825 replies to this topic

[38bfast]

Mxg is too big for that small of a wheel.

[speedengineer]

Looks like the new AIM dashes use a new data file called XRK instead of the old DRK files.  From what I've read in the manual, you can still load the XRK files into RaceStudio2 if you want to compare data with a buddy who has an older unit.  The manual doesn't say that you can load DRK files into RaceStudio3 for data comparison though...?  I'll have to try it and see if it works.  Can't imaging it not working...

 

Thanks for the input everyone, appears the MXG is too large.  I'd be interested in viewing some more photos of MXL2 and MXS mounted in miatas, if any owners out there feel inclined to upload an image    Google image search didn't turn much up.

[speedengineer]

...  The manual doesn't say that you can load DRK files into RaceStudio3 for data comparison though...?  I'll have to try it and see if it works.  Can't imaging it not working...

 

 

I take this back.  Just installed RS3 and it looks like Racestudio Analysis is still the same, not a new version with racestudio3.  hmm.

[Mark McCallister]

Related question....if you are connecting sensors for everything to the AIM, are the traditional round water temp and oil pres gauges in the eyeball vents still needed, or are they completely redundant?  In the case of an out of bounds condition, I think we all want to see a gauge and not just an idiot light.

 

PS: Cool thread, thank you!

[speedengineer]

Related question....if you are connecting sensors for everything to the AIM, are the traditional round water temp and oil pres gauges in the eyeball vents still needed, or are they completely redundant?  In the case of an out of bounds condition, I think we all want to see a gauge and not just an idiot light.

 

PS: Cool thread, thank you!

 

Mark, I think additional gauges in the eyeball vents are redundant with a dash type system.  You'll have both the sensor reading displayed on the screen as well as an idiot light that you can program with various logic to notify you when there is an issue.  I may still run a $15 autozone mechanical oil pressure gauge, just for backup.

 

Actually, the ability of a dash system to replace all the separate gauge pods is one of the main reasons I've decided to get a dash display unit.  Pain to source and install all the separate gauges, especially if they are the electric ones that all need their own power, and have to run wires over to separate idiot lights.  Plus, running them into the dash means that all of your sensor data will be saved right alongside your other data from the accelerometer, gps, ecu, etc. 

 

Thanks!

[Jim Drago]

Related question....if you are connecting sensors for everything to the AIM, are the traditional round water temp and oil pres gauges in the eyeball vents still needed, or are they completely redundant?  In the case of an out of bounds condition, I think we all want to see a gauge and not just an idiot light.
 
PS: Cool thread, thank you!

I have them all programmed into traqmate.. I use the spec pro gauges(Nascar style where the entire gauge blinks and changes colors at a preset high or low) I also have idiot lights. Very redundant. But I feel better

[Tom Hampton]

Very similar setup for me. I have the same type of gages (different brand): oil pressure, water temp, afr, fuel pressure. These also wire to g2x. Then I have oil pressure end water pressure idiot lights on the stock gage hood.

A recent change was to replace the stock bulb on the longacre idiot light with ultra bright Leds. Highly recommended! The old incandescent bulbs were kinda dim. I always worried I wouldn't see the water pressure especially. No chance with the led bulbs.

[FTodaro]

A recent change was to replace the stock bulb on the longacre idiot light with ultra bright Leds. Highly recommended! The old incandescent bulbs were kinda dim. I always worried I wouldn't see the water pressure especially. No chance with the led bulbs.

Tom I had to re read this are you saying your are not the brightest bulb?

 

Are you using the Longacre stepper motor gauges?

[Jim Drago]

A recent change was to replace the stock bulb on the longacre idiot light with ultra bright Leds. Highly recommended! The old incandescent bulbs were kinda dim. I always worried I wouldn't see the water pressure especially. No chance with the led bulbs.

I moved mine under the hood as the shine brighter there and I am always looking at the traqmate display, so I wont miss them.

[Tom Scheifler]

Jim,

Do you have the traqmate display on a quick-release mount or do you just lean forward / stretch to use the touch-screen?

Tom

[Mark McCallister]

I have them all programmed into traqmate.. I use the spec pro gauges(Nascar style where the entire gauge blinks and changes colors at a preset high or low) I also have idiot lights. Very redundant. But I feel better

 

Yeah, on my second install in my old '91 I used the Autometer Elite, which looks a lot like the spek pro, with the 0-5V output to the Traqmate analog input.  The Elite is a very nice piece, though the wiring harness on it is a bit intimidating for wire management if you have many of those!  With my '99 (which I am GOING to start building this year, dangit!) I've been ruminating on whether to even bother with external gauges.  Taking sensors direct to the digital dash, whether AIM or Traqmate or whatever, and then buying analog cheapies as a backup (separate temp monitoring on the front and back of the motor??) makes some good sense.  Thanks!

