I got this Scangauge II thing from ThinkGeek.

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 09:26 AM

It's actually pretty cool. If your a dork like me anyway. I got it last night and I hooked it up for my trip to work this morning. It reports all sorts of stuff. It has the stuff you would expect, miles per gallon, battery voltage, rpm, mph, etc... and some other stuff that you would not expect, like timing advance, intake air temperature and coolant temp ( in degrees F ), Throttle position, engine load, etc.
Pretty cool. You can also put in how much gasoline costs and it will give you all sorts of trip data like the maximum speed you hit, the maximum coolant temperature, how many gallons you used, how far you went, and... it lets you put in the price of gasoline so it will tell you how much it cost you to take the trip.

ThinkGeek :: ScanGauge II Automotive Computer

Linzyhop · 10-25-2007, 09:28 AM

how much?

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 09:34 AM

$170

I got it for my birthday which is coming up.

Publius · 10-25-2007, 09:41 AM

That's pretty cool

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by Publius

That's pretty cool

Yeah and it works with any car that has OBD II which is like any car built after 1993 or something.

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 09:49 AM

oh.. it will also read trouble codes.. save you a diagnostic fee for some idiot at pep boys to do the same thing.

Publius · 10-25-2007, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

oh.. it will also read trouble codes.. save you a diagnostic fee for some idiot at pep boys to do the same thing.

I could read the codes myself in my Trans Am, but it was a pain in the ass. It was an 88, OBD I I think ... it flashed codes with the "Service Engine" light when you used a paperclip to attach two connectors, and you had to keep track of the number of flashes & correspond it with the numerical code for the error.

7960 · 10-25-2007, 11:50 AM

does it save info so you can download it to a PC/spreadsheet?

Stylerod · 10-25-2007, 12:07 PM

Wow. That is cool!

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by 7960

does it save info so you can download it to a PC/spreadsheet?

It does save info but I don't know if you can download it. I don't think you can. Maybe though because the plug into the unit is a standard RJ 45 type plug.
It will keep track of your fuel usage for each tank, for each trip, for each day, and for the previous day. That data is saved onto flash memory in the unit. I'm still getting the hang of how to use all of the features.

7960 · 10-25-2007, 12:52 PM

You know you could have put that $170 towards more horsepower

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by 7960

You know you could have put that $170 towards more horsepower

lol. yeah really. Honestly though to get any kind of meaningful boost in HP for this car I need forced induction. Right now there is one supercharger kit in production from Jackson racing and it's 3500 for the small kit and 5,000 for the big one.

David Octavius · 10-25-2007, 02:32 PM

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 02:45 PM

I found this thing on their website

ScanGaugeII - Add-A-Gauge™

Aparently it will calculate horsepower? How ? How could it possibly do that? I mean I have not input the mass of my car so even if it used changes in speed to determine the power, it still needs mass.

Could it somehow use the amount of fuel burned and distance traveled?

thomez · 10-25-2007, 03:10 PM

it can probably calculate horsepower only if you input the mass somehow

Stylerod · 10-25-2007, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by thomez

it can probably calculate horsepower only if you input the mass somehow

Do you need to know the mass when you are calculating horsepower at the crank and not the rear (or front) wheels? Crank horsepower is always higher but it's a good way to judge gains or losses when you are tinkering with stuff.

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Do you need to know the mass when you are calculating horsepower at the crank and not the rear (or front) wheels? Crank horsepower is always higher but it's a good way to judge gains or losses when you are tinkering with stuff.

How would it do that? all it knows is the amount of fuel I am using, rpms, vehