What is your take on this PDA tool??
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From: Rochester
What is your take on this PDA tool??
Just like the title says.......check it out. You think it could be very useful or no?
http://www.nology.com/pdadyno.html
http://www.nology.com/pdadyno.html
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From: Ranson, WV
ok, had it for awhile....
no real scientific analysis, i.e. not controlled runs over the exact same portion of road enough times to work on repeatability of test runs. only safe place to try out the dyno and 1/4 mile portions is on the HOV lanes which have limited access and exit points, lots of curves and elevation changes which limit the amount of sections that are fairly level and have clear visibility (for other traffic and the "gotchas"... would hate to get a ticket while playing). cannot backup on them, traffic is one way, after a run would have to go miles down the road to exit, turnaround, and then miles back to turnaround again to get onto HOV again.
too much traffic and access points on other roads to attempt it with any amount of safety.
the pda dyno from nology seems to be the EXACT same as the one from Auterra, with the difference that Nology adds the 1/4 mile and dyno portion, guess that is why it costs more. the screens are the same for the scan tool portion, code size is the same, version numbers are the same. i guess they license to each other, or from some other place that does all the code work.
when hooked up to our s2k, it scans the following items at low rate (every 10 sec), medium rate (every 3 sec) and high (as fast as possible, appears to be every .2 sec). display can be in english or metric units.
calculated load average engine coolant temp
short term fuel trim-b1 long term fuel trim-b1
intake manifold pressure (map) engine RPM
vehicle speed ignition timing advance
intake air temperature absolute throttle position
bank 1 - sensor 1 (Pri-O2) bank 1 - Sensor 2 (Sec-O2)
there are several others i would like to see, like injector duty cycle. if anyone else has a scan tool that collects other items, let me know and i will see if the nology people can include them in future releases. it could be that they are not coding for capture of certain sensors, or the s2k is reporting them on a different module that they have to query.
just driving around i watch rpm, ect, iat, map, and timing advance or throttle position. it can track a max of 5 parameters at one time, display live or record to a file for later playback or transfer to a CSV file for graphing/analysis.
i have also been looking at under hood temps with a sensor at the nose, behind the radiator, in my comptech airbox and at the rear of the engine bay. on steady driving the airbox is only about 5 deg above nose temp, rear bay 15-20 above nose, and the hottest point is behind radiator, usually 20-30 above nose. IAT as reported by pda runs 30-60 above airbox temps, depending on stop/go traffic and what RPM i am at (supercharger heats it up relative to boost - no aftercooler yet....)
i think it is rather strange that the speedcraft turbo kit places the intake at about the hottest part under the hood! getting the intake down in front like the CAI's for injen/aem, etc would appear to be close to ambient, the comptech CAI location (and where the SC kit places it) is only a few degrees higher than ambient while driving, but once stopped, rises fairly quickly from heat soak to under hood temps.
with datalogging active the whole time, the palm batteries wear down quickly, i have an m130 (color screen) and it lasts about 2.5 to 3 hours. car charger cord is a great thing to have for track days to recharge between runs, or plenty of extra batteries for those that do not recharge.
to setup for the car, you enter weight, elevation, temps, etc. and tire sizes. once it knows tire size, you drive along in gear and it calculates gear ratio based on vehicle speed, or you enter what you think it is and verify calculated speed against actual speed to see if you need to adjust.
on the dyno portion, you get on a flat section with plenty of space, put into gear and drive along at slow and steady speed and push start, it counts down and on the beep, floor it. once it detects an RPM drop, it stops capture. this is from shifting to next gear, bouncing off rev limiter, slamming on brakes because you see the cop, etc....
like a real dyno, it needs to capture datapoints over a time period for the run, 1st is way to short, 2d was inconsistent. 3rd seemed to be long enough to start, but it never really captured much above 7700 RPM. i think this may be in part to it is only collecting every .2 seconds, so there is not a lot of time between 7700 and redline. i tried most of my runs in 4th to stretch the time over a longer period, and i am only illegal for about 15 seconds, speed limit is 65, bounce rev limiter at 115 and hit the brakes to slow me down to the 75 that everyone always drives. even though i am taking it to redline, i have yet to capture anything above the 8300-8400 rpm range. i have tried coming off the gas to avoid revlimiter dropping RPMS, but it skews the figures and is too hard to time it right anyway.
i have been doing my real dyno work on a mustang dyno and have been told that it is about 11% lower than dynojet figures. nology docs say they have done extensive comparison's of their software against dynojet. i took one of my runs and compared it to a recent mustang dyno plot + 11% and it was within a 4 - 9 lbs range on HP. i think this puts the pda dyno in the range of usable as a working tool.
for the 1/4 numbers, you stop, get clear space, push the button, and as soon as you move, it starts logging. this means no r/t figures for the hard core street drag guys....
i do not do high rpm clutch drops, and with the SC think i would be spinning my stock clutch half the time and the wheels the other half, so i am sure that others could get better launches. i have done a few with only a small difference, so it seems to be fairly consistent
for the curious:
0-60 5.4 sec
1/8 mile 9.1 sec@84.9mph
1/4 mile 13.8 sec@106.2 mph
yeah, i know.... give it the gas and drop, new clutch will be aftermarket and better anyway. but it is not slipping yet and want to keep it awhile. i drive on road circuits anyway, so straight line speed depends on how fast i exit the corner, not what rpm i drop the clutch.
