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Old 06-26-2012, 05:09 AM
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BP SHADOW
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Originally Posted by terry.sc
If we thought it was beneficial we would all have a Novak Sentry data logger. If you want to try it as a personal project then go ahead and do it, just don't expect to make a viable business from it.

I think actual feel of the car on the track is more important than actual data. In most classes for tyre choice it's usually obvious which tyre is the best choice, either by how planted the car feels or by lap times.
Suspension tuning is easily learnt. Pulling your car in, making one change and then running it will tell you what that tweak does very quickly, rather than pulling in, downloading the data then analysing it. In both cases you need to build up the experience to understand what each changes do so it isn't as if the data says this, then you make that change.

Although to be honest most people these days don't even bother learning how to tune their cars, they just ask online what settings to use or copy setups from the manufacturers website. Then they come back online to ask what to change when the setup doesn't quite work on their track, rather than actually tuning their setup.


I can't see data logging having any use to me, but I have found videoing the cars from the side of the track with a static camera that videos at 2x speed pointing at the corner to see how cars take it, rather than following the cars, and watching it back was very useful to work out what is happening.
For example at my track, which is indoors on carpet it was interesting to note that the fastest cars spent most of their time sliding across the track, even on the high speed corners, rather than gripping the track.
Also strapping a camera to the car and videoing what the suspension and chassis are doing rather than the track ahead was also pretty useful to add to your setup knowledge.
I ran the Novak sentry in my TB03 and it actually gives quite a bit of data. But, you have to have a definite starting pointso you know where your lap begins, to be able to do lap to lap comparisons. Also to put the data into a format that is easy to go through is a bit of a hassle, and being able to understand what you are looking at can be tricky as well. It was good to see top end, motor temps and to understand how gearing changes affected the car. It would be a bit of a trick to package it in an F1 chassis though
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