The Competition Car Data Logging Manual

by Graham Templeman

Overview

At last – a practical handbook on how to choose and operate datalogging equipment and get the full benefit from what it tells you. Aimed at the amateur competitor, it covers hardware and software and takes over where the manufacturers instructions run out. It shows how to understand what the data is telling you and how to use it to go faster. It covers standard information screens and shows you how to create your own charts and tables that will illuminate the performance of both the car, the driver and the team. On the way, it deals with systems management issues, how to get quick and easy payoffs, and how to benefit in the long term. It explains how sensors work, how to fit them so they survive and how to calibrate them. The final chapter is a field guide designed to help you run the system, trouble-shoot hardware and software problems and quickly interpret the graphs during an event.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845846657
Publisher:	Veloce Publishing
Publication date:	07/02/2014
Series:	SpeedPro series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Graham Templeman has been in and around motorsport for more years than he’ll admit, and in that time has raced Minis, Production Sports cars and Formula Ford. He has engineered single seaters, racing sports cars and rally cars, and writes for technical motorsport magazines such as Race Tech, Practical Performance Car, and Full Throttle. Graham's current interest is data logging, about which he has a wide experience of installation, operation and interpretation.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Track & Race Cars, October 2008
UK magazine Circ: 25,000

Data logging can look baffling and complex with the amount of complex lines and numbers that are presented when using data logging. Starting by looking at what type of hardware and software to buy, it goes through how they work and how to read them. This does a good job of explaining things that many manuals would not touch on. The graphs and tables are well labeled and explained showing examples of what can be expected when using data logging.
 

Bear Facts, Summer 2008
Newsletter of the Porsche Club of America, Polar Region
 
A practical handbook on how to choose and operate data logging equipment and get the full benefit from what it tells you. Aimed at the amateur competitor, it covers hardware and software and takes over where the manufacturer's instructions run out. It shows how to understand what the data is telling you and how to use it to go faster.
 

www.silhouet.com/motorsport, 2008

I think that someone might be trying to tell me something. Shortly after receiving 'How To Build a Motorcycle Engined Race Car,' I receive the book 'The Competition Data Logging Manual.' Someone thinks that I will build one at some point ...The book is clearly written and easy to understand, but then I am familiar with terms such as Controller Area Network (CAN) busses and ECUs through my work, so I can't assume that the novice reader will find to quite so clear, although I don't see why not.  I would also recommend the book to anyone who is starting to learn about data analysis in any field, not just data logging from competition cars. The book quite clearly deals with issues such as sampling frequencies and the effect on data, as well as data averaging and measurement ranges. I've met all such problems in the lab before, and it would have been useful to have read this book then. It also tells you a lot about what to look for in your resulting traces, and how to try and understand dynamic issues from what you see. Armed with this book, you could make a good start on understanding them.  However, it does sometimes use acronyms without defining what they are, eg. on page 78, limited slip diff becomes 'lsd' without warning, and should really be capitalized, as with the use of CAN earlier in the book. Without defining what the acronym is you could read something completely different for those three letters ... Also, there are very occasional layout issues, with small amounts of text placed between diagrams, so that you can lose the reading flow when going from page to page. But these things are minor.  I found the pointers to car behavior from the traces and hints given to setup to be illuminating and potentially very useful to the driver wishing to learn the art of driving faster. If nothing else, it gives you a very different insight into F1 testing and what the drivers do in their briefings with their engineers, and for that it is well worth reading.

 

Speedscene, October 2008
The magazine of the Hillclimb and Sprint association
 
Considered a 'must-have' these days by an increasing number of motorsport competitors, data logging systems can be as simple or as complicated as the user requires, dependent largely on the number of sensors installed on the car. It's possible to log, and download for subsequent analysis, an astonishing amount of information on the performance of engines, suspension, handling, braking, gearing, steering input – in fact virtually any of the myriad functions affecting car and driver over a lap of a circuit or an ascent of a hillclimb. Experienced racer Graham Templeman takes the reader through the installation, set-up and interpretation of data logging systems in a book that, while not perhaps for the casual reader, does exactly what it says on the cover. There's not a picture of a race car in sight, but the book is packed with examples of just about every conceivable data trace that the engineer, mechanic or driver in amateur will require. The author's essentially practical, no-nonsense approach covers both quick pay-off and longer term analysis methods, and recognizing the confusion that often arises in interpreting the paperwork supplied with proprietary equipment, it starts from where the manufacturers' instructions leave off.