[Jim Drago]

Jim,

Do you have the traqmate display on a quick-release mount or do you just lean forward / stretch to use the touch-screen?

Tom

Tom
Not sure I understand? There is not stretch to use traqmate where it is? I only touch the screen before the session starts and very few times when I want to change something. I can pull it off and pull it back if I wanted to I guess, but have never needed to in last few years unless removing. (The traqdash uses an SD card, so I just pop it in and out, not like the old one where you needed to pull the head in and out)

[38bfast]

With the MXLII you can see the digets of the actual reading on the display. when a alarm triggers it can; pop up a message full screen, turn the back light red, flash a very bright led. Alarms are programmable with logic and choice of led color as well as steady, slow or fast blink.

As an example for water temp, I program the LED to turn on blue if under 150 deg. I as well program amber steady the same light at 210 deg, a slow blinking Amber at 220 deg and fast blink red at 230. At the 230 mark is also program it to display a message "Shut engine off now" and change the backlit display to red.

I can also program it to turn the fan on at 190 deg.

If that does not get the point across you deserve to kill your engine.

[Tom Hampton]

Tom I had to re read this are you saying your are not the brightest bulb?

 

Are you using the Longacre stepper motor gauges?

lmao.  Um no.  

 

I use the Longacre GageLItes for Oil Pressure (orange) and water pressure (blue).  These come with a standard 12V incandescent bulb, like these:

 

http://www.autohausaz.com/pn/2821

 

They have a brightness of ~15 lumens (total light emitted), over a large beam angle.  Because there is no interior reflector to the gagelite, much of this light is wasted.  They are adequate, but on the dimish side.  This is especially true for the blue lense.  I replaced the stock #194 bulbs with these:

 

https://www.superbri...it-car/200/882/

 

These have a brightness of ~35 lumens, and an emission angle of 35 degrees.  So, all of the emitted light comes out the lense rather than getting absorbed by the black plastic.  As a result, these LED bulbs are preceived as being ~4x brighter.  Even through the blue lense the light is intensely bright.  Its not blinding, but no one is going to ignore it.  Plus these have a life of 10,000 hours...forever in racecar lives.

 

 

As far as gages, I use the Stack ProStepper series of gages.  These have programmable dual upper and lower thresholds for warning behaviors.  A different color can be assigned to below normal range,  normal range, and the upper range.  When the reading is way outside the normal range the gage flashes.  A picture may help:

 

+------FLASH LOW----T1------SOLID LOW----T2-----NORMAL----T3----SOLID HIGH----T4----FLASH HIGH----+

 

T1, T2, T3, T4 are each programmable.

LOW, NORMAL, HIGH can be assigned different colors from the standard rainbow.

 

An example, my oil pressure gage is programmed (approximately) as follows:

 

Below 10psi FLASHING RED

Betwen 10psi and 20psi SOLID RED

Between 20psi and 70psi SOLID WHITE

Between 70psi and 90psi SOLID GREEN

Above 90psi FLASHING GREEN

 

In addition, these gages have 0-5V outputs that can be wired directly to any analog input to a data system.  They also have relay outputs which can be programmed to activate with the programmable rages to drive an idiot light or whatever.  Typical pricing is ~$200 ea.  They come with the sending unit and needed wiring.  

 

Most of the gage companies (autometer, etc) offer a gage with the same features.  Its my understanding that Stack and Autometer both source the same gage electronics from the same mfg.  

 

I've been very happy with them.  When I got my new engine I had a failure of the Oil Pressure sending unit which caused my Oil Pressure gage to flash red.  I noticed the flashing red gage and shutoff the engine in less than 2 seconds from when it came on (verified by video).  

[speedengineer]

With the MXLII you can see the digets of the actual reading on the display. when a alarm triggers it can; pop up a message full screen, turn the back light red, flash a very bright led. Alarms are programmable with logic and choice of led color as well as steady, slow or fast blink.

As an example for water temp, I program the LED to turn on blue if under 150 deg. I as well program amber steady the same light at 210 deg, a slow blinking Amber at 220 deg and fast blink red at 230. At the 230 mark is also program it to display a message "Shut engine off now" and change the backlit display to red.

I can also program it to turn the fan on at 190 deg.

If that does not get the point across you deserve to kill your engine.

 

Yup!  Exactly this kind of functionality that makes these dashes appeal to me.  Very flexible.

 

If you bought gauge pods that had similar warning light functionality, you're talking ~$200 per gauge.  Get four or five of them plus a shift light and you're already talking over $1k.  Then you still have to buy a data system for track data for another ~$1k and you to wire the outputs of all these gauges into that system.  At that point, you're at near the same money, might as well just buy the dash in the first place, have a way easier install, and a clean, well-integrated system. 

