Foxadventure865

Square Body, Chevy G-Body and
Universal Digital Dash

Digital Car Meter Riding Changing Software Program

FiTech EFI or Trans Controller Required to Operate Gauges

010-ELV-192: Voyager Pro Quick Start Guide. 9200-MANUAL: Voyager Pro User's Manual. 010-ELV-194: Voyager Quick Start Guide. 9000-MANUAL: Voyager User's Manual. How To Change Car Meter Reading (Trip A Trip B) How To Edit Mileage Hindi Urdu. OBD2 car code readers will work on all cars with onboard diagnostic software. OBD2 is a universal interface in most cars that was first introduced in the 1980s. While it won't work on every old car out there, as long as your vehicle is somewhat new, you should be covered. Almost all newer cars will support it. Are car code readers worth it? Use the app to augment, replace or verify the information provided by your vehicle's built-in meters. This speedometer is packed with tons of extra features. In addition to several odometer and speedometer styles, the app includes a trip recorder, trip manager and a powerful trip stat logger.

Wireless Gauge System OBD II Hardware

Software Downloadable At
Android & Apple IOS App Stores

We Offer a Full Line of Officially Licensed
Ford, Chevy and Mopar Instruments

Redesigned Custom Shop Coming Soon

Continuously Improving to Make
Your Experience With Us Better

News

Product Spotlight

Chevy Square Body, Chevy G-Body and Universal Digital Dash Versions

Product Spotlight

Officially Licensed Mopar Gauges with Retro Styling

By Jason Reiss

Photography by Steve Baur, Kevin DiOssi, and Josh Ledford

In the sport of drag racing, acceleration is king. There issimply no other measurable metric that is as critical to performance asacceleration rate; not torque, nor RPM gain, power-adder boost, nor evenhorsepower. Of course, measuring data points from each of those items isimportant, as they provide a window into the performance of the vehicle, butthe data point that must be elevated above all else is the rate of forwardmotion. Because, after all, we’re trying to get from point A to point B morequickly than the next guy—and the way to do that is to be faster than he is.

That’s where the g-meter comes into play. The g-meter, oraccelerometer, has one task—to measure acceleration, or how hard the car ispulling when the hammer is down. Accelerometers are used in many differentapplications; from cell phones to laptop computers to airbag deploymentsystems, but it’s the accelerometer as used in drag racing that has helpedracers to set records and document performances that improve year afteryear—and sometimes from race to race.

“We’re trying to accelerate from point A to point B asquickly as possible. The higher you can get the g-meter to read, the fasteryou’re accelerating,” says tuner Josh Ledford of Pro Line Racing.

“We’re using it in all classes where it’s permitted. It’sthe most valuable tool we have in our arsenal,” says tuner Jason Lee of PTPRacing.

What is a g-meter?

Simply put, the g-meter is an electromechanical device thatcan be manufactured in a standalone configuration, or as part of a broaderapproach to datalogging. The goal of the meter is to measure the g-forcesapplied to it, then output those readings to a data collection system of somesort.

The forces it measures may be static, like the continuousforce of gravity, or dynamic, as in the case of an accelerometer used in a dragracing application.

The simple definition of acceleration is: the measurement ofa change in velocity (speed divided by time). This is not to be confused withthe speed an object is moving. Although the object—a car in this instance—maybe moving quite quickly, it is not necessarily accelerating. For example, ifthe tires are spinning, a car may not be accelerating even though it is movingat a rate of 80 mph. If a car accelerates from 0-60 in six seconds, it willhave an acceleration rate of 10 mph/second.

In a drag racing application, the vehicle is most likely notaccelerating at a constant rate; as boost ramps in, or more nitrous is added, avehicle will accelerate more quickly at the beginning of a run, and as speed isattained, the rate of acceleration will drop off.

Accelerometers can be preinstalled in an engine managementsystem like a FuelTech, Haltech, BigStuff3, or any of the other major racingengine management systems on the market. It can also be offered as part of astandalone datalogging system like those offered by Racepak and others, or evenas part of a broader vehicle management system like the David TechnologiesProfiler.

