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Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Posts: 3130 Reg: 04-2006
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 10:29 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
The attraction of the dash is the 'all in one' feature. There is one plug from the Haltech to the dash and you then have access to all the sensors the Haltech is reading. Basics would be the usual oil temp, pressure, water temp, boost, fuel level (if you run a sender) as well as the engine speed, and vehicle speed.
The data model has 2GB data logging, as well as a GPS unit so you can map your own tracks and it also acts as an onboard laptimer(similar to the Racechrono/mobile phone/5hz bluetooth GPS transmitter I use for lap timing currently). With this model you can have your data logging overlayed onto a track map.
There is something like 28 different channels you can log, so you could even wire in the brake light switch or get all gucci and put some load sensors etc around the car. Speaking to the sparky, he could also wire in the wheel speed sensors from the factory ABS. I wouldn't know how to use all the data and would run the risk of being overwhelmed. On the other hand it would be another way to race against your own PBs...
I am not concerned with them trying to sell me stuff. I paid the same as buying direct from Haltech, except there was no freight cost (to me- someone paid it!) Plus it was one of the back room guys I was chatting to, not the owner/sales guys. The sparky is a separate entity to the tuner shop and suggested the same thing for simplicity. He runs one in his race car.
I should point out that the plain dash is about $900 and the data logging dash is more like $1800 so there is a significant difference, but it is not so bad if you were looking at some sort of on board data logging any rate. Same goes if you were looking at buying a lap timing system. If I was starting from scratch with all the money I have spent on my gauges, GPS, suitable mobile (lap timer use only), and Apexi RSM (which I use for peak speed/peak RPM/ average speed/RPM etc) and so on I would certainly go down this option.
Without going to the Haltech book, I believe there is already data logging in the PS2000 I have purchased. I assume this is accessed by laptop and cable (was included in the pack) but I have not looked into it too far.
As I said, at this stage I am not looking to make any more purchases until I have the car up and running. I can always find a way to wire the Apexi RSM back in and use the digital Tacho on that. It has a simple output I could use to trigger a shift light, but to date I have survived with out one as the stock motor/management did not encourage over revving as the 'urge' started to peter out before hitting redline any way. The Haltech also can trigger a shift light with one of its outputs, so I have plenty of options.