"I would strongly recommend this book to anyone considering adding a data acquisition system to their racing equipment. Read the book first, then start shopping for the system." – The Observers Stand, Ohio Valley Region, Sports Car Club of America

"If you have not used a data acquisition system before, then this book is an excellent starting point for beginners ..." – Racecar Engineering

Editorial Reviews

Track & Race Cars, October 2008
UK magazine
Circ: 25,000

Data logging can look baffling and complex with the amount of complex lines and numbers that are presented when using data logging. Starting by looking at what type of hardware and software to buy, it goes through how they work and how to read them. This does a good job of explaining things that many manuals would not touch on. The graphs and tables are well labeled and explained showing examples of what can be expected when using data logging.
 

Bear Facts, Summer 2008
Newsletter of the Porsche Club of America, Polar Region
 
A practical handbook on how to choose and operate data logging equipment and get the full benefit from what it tells you. Aimed at the amateur competitor, it covers hardware and software and takes over where the manufacturer's instructions run out. It shows how to understand what the data is telling you and how to use it to go faster.
 

www.silhouet.com/motorsport, 2008

I think that someone might be trying to tell me something. Shortly after receiving 'How To Build a Motorcycle Engined Race Car,' I receive the book 'The Competition Data Logging Manual.' Someone thinks that I will build one at some point ...The book is clearly written and easy to understand, but then I am familiar with terms such as Controller Area Network (CAN) busses and ECUs through my work, so I can't assume that the novice reader will find to quite so clear, although I don't see why not.  I would also recommend the book to anyone who is starting to learn about data analysis in any field, not just data logging from competition cars. The book quite clearly deals with issues such as sampling frequencies and the effect on data, as well as data averaging and measurement ranges. I've met all such problems in the lab before, and it would have been useful to have read this book then. It also tells you a lot about what to look for in your resulting traces, and how to try and understand dynamic issues from what you see. Armed with this book, you could make a good start on understanding them.  However, it does sometimes use acronyms without defining what they are, eg. on page 78, limited slip diff becomes 'lsd' without warning, and should really be capitalized, as with the use of CAN earlier in the book. Without defining what the acronym is you could read something completely different for those three letters ... Also, there are very occasional layout issues, with small amounts of text placed between diagrams, so that you can lose the reading flow when going from page to page. But these things are minor.  I found the pointers to car behavior from the traces and hints given to setup to be illuminating and potentially very useful to the driver wishing to learn the art of driving faster. If nothing else, it gives you a very different insight into F1 testing and what the drivers do in their briefings with their engineers, and for that it is well worth reading.

Speedscene, October 2008
The magazine of the Hillclimb and Sprint association
 
Considered a 'must-have' these days by an increasing number of motorsport competitors, data logging systems can be as simple or as complicated as the user requires, dependent largely on the number of sensors installed on the car. It's possible to log, and download for subsequent analysis, an astonishing amount of information on the performance of engines, suspension, handling, braking, gearing, steering input – in fact virtually any of the myriad functions affecting car and driver over a lap of a circuit or an ascent of a hillclimb. Experienced racer Graham Templeman takes the reader through the installation, set-up and interpretation of data logging systems in a book that, while not perhaps for the casual reader, does exactly what it says on the cover. There's not a picture of a race car in sight, but the book is packed with examples of just about every conceivable data trace that the engineer, mechanic or driver in amateur will require. The author's essentially practical, no-nonsense approach covers both quick pay-off and longer term analysis methods, and recognizing the confusion that often arises in interpreting the paperwork supplied with proprietary equipment, it starts from where the manufacturers' instructions leave off.

"I would strongly recommend this book to anyone considering adding a data acquisition system to their racing equipment. Read the book first, then start shopping for the system." – The Observers Stand, Ohio Valley Region, Sports Car Club of America

"If you have not used a data acquisition system before, then this book is an excellent starting point for beginners ..." – Racecar Engineering

From the Publisher