Here is what you get in the way of hardware:

A) 31 channel recorder "Box" configured as shown will record for 24-48 minutes and up.

Built-in accelerometers measure G force in the fore/aft direction and side to side.

B) 4 wheel position sensors (Penny & Giles, the same brand used on Indy cars)

Measure down to 0.007" of suspension movement to know exact dive, roll, etc.

Also measures shock velocities.

C) Steering position sensor (measures maximum steering angle and how it got there).

D) Throttle position sensor (see lift points and how the throttle was rolled off and on).

E) Infer Red Beacon to mark laps in data and display time for driver on dash.

F) 2 wheel speed sensors, typically placed on front and rear wheel to measure vehicle

speed and slippage under acceleration or braking.

G) Engine RPM sensor, use purple wire for induction pick-up or yellow wire to tach or MSD

H) Driver’s record – stop record button.

I) 2 open channels for additional RPM type sensors (drive shaft, water pump, wheels etc).

J) 8 thermocouple channels built-in for EGTs or tire temperature sensors, etc.

K) 2 open channels for 0-5 volt type sensors (pressure, vehicle yaw, etc).

L) 4 open on-off (binary) channels (micro-switch type data collection).

1. Each lap you run will get its own tab (this was a 5 lap test). Click on any tab to see the data for that lap.
2. The turquoise line is the speed in MPH around the track. These peaks are the speed at the end of the straights.
3. These valleys are the minimum speed in the corners. Sharp valleys result in slower lap times even though it may feel faster in the car. Rounded valleys result in much faster lap times.

You can review each lap to find slow sections or fast sections for further evaluation. Any sensor in your system can be graphed individually or with other sensors. The top section of the example below shows throttle and steering being selected. However, you can graph wheel travel, shock velocities, G force, front wheel speed vs. rear wheel speed or any number of items even tire temps of you add those sensors. Plus, you can also overlay a graph from one or several other laps.

1. The blue line is the steering and the green line is the throttle. Turning the steering wheel to the left causes the line to be higher on the graph. A valley such as this is where a sudden steering correction was needed in the corner. By adding the different sensor data to the graph you can see exactly what was happening when the steering correction was needed.
2. When you click on any location on the graph a green marker line appears. This will key the graphics on the bottom of the screen to that location on the race track.
3. The dot is the car's location on the race track. It will move when you click on another place on the graph or move around the track in a replay mode. This example shows the car's location on the track just prior to the steering correction.
4. Another helpful graphic is the chassis plane. This shows front and rear roll. In this example the RR is rolling downhill and the LF is rolling uphill.

Based on how the car was driven the software creates the track map (as shown in C). The software also allows you to insert segment markers on the track map. A common practice is to place markers at the beginning and end of the corner, in essence creating corner segments and straight segments.

Because the system is using an infer-red beacon to save the data in laps, it also provides time spent in each segment. Reports can be created (as shown below) to display the time in each segment of every lap and the theoretical lap time based on the fastest segment of the whole run.

Notice that lap 5 had the fastest time for segment #4 of any lap. If you check back to the graphic showing the speed you will see the speed trace had a rounded valley, as mentioned before. If both corner segments at both ends of the track had rounded speed traces the lap time would be lower yet than the theoretical time listed in the blue column above.

This is a great tool for improving driver skills and helping you pinpoint what chassis set-up changes yield better corner and straight times.

But wait, there is more!

With the purchase of your system you get a special file from Autoware that includes preprogrammed graphs for the software. This allows you can see handling characteristics such as oversteer and understeer, shock wedge (which impacts your spring wedge), graphs to identify the potential speed in the corner in spite of the driver and more.

And, to top it off you get a permanent enrollment in the Autoware Webinars on using data acquisition, so you get the most out of your system.