Here are a couple of photos of my shock pots installed, front and rear. There is also a shot of the front wheel speed sensor. For the shock pots, once everything is hooked up, there will be a bunch of calibration time to corilate the sensor movement to shock movement and wheel ratio.

With the data from these, I'll be able to figure out the best valving for our car. Plus, I'll be able to start figuring out how stiff the chassis is in regards to front/rear roll lag and similar things.

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Very cool.

What DAS are you using?

I'm using an AiM MXL Pista until they ship the new MXL2. I'm going to have everything, 4 shocks, 4 wheel speed, fuel pressure, brake pressure, oil temp at the motor, oil temp at the tank, throttle position, steering angle, and trans temp.

At what point does "gathering data" become an end in its self rather than a means to an end?

Our "butt dyno" served us well and fit in well with the TM&E factor.

I can't give ya'll a print out of data nor even event results. I don't think my shocks were perfect.....but close enuff to keep us towards the pointy end of the field.

Brit now has a data collection system on the car (not cheep) and it ain't gonna help him a bit with a shreaded 901. The butt dyno was saying " how long can this tranny last?" The data came in a couple weeks ago. I'm sure that the data collection will point him to exactly what trans (& ratios) to put back in there.

Looks good Matt!

For me, I learned more in my first two days of using data than I had in the previous 5 years of driving. The more you use data with different people, you quickly realize that perception often does not match reality and you get much better feedback from the data system. You can also see a lot of trends and problems that would never show up with the butt dyno.

So, I'm using data as a tool. These sensors will help confirm what I'm feeling out of the shocks, then we will be able to take the data collected, have the shocks dynoed, and figure out new valving based on the facts of our car, not what someone else says works well based on their hunch.

For pro guys like NASCAR, ALMS, F!, etc they use the data collection to verify their simulations. The actual car testing is only maybe 10% of what they want. They are far more interested in figuring how to make their models match the actual car so they can figure things out quicker and cheaper than real world testing.

Times past, when I was a working guy, and held meetings, one of my manager's cell phone rang during every meeting. I took him aside and asked him to please put it on vibrate. He responded "I will miss all my calls because my ass is dead".

Hey, Matt,

Just curious, how do you plan to use the shock pot data to decide on damper valving?

I have access to these tools and use them for trouble shooting things and determining suspension travels, jounce bumper engagements, etc, but I've never used them for damper valving.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

With the shock data (knowing high/low speeds, time in bump/rebound, and through the historgrams) will first tell me how the shocks I have are working. Then, I can use the data from these shocks to decide what I want out of the next set, dyno these, then use that dyno info to choose valving on the new shocks.

Here is an article from MIT on the idea. http://tinyurl.com/bqrcpga It's a word file that opens in the internet window (kind of weird, but good info). There is lots more info in the Bob Knox and Jorge Segers book at http://www.trailbrake.net/data-reading.html

Matt

Thanks, Matt. Interesting approach.

If I'm reading it correctly, it does not allow for what the tire needs... other than the spring rate of the tire.

The general idea is the the better the shock control, the better the chassis control and the more even the contact patch stays. Getting the shocks right doesn't take away the need for getting alignment and pressures right. You sort of have to work all fronts at once.

One of the next things I want to get is a couple IR sensors to get tire temps on the track. That could be pretty interesting!