 

I know in AIM racestudio analysis you can write math channels to calculate new channels based on measured channels.  I'm not sure if these math channels can also be programmed to run live on the dash, but if so, I have a couple projects planned.  One being to calibrate a fuel tank level channel based on inputs from the fuel tank level sensor as well as the x and y accelerometer channels built into the AIM unit.  This means you could have a very accurate fuel level display regardless of what grade of paddock you're parked on.  No more need to be draining the tank and refill between sessions as many top SM teams like to do. 

[speedengineer]

Did a few things tonight:

 

1)  First I opened up the new Mazda piston rings and installed a couple in the stock honed bore to check end gap.  Not bad!  Must have got lucky.  The stock rings that came out were around 0.007" compression ring and 0.016" scraper.  The new rings were both at 0.008"  That'll probably open up a couple thousands after the hone, though.  Still, compared to last year, where the new mazda rings came in at 0.016" gap......

 

2)  Assembled a new toy.  I must be getting old.  A few years ago I would have said I don't need one of these.  After using it tonight, not sure how I have lived without it. 

 

3)  Removed the PPF, then the differential.  No plans to open the diff up at this point, I'll run it for a while as stock and see how it works.  Really the only reason I'm taking all this stuff out (diff, control arms will come off, knuckle, axles, etc) is that it is often EXTREMELY difficult to break this stuff loose when it's been on there for 100k miles.  It's way easier to do this in the garage on the lift than it is at the track.  So, if I happen to ever need to replace wheel bearings, or axels, or a diff, control arms, etc at the track, life will be much easier!!!

 

 

While we are on the topic of removing stuck parts, the only item I had much trouble with tonight was popping the axles out of the spindle/knuckle/hub/whatsathingy.  They are still stuck in there.  The nuts came off easy.  Can't get the axles out. Tried lots of penetrating oil, hammer, air hammer in the centerdrilled end of shaft.  Next will be a puller coupled with hammer hits, but I don't have a puller at the moment that fits.  If that doesn't work, I guess heating comes next?  Don't much like the idea of heating a part like this.  I suppose I could remove the whole knuckly thing and take it over to the press, then it'd pop out easy.  Anyone have any good tips or tricks to getting the axles out more easily than this?

[Tom Hampton]

Yup!  Exactly this kind of functionality that makes these dashes appeal to me.  Very flexible.

 

If you bought gauge pods that had similar warning light functionality, you're talking ~$200 per gauge.  Get four or five of them plus a shift light and you're already talking over $1k.  Then you still have to buy a data system for track data for another ~$1k and you to wire the outputs of all these gauges into that system.  At that point, you're at near the same money, might as well just buy the dash in the first place, have a way easier install, and a clean, well-integrated system. 

 

I know in AIM racestudio analysis you can write math channels to calculate new channels based on measured channels.  I'm not sure if these math channels can also be programmed to run live on the dash, but if so, I have a couple projects planned.  One being to calibrate a fuel tank level channel based on inputs from the fuel tank level sensor as well as the x and y accelerometer channels built into the AIM unit.  This means you could have a very accurate fuel level display regardless of what grade of paddock you're parked on.  No more need to be draining the tank and refill between sessions as many top SM teams like to do. 

 

True. But you don't need 4-5 gages (2 does the job), and lots of people run a large shift light on the gage hood regardless of the data-system integrated lights.  Second, I don't like having my data system integral to my primary engine monitoring.  Data systems are complex enough that they do occasionally fail/lockup/etc.  I don't want to lose water-temp, and oil pressure because of that.  That's also why I have an oil pressure idiot light, as a backup to the flashing gage.  

[speedengineer]

True. But you don't need 4-5 gages (2 does the job), and lots of people run a large shift light on the gage hood regardless of the data-system integrated lights.  Second, I don't like having my data system integral to my primary engine monitoring.  Data systems are complex enough that they do occasionally fail/lockup/etc.  I don't want to lose water-temp, and oil pressure because of that.  That's also why I have an oil pressure idiot light, as a backup to the flashing gage.  

 

Yeah, but I'd at least want oil pressure, water temp, water pressure, shift light, and wideband O2.  Ideally also want oil temp.  They add up quick.

 

Could run separate water temp and oil pressure gauges as backup, but just the $20 cheapies as they are just there in case your dash dies (unlikely).  I'll probably do something like that.

[Steve Scheifler]

Are you planning to use AIM sensors? If so, aren't they about the same $ as complete gauges with sensor?

[speedengineer]

Are you planning to use AIM sensors? If so, aren't they about the same $ as complete gauges with sensor?

Heck no!  I've got an army of sensors laying around the garage from stock sensors from my s2k and miata builds and others I've accumulated.  I can re-purpose some of those temp and pressure sensors.  Other needed sensors I'll buy generic and wire in. 

 

The only AIM sensor I'm thinking about is the AIM wideband module, which appears plug n play and (I think?) CAN based, so it won't use up one of my precious analog input channels.