Modern Vespa

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10001830-1.html

so which iphoner is gonna try this on a vespa?

neat !

Downloading now.

as someone who has a $12,000 dynometer, i call bullshit.

Well duh. It's not a replacement for a true dyno by any stretch of the imagination. It's approximately equivalent to the G-Force devices (I own one of those, two) that stick to your windshield and use the accelerometer to gauge speed and, when combined with weight of the vehicle / rider, to determine approximate horsepower. Good for shade tree tuners like me (did I really just say that?) but not so much for serious work.

I'm hoping it can give me some relative differences between some of the mods I've been experimenting with.

Besides, for $12.99, what have I got to lose?

it should be able to detect suble differences in mods, like you said.

i hope it doesn't work THAT good though, i'd hate to lose the $150 people shell out for 15 minutes of work at a bike show.

i'm thinking about coming to the next amerivespa (2009 in cali) and bringing the dyno, and doing free runs for anyone whose moniker i recognize.

almost 13 bucks

And I think I can live with that.

big timer !

capitalism. i love it. and that new phone.

I wonder how they deal with the errors from integrating the acceleration. With the new iphone they could correct the signal using GPS.

I bet it's good for short runs but that errors stack up on longer runs.

Still very cool!

Me me me!

Jess report back once you've tried it, I'd be interested to hear what you think about it.

Why hasn't one of the GPS companies (Garmin, Tom Tom, etc) offered something like this in there GPS units?

I understand the new GPS units have position scan rates of 100 Hz or more.
Calculating speed, acceleration etc. should be duck soup.

No offense, but $12,000 for that is kinda bullshit...I'm looking up what it does now. Perhaps it's worth it.

Ours does this. If I could figure out how to get mine to say on the Vespa long enough I was going to use it to see how accurate my speedometer is. I've been doing 60-70 mph and thinking that I'm burning up the road, but I might only be going 45. We shall see.

Just gave my ET4 a first time trial run with the iPhone dynometer.

This is way cool !!!!!!!!

Its' dark here and I didn't get a great run.

But, Max acceleration was 0.36 G's

Max Braking was 1.08 G's

Can't wait to try it in the daylight.

What GPS Model do you have?

Magellan Roadmate 2000. It will tell us our current speed along with our average speed and our longitude and latitude, elevation...blah blah blah. This may not be what you meant, but it does give this information.

Yes, most GPS's will give you speed and distance information but will it give you acceleration or time for a distance like 1/8 or 1/4 mile?

Ahhh...no. I misunderstood. Just speed and location stuff.

I tried this last night in the car (2002 Nissan Sentra SE-R) coming home from work. The major obstacle to using any device like this is finding a good spot where you can (a) stop completely before the run, and (b) accelerate away from a dead stop without too much regard for the speed limit. Oh, and it has to be relatively flat. That basically limits you to freeway on-ramps with a stop sign or some other traffic control device at the beginning of it.

I found a less-than-ideal spot at the rest stop on 280 North, North of the 92 interchange. It starts out somewhat uphill and then crests the hill before the quarter mile is up. I still managed to hit 82.5mph, with a quarter-mile time of 17.74. Not spectacular by any means, but it's not exactly a drag car, either. Max acceleration was 0.55Gs, and peak horsepower was (approximately) 110.

And who really knows if the numbers are anywhere near accurate? The speed is about right, but the Gs and the HP are going to be skewed by the fact that I was going uphill and don't have a perfect measurement for the weight of the car + my ass.

The app can handle multiple runs for multiple vehicles, and seems to have the ability to list modifications for a vehicle and then compare runs based on those mods. I haven't yet tried this function, but in theory it would let you take a baseline run, add a performance mod (like a new variator) and then do another run and see the comparison of before and after. That's the theory, anyway -- I'll have to investigate further.

So far, this seems extremely promising for $12.99.

sweet. i'll get back to the dyno industry and tell them all to lower the prices.

Even if it isn't accurate, if it is precise it is still good for comparing mods and changes in performance. Just do the tests at the same stretch of road and always establish a baseline before each set of runs to account for weather differences.

See, I was thinking the opposite -- $12,000 isn't very much for a full-on Dyno.

you're right on, that is cheap. we got the starter model. they go up, up, up from there.

You're probably right, it is most useful to compare pre and post mods on the same vehicle to give you an idea if there is any difference at all. Hmmmm maybe I need to download it and see what my GTS is like with and without the Corsa Powerbooster.

Or different roller weights, or different carb settings, etc.. Just make sure the weather doesn't change too much between runs and that the engine is warmed up for the first run.

I read about it, but I don't get it. It's a clear case of "things I don't understand." I wasn't passing judgement, I was being funny. Somehow I have to find a way to translate that to the interwebs.

Sidebar: If I can find a way to interpret humor on the internet, then I can bottle it and sell it.

Things to add for version 2

1. use the GPS to correct the speed. this will give better better accuracy and will also remove the need to start from a complete stop.
2. use the microphone to determine the engine RPMs.

Is this possible?

been done here

I ask because I've had tons of issues using my wife's Mac to do room equalization. I assumed the mke / soundcard in an iphone would be even more problematic. I'll admit up front I have no idea what guts are in the iphone, I was just curious.

Cool link BTW.