!

 

As a novice, my basic Traqmate system (supplied by ProCoach here) provides more data than I know what to do with. Since I spend most of my track time now in a single seater, the next step up would be one with video so you can have someone evaluate precisely where you are on the track at the time you are doing what you are doing.

But it will be a while before I outgrow this system.

 

J.,

Congrats on your fine run last weekend!

The Sony HD camera, the HDR 110 or 150, is the trick setup with the Traqmate. Add the software to synchronize the data and video (TraqStudio) and the interface to allow the Traqmate to control the on/off of the camera and it's easy as pie!

Time for another class!

Best, Peter

 

I do love my SmartyCam; these days I'm all about ease of use, quick feedback, simplicity. Once set up it's just turn it on in the morning and shut it down at the end of the event.

Just follow the ball on the G-G display to improve corner entry, smooth inputs, transitions...
Easy to edit with Windows Movie Maker.

GingerMan Raceway, South Haven, MI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcvprr2mwMY

Autobahn Country Club, Joliet, IL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51vDw_bQbMM

 

Agreed, Rex. Certainly if you max out the ball under braking, then the ball ebbs and then heads out to the periphery again, you can tell where you need to work on in transitions.

It's just you need an EVO3 or EVO4 if you want to get numbers or X-Y graphs of lat and long values.

At Laguna last weekend, I had a LOT of folks not braking near as hard for some corners as others. As we all know, that's not efficient! Would have been hard using the G-G display to quantify and to prioritize those corners for the client's next session out.

 

If you have an android based phone, the best $7 you can spend is for an app called Trackmaster. Uses accelerometer, and GPS positioning to give you lap times, split times, braking and acceleration points, G force graphing... Exportable as images, Excel files, etc. Just lay the start/finish points and split points over the google maps satellite images.

I used it at the last 24 hours of lemons race at MSR Houston, and I have in the past created my own "tracks" using back country roads. Hghly recommend due to simplicity and affordability. I would have paid much more.

 

Vbox OBDII and GPS supported. I know many People with it and they all Happy


http://www.videovbox.co.uk/

 

I've had limited luck with this app. The GPS shows the car going WAY off the paved track and doesn't always pickup lap times or stops after one lap.

Any suggestions? I'd love to use the app as at least a low-rez reference but as it is, I simply cannot trust it.

Thanks for any advice!
C

Cheers & C U @ d'Track!!
C

Chuck Hawks,
Professional Driver Coach, Instructor & Facilitator
rEvolution Performance

 

Pretty much everyone has now successfully integrated GPS for speed and position, some with two for yaw calculations. OBDII is more widely integrated into I/O interface on many systems now. There is no shortage of inexpensive (<$2500), powerful systems available, but the key is easy software for non-engineer types to use...

VBox is now more readily available to the hobbyist after being a major OEM presence for a long time. Nice integration of the video.

The software is pretty good, but it's primarily for real-world vehicle dynamics and manufacturing validation.

 

I've had the same experience at times, I've had more success when I can set the start/finish by actually standing on the track and setting split markers, rather than relying on the google map images to be exactly right. Not always possible to walk the track if it's hot when you get there.

It supports a bluetooth based GPS reciever, I think this would make the GPS work much better as well, and would use less battery and decrease operating temps of the unit which should help.

 

Know the best place to get em? Google Earth will give me approx, but looking for exact numbers to plug into my device (not Traqmate). Could also use locations around the track so I can use them for splits. I have entered the points before on the track, but have also had problems with trying to deal with pushing buttons, etc. and at the same time trying to keep up and on line while doing it. It would be a lot safer and less stressful to set it up in advance. I am looking for the tracks in the Southeastern quarter of the US.

 

I wanted to show some of what the Trackmaster application on the HTC Evo can yield for data analysis. I haven't gotten the actual lap times from the transponder yet but I'll post the delta so we can see just how accurate...

It was a cloudy day but the GPS was spot on Saturday.

Try not to laugh too hard at my accelleration and braking points, first time in this particular car and on this particular track. I'm a total newb. Chump Car race at Harris Hill Road in San Marcos, Texas. Short session due to trans temps rising too fast as we were troubleshooting.

All the images except the photo were directly exported from the Trackmaster application.

It's worth repeating that this is a $7 application on a mainstream cellphone. I set the program to begin recording times the first time I passed the split marker, stuck the phone in a cheap leather case, duct taped it to the dashboard, and eventually started turning laps a half hour later. It was truly "set it and forget it." No fumbling with touchscreens while on track.
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I used trackmaster for the first time about 1 month ago. I left the phone rolling around in my glovebox still in my racecar. My trackmaster laptime was only 3/100ths off the official time from the AMB trasnponder! I forget what I did but there is a search fundtion in the program to find known tracks. For buttonwillow, WSIR, AAA speedway in my local area I could just down load the trackmaps and start finishline split markers. The program then became plug and play.

 

That is pretty cool considering the price, as I know the track very well and can tell that you are running clockwise... and you are braking too much

 

What about this product from Gtech Pro called the RR (Road Racer), for the price it seems/claims to do what some of the other products do. I don't think you can overlay the data onto the video like traqmate but, for lap times this looks interesting.

http://www.gtechpro.com/rr_fanatic.html

I sure would like to here back from those that run Tracqmate or other types. This one is OBD-II type plug in. They don't provide much info on the web site so, I would assume it does it all on the display vs. downloading to a PC to replay or study your driving, etc...
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