keith
no real scientific analysis, i.e. not controlled runs over the exact same portion of road enough times to work on repeatability of test runs. only safe place to try out the dyno and 1/4 mile portions is on the HOV lanes which have limited access and exit points, lots of curves and elevation changes which limit the amount of sections that are fairly level and have clear visibility (for other traffic and the "gotchas"... would hate to get a ticket while playing). cannot backup on them, traffic is one way, after a run would have to go miles down the road to exit, turnaround, and then miles back to turnaround again to get onto HOV again.
too much traffic and access points on other roads to attempt it with any amount of safety.
the pda dyno from nology seems to be the EXACT same as the one from Auterra, with the difference that Nology adds the 1/4 mile and dyno portion, guess that is why it costs more. the screens are the same for the scan tool portion, code size is the same, version numbers are the same. i guess they license to each other, or from some other place that does all the code work.
when hooked up to our s2k, it scans the following items at low rate (every 10 sec), medium rate (every 3 sec) and high (as fast as possible, appears to be every .2 sec). display can be in english or metric units.
calculated load average engine coolant temp
short term fuel trim-b1 long term fuel trim-b1
intake manifold pressure (map) engine RPM
vehicle speed ignition timing advance
intake air temperature absolute throttle position
bank 1 - sensor 1 (Pri-O2) bank 1 - Sensor 2 (Sec-O2)
there are several others i would like to see, like injector duty cycle. if anyone else has a scan tool that collects other items, let me know and i will see if the nology people can include them in future releases. it could be that they are not coding for capture of certain sensors, or the s2k is reporting them on a different module that they have to query.
just driving around i watch rpm, ect, iat, map, and timing advance or throttle position. it can track a max of 5 parameters at one time, display live or record to a file for later playback or transfer to a CSV file for graphing/analysis.
i have also been looking at under hood temps with a sensor at the nose, behind the radiator, in my comptech airbox and at the rear of the engine bay. on steady driving the airbox is only about 5 deg above nose temp, rear bay 15-20 above nose, and the hottest point is behind radiator, usually 20-30 above nose. IAT as reported by pda runs 30-60 above airbox temps, depending on stop/go traffic and what RPM i am at (supercharger heats it up relative to boost - no aftercooler yet....)
i think it is rather strange that the speedcraft turbo kit places the intake at about the hottest part under the hood! getting the intake down in front like the CAI's for injen/aem, etc would appear to be close to ambient, the comptech CAI location (and where the SC kit places it) is only a few degrees higher than ambient while driving, but once stopped, rises fairly quickly from heat soak to under hood temps.
with datalogging active the whole time, the palm batteries wear down quickly, i have an m130 (color screen) and it lasts about 2.5 to 3 hours. car charger cord is a great thing to have for track days to recharge between runs, or plenty of extra batteries for those that do not recharge.
to setup for the car, you enter weight, elevation, temps, etc. and tire sizes. once it knows tire size, you drive along in gear and it calculates gear ratio based on vehicle speed, or you enter what you think it is and verify calculated speed against actual speed to see if you need to adjust.
on the dyno portion, you get on a flat section with plenty of space, put into gear and drive along at slow and steady speed and push start, it counts down and on the beep, floor it. once it detects an RPM drop, it stops capture. this is from shifting to next gear, bouncing off rev limiter, slamming on brakes because you see the cop, etc....
like a real dyno, it needs to capture datapoints over a time period for the run, 1st is way to short, 2d was inconsistent. 3rd seemed to be long enough to start, but it never really captured much above 7700 RPM. i think this may be in part to it is only collecting every .2 seconds, so there is not a lot of time between 7700 and redline. i tried most of my runs in 4th to stretch the time over a longer period, and i am only illegal for about 15 seconds, speed limit is 65, bounce rev limiter at 115 and hit the brakes to slow me down to the 75 that everyone always drives. even though i am taking it to redline, i have yet to capture anything above the 8300-8400 rpm range. i have tried coming off the gas to avoid revlimiter dropping RPMS, but it skews the figures and is too hard to time it right anyway.
i have been doing my real dyno work on a mustang dyno and have been told that it is about 11% lower than dynojet figures. nology docs say they have done extensive comparison's of their software against dynojet. i took one of my runs and compared it to a recent mustang dyno plot + 11% and it was within a 4 - 9 lbs range on HP. i think this puts the pda dyno in the range of usable as a working tool.
for the 1/4 numbers, you stop, get clear space, push the button, and as soon as you move, it starts logging. this means no r/t figures for the hard core street drag guys....
i do not do high rpm clutch drops, and with the SC think i would be spinning my stock clutch half the time and the wheels the other half, so i am sure that others could get better launches. i have done a few with only a small difference, so it seems to be fairly consistent
for the curious:
0-60 5.4 sec
1/8 mile 9.1 sec@84.9mph
1/4 mile 13.8 sec@106.2 mph
yeah, i know.... give it the gas and drop, new clutch will be aftermarket and better anyway. but it is not slipping yet and want to keep it awhile. i drive on road circuits anyway, so straight line speed depends on how fast i exit the corner, not what rpm i drop the clutch.
keith