The unit is calibrated to read zero g, and at a constantvelocity would continue to measure 0 g. It is only when the meter is subjectedto acceleration or deceleration forces that it will measure positive ornegative acceleration.

There are several different types of accelerometers:mechanical, capacitive, piezoelectric, and even semiconductor accelerometers,but all have one thing in common. They measure the rate of change of theacceleration of a mass of some sort, and transfer that measurement into numbersa savvy racer or tuner can see on a screen.

What Information Does It Provide?

Accelerometers measure g-forces along more than one axis:horizontal (acceleration), vertical (wheelie) and side-to-side (pitch/yaw), butthe only axis that really matters is the horizontal axis, as that is measuringhow quickly the car is moving forward.

According to Ledford, this means that there’s also somethingcalled “false g”; this can be understood as a wheelie or side-to-side pitch ofthe car if traction is iffy, and a savvy tuner needs to be able to discernwhich is which.

“For example, if you stand the Racepak up on its end, itwill show 1 g due to the earth’s gravity. Instead of reading 2 g ofacceleration, it’s going to read 3 g (rounding the numbers for simplicity’ssake), because there’s one g of acceleration which is straight up and down,”says Ledford.

“All of our cars have ride height sensors on them; if thefront end is higher in the air, you’re going to get a false g reading. When thefront end sets down you can see the g-meter drop, and you need to know how todetermine the difference between the forward acceleration and the verticalacceleration rate.”

As the ultimate goal of the racer is to accelerate asquickly as possible, knowing how and when and why the acceleration rate changesis critical to making tuning changes.

“Analyzing the data provided by the g-meter tells us whetherthe car is actually accelerating. In the case of a slick-tire car, the tire canbe spinning or stuck to the track and the accelerometer is what tells uswhether it’s going forward at the maximum acceleration rate. In a radial-tirecar, it’s pretty evident when the tire is spinning or not. When I am namingfiles, I will always put into the filename if there is a wheelie, so that whenwe go back to look at data later, we know to discard that particular run whentrying to compare to a non-wheelie run,” says Lee.

By decoding the information recorded by the accelerometer,and comparing it with the data from past runs, the tuner can make thedetermination as to whether there is more performance locked up in the car, orwhether the engine can take more timing, or more boost, and where that can happenon the track.

“The g-meter gets rid of reaction time, it gets rid of deepstaging, mile-per-hour clocks, it gets rid of all of that. We’re trying to makeit to the finish line the quickest, and the g-meter is the elapsed time,” saysLedford.

Which One To Use?

Each tuner may have a preference for the type ofaccelerometer they want their racers to use; for instance, Lee told us heprefers the system from Racepak. But most tuners will be perfectly comfortableusing systems any of the reputable manufacturers, especially if a racer comesto them for tuning services after a car is already built, but they still have apreference and will likely direct you to their system of choice if you contactthem before purchasing one.

Lee says the Racepak offers him everything he needs to workwith, and likes the fact that the accelerometer—and datalogger itself—isseparate from the rest of the engine management system. He explains that heprefers that the accelerometer only has that singular job to do, rather thanbeing lumped in with the rest of the engine management software as it is withother systems.

For instance, when a racer has completed a run, they arealways instructed to pull the data from their engine management system up,while Lee pulls the Racepak data, so he can compare everything on two adjacentcomputers, and not have to flip back and forth between screens andapplications. By having the logger’s information divorced from the enginemanagement system, and being able to compare that data side-by-side with theEMS, rather than over top of it, he feels that isolating the data he’s lookingfor is more effective.

Ledford, on the other hand, typically uses the built-inlogger that’s installed into the FuelTech system for nearly all of hiscustomers. As he is one of the in-house tuners for Pro Line Racing—and PLR isthe exclusive U.S. distributor of FuelTech’s products, he’s used to using thebuilt-in accelerometer in FuelTech’s FT600 system for many of his upper-echeloncustomers. He also has extensive experience with many of the other systems onthe market and uses Racepak’s accelerometer nearly as often as he does the unitbuilt into the FuelTech system.

