Instrumentation & Datalogging

[S2central.net]

If there is enough interest from such a thread it might merit its own little forum...

To kick it off, I'm looking to capture the various aftermarket instruments and datalogging devices that can be used on the S2/RS2.

I'm specifically (not exclusively) eluding to these sort of applications...

AFR - Air/Fuel Ratio
Boost - pretty easy and the one that all turbo cars should be factory fitted wiff
EGT - Exhaust Gas Temperature
IAT - Intake Air Temp - I'd like to monitor both sides of the intercooler actually
Fuel - Fuel pressure
Knock Sensing

I'd like to create some kind of auxiliary instrument pod that I can relatively easily add / remove from the car. I'm worried that much of this stuff can cost a helluva lot of money - especially datalogging. I've got some rough ideas as to how to do this, but like many of my 'projects' will go at snails pace while I juggle thirteen other ideas round my head and all the other work & family committments of course. Probably needs to be white/grey dials in 52mm format - that should be generic enough and I need backlit capability as well.


Some of the vendors I know of as follows (in no particular order or preference) -

Autometer
VDO
Zeitronix (EGT, Boost & AFR)
Greddy (various gauges and some dual purpose ones)
KnockSense
Innovate (AFR)
Telemetrix
Stack (Very expensive toys I know but interesting for comparisons)


What others should I be looking at and what sort of experience have you had with these devices and their various sensors ?

The AFR sensors need to provide a good wideband signal AND emulate something that the ECU is happy with... How interoperable are these WB-O2 sensors then ?

[Greg_S]

Is this for your circuit project? Did look at building something recently, but I just dont have enough hours in the day at the moment.

[S2central.net]

No Greg - that is something else entirely... I honestly have a dozen things brewing here... Just no time - other than trying to scribble them down sufficiently well so as I don't lose the notion.

[GazzaG60]

Paul.

this can all be done using 1 gauge. a defi meter. there are a few variants. i got one that i have never used that i got for the corrado to do EGT, oil temp and pressure and water. i didn't need boost as i have a defi meterBF or WB02 as at teh time i had LC1 and now i have VEMS EGT/WB02

ive been ther ewith most gauge types.

basics are cheap gauge (sub 100 quid) cheap reading.

[S2central.net]

I'll look into those Gazza - forgot that VEMS did gauges too...

[DarrenM]

Worth chatting with these guys too:

http://www.race-technology.com/

[repo]

Race technology dash2 + dl1 is well worth every penny it costs. Complicated to install, but very good for it's price.

Traqmate is also a good unit to consider. Easy to hook up at first, but can be wired to read four analog, two digital and one supplemental pulse input.

www.traqmate.com

[johne]

Paul, look at glowshift.com.

I have their 2 1/16th (52mm) white face "white 7 color series" oil temp, oil pressure and boost gauge in the 3 position aux panel.

I also have their air/fuel ratio gauge which I haven't fitted but I think uses the standard narrow band lamda probe.

They also do exhaust temp, fuel pressure and air pressure but being American all the gauges are calibrated in imperial measurements.

Inlet temperature is tricky as it's such a transient thing to measure you need a really low inertia sensor. Given that our cars already have one in the inlet maniflod is it possible to use VagCom to monitor and download the inlet temperature? Same for knock sensing.

Datalogging built on VagCom looks like the way to go...............

John

[quattronutter]

i had a mini pc in my s4,running vag scope gauges on my headunit,able to diplay and data log everything vagcom reads

[johne]

Neat................

[S2central.net]

Neat... if you like that sort of thing... but also useless on S2 for the things I wish to monitor (except IAT but I won't get any measure of intercooler efficiency with that on its own). Lambda/AFR measurement on VAGCOM isn't as good as a proper WBO2 sensor and gauge.

[A80Avant]

basically the car/pc is a good solution if you are to use an aftermarket ECU,like VEMS for example.YOu can plug in the software and also change things and calibrate through the ECU software.I am thinking about something like that,also thinking of fitting a double din dash as well.

[Faheemo]

I Run a Zeitronix unit that does the AFR , EGT , RPM , Throttle position, Boost, and one Aux input.
I connect the AUX to the MAF to get a 0-5v reading and have also used it to log the N75.

I LOVE the alarm fuction on the Zeitronix. !!
ALARM IF TPS > 50% and EGT > 850deg
or IF Boost > 1.8bar


Intake air temprature is not logged - i have a Nordskok Air temprature Gauge under my steering wheel. the sender is on the intake manifold next to the oem IAT sensor.

I only wish that i could have had a unit with a built in G tech or Performance Box to record some performance data and a knock sensor.

[Jonas_R]

I'm currently working on a small elektronic board that gives out 0-5V readings for the Zeitronix input.

@Faheemo - Was it difficult to setup meassuring of TPS?

[quattronutter]

i also have a plx gauge running,egt,boost and wideband,i dont have the in car pc hooked up anymore as it was information overload,good thing with the in car pc was being able to run various other datalogging programs