How
Does It Work?
Acceleration:
At
the heart of G-TECH/Pro is a precision 3-axis accelerometer, a sensor
that measures acceleration also known as G-Force. G-Force is what's
keeping you in your seat and if it wasn't for that seat you would
be accelerating to the ground at 1 G (32 feet per second per second).
Acceleration
is measured in Gs and is one of the key things the G-TECH/Pro COMPETITION
is measuring. You can see this when you position the unit horizontally,
it will show 0.00G's on the X acceleration bar. If you position
it vertically it will show 1.00G's.
Speed:
The G-Tech measures your
speed and distance travelled by integrating forward (the forward
direction is chosen automatically) acceleration over time. Basically,
if you know how fast you are accelerating for a certain time period
you'll know how much your speed changed after that time period.
So if you start off from zero speed then you'll know what your speed
is after every time period. These time periods are very small (a
few thousandths of a second) and that's how G-Tech maintains its
accuracy. However, if you don't start from zero speed your measurement
won't be correct because you won't have a good reference point.
Consequently, it's very important to start all of your measurements
from an absolute standstill.
Distance:
Distance is measured in the
same fashion, if you know how fast you are going for a certain time
period you will know what is the distance travelled during that
time period.
Horsepower:
The G-Tech measures horsepower
though the formula: speed times acceleration times the weight of
the vehicle. The more accurate the vehicle weight you enter, the
better your measurement. The G-Tech measures delivered horsepower,
sometimes also called Rear Wheel Horsepower. This horsepower includes
the loss of power through the drivetrain which is usually 10-15\%.
Rear Wheel Horsepower is what most people are interested in because
that is what they experience when driving. The use of Flywheel Horsepower
measurement is often used in advertising, but not very realistic
when it comes to accelerating your vehicle.
The
horsepower that G-Tech measures also includes vehicle aerodynamic
drag. This means that if you tape over your headlights and grill,
remove rear view mirrors and windshield wipers to reduce your drag,
you will measure a Horsepower increase even though you didn't make
any changes to the engine. After adding an aftermarket spoiler you
will likely find a decrease in measured horsepower, since you increased
the drag losses on your vehicle.
RPM:
Engine
RPMs are sensed directly from the cigarette lighter voltage. No
installation required at all with this true plug and play feature.
The unique RPM feature is used for anything from realtime torque
measurements to shiftlights.
How
accurate is it?
There are several significant
improvements over the original G-TECH/Pro Performance Meter that
have been implemented in the new COMPETITION model. First of all,
there are 3 accelerometers and they are fully temperature compensated.
This in itself is a huge improvement in accuracy. Secondly there
is a very sophisticated new calibration algorithm that allows much
higher precision. Also the system now has 32 times higher resolution
which speaks for itself. New Noise-Correction algorithms have improved
overall accuracy as well. With all of these valuable features we
are very proud to announce that the accuracy is now within 5/100
second. With the consistency at 5/1000 of a second! Absolute Horsepower
and Torque measurements are within 3% and consistency within .5%!
Installation
The G-TECH/Pro COMPETITION
has all of its sensors built-in. This includes three precision temperature
compensated acclerometers and intelligent RPM sensing circuitry.
All you need to do is plug it into your 12V cigarette` lighter and
attach the custom designed suction cup mount to your windshield. |
