Them virtual dyno things and datalogging and stuff

[Marky]

So I figured I'd just share the love for those who aren't aware, I wasn't till recently. If you have a V5 or BE/BH onwards, this will work. Earlier models aren't OBD2 compliant so don't have the plug for it

Step one: Buy one of these

http://www.stahlcar.nz/subaru

Step two: Download this

http://freessm.software.informer.com/

You could try this but I'm not sure if it works with the OBD cable - http://www.romraider.com , (I'll check this tomorrow)

Step three:

Plug it in to your car, go for a fang, watch as all kinds of things get recorded like magic ITS AMAZING. Also this will tell you any fault codes the car knows about, and you can add or subtract up to 5 deg of timing across the board. This is very handy if you own a ping machine, or are stuck with 95 octane gas, or want to add a bit to a safe car and go a little bit better (say you chucked in a tank of avgas for a lol and want to tempt fate). It's a very minor thing but can make a startling difference

Now the joy of the software is it will also let you log stuff. SO what you can do is look back later and see if your car actually does knock like you thought it does, or if it is seeing some weird voltage now and then where it shouldn't, all sorts. The amount which can be logged is quite impressive and it's a lot cheaper than the normal repair-by-replacement technique people use to sort an issue (maybe I'll replace the afm... and o2 sensor.... and this thing.... oh and all along this was unplugged)

Now the next part is a matter of some debate - virtual dyno software from here (http://www.virtualdyno.net/ ) when setup correctly will output numbers very close (within 5-10hp) to a chassis dyno, from those logs you took. It's also ripe for misinformation as the wrong tyre size, wrong gear ratios, wrong weight etc will all throw it off quite markedly, as will a sloping road obviously

However it IS a great tool for monitoring your own tinkering, so if you have a base run to compare to, you can then see if going to that new downpipe actually made it go better, if it's worth screwing another 2psi in or not, all that sort of thing. It uses basically the "known variables" of car weight, gear ratios and drag, vs how fast it accelerates through the RPM range. Fudge the figures and of course you'll get fudged results

Remember if you simply use it as a tool to compare your own car with itself - or even just one using the same variables - then it's pretty idiot proof, and you can see for yourself if that massive turbo or new manifold you bolted on really does make it go faster or if it just makes it *feel* faster. Sound and lag can make for great placebos

Short version, you don't need to fly blind so to speak, you can see for yourself if the thing you did actually had a point or not, if it's safe or a timebomb

[Guest]

Pyonare. Chur marky. So can only globally subtract timing or per cell across the board?

[Andy_Mac]

Btssm only does Really basic timing adjustments across the board. Need to get into the romraider/ecuflash software to make more precise adjustments. And as you will have seen thats where the real gains can be made.

[dmacnz]

I used virtual dyno for a few years. Good for comparisons as long as you use the same bit of road.

Very good bit of software.

[Joker]

big fat ol like on this post!

[Marky]

Wait, change of plan, turns out you can't log with the vag-com / obd2 cable, stink.

It'll show info in "freeSSM" but not romraider = no virtual dyno, need a proper tactrix cable for that

You can still monitor stuff mind you

[lachlan]

Pfft at 'vag com '