Ultimately, an accelerometer is an accelerometer, and whichsystem it’s in doesn’t matter much, as the data it provides is identical.

How Analyzing Its Data Proves Beneficial

Digital Car Meter Riding Changing Software 2020

So if acceleration is king, as we mentioned in the firstsentence of this article, how does the accelerometer help to improve it? In anumber of ways, it turns out. That acceleration rate will show how a variety ofchanges affects the car’s performance on the track; how does a stator change,or a timing change, or a change in shift points improve or hinder theacceleration rate? The g-meter tells all.

“We tested one time with Tyler Crossnoe’s Ultra StreetMustang, and ended up moving the shift points around by 400-500 rpm or so tosee where it maintained the g-meter. We found out that shifting it lower thanmax blower speed maintained the meter for a bunch of reasons. But we came outand were front-runners,” says Ledford.

“Let’s say the engine builder says to shift the engine at8,800 rpm, and the driver is not experienced enough or just doesn’t have thefeel to know that the engine is falling off at 8,400. Well, we can use theaccelerometer to see that the acceleration rate drops off a few tenths, andthat tells us we need to lower the shift point of the engine to try to keep theacceleration rate up. Or the builder says to shift at 8,500, but the engine isstill pulling, so we need to adjust the shift point up to keep using theengine’s powerband,” says Lee.

Adds Ledford, “When we’re drag racing, I don’t care where itmakes peak power; I care about the average power. If you can maintain a higherpower level over a certain amount of time, then the car’s going to acceleratemore quickly. The engine makes peak power at 8,000 rpm, but it keepsaccelerating to 8,500. So if you shift it at 8,000 and the rpm falls to 7,000,but it makes less average power at 7,000 than it does if you shift it higher,your g-meter might fall off a little bit because you shifted lower. But if itrecovers and your average g-meter is better, then the car is acceleratingharder. You should base your shift point not on your engine RPM, but yourg-meter. It all goes back to acceleration.”

Tailoring It To The Track

Whether it’s a part of a V300SD datalogging system fromRacepak or the integrated gyroscope and accelerometer found inside the FuelTechFT600’s internal datalogger or another accelerometer system, the most importantthing to note is consistency with installation. Most importantly, it needs tobe flat and level, as the hardware requires this to achieve accurate readings.And the smallest change in the vehicle can affect the readings it puts out tothe datalogger, so the racer needs to be conscious of this, especially during arace when things can get hectic and small steps of the tuning process couldpotentially be overlooked.

“If you change the ride height of the car, it might only be.01 of a difference, but it’s still a difference. If you raise or lower thefront or rear of the car, it’s going to change the attitude of the sensor. Onceyou make a change, you have to manipulate the Racepak with the nudgefunction—when the car is first staged and sitting perfectly still, you’d movethe line up or down to put it on the zero point, so then you get rid of theattitude of the car and account for changes you’ve made to ride height,” saysLedford.

Whether a racer is trying to analyze and compare two runs or20 runs, Ledford says it’s extremely important to ensure that the zero datapoint lines up for all of those runs on the screen. Once this is done, then theracer can analyze what happens after the transbrake is released.

Believe it or not, it can also be used to help train thedriver where to stage the car—a critical step when trying to maximizeperformance on the track.

“We can use it to see whether the car is shallow or deepstaged depending on the numbers. When we go back and zero the graph (overlaythe runs with another) you can see if the car got a head start at the ET clocksand had a quicker 60-foot time, or was deep staged and had a slower 60-foottime and elapsed time—the accelerometer can tell you all of these things basedon previous performance of the same car and driver,” says Lee.

How the data is interpreted and tuning decisions are madefor on-track performance is where these guys really earn their keep.

“The accelerometer offers a basic measurement, but where thereal talent comes in is being able to look at the track—which changes 100 timesa day—and know what you can put into the tuneup to maximize performance withthe given conditions. Can you make it hotter, or do you need to dial it back?Without the information the accelerometer provides, you can’t accurately makethat call,” says Lee.

Sources

FuelTech

Pro Line Racing

Digital Car Meter Riding Changing Software Free

PTP Racing

www.ptpracing.com

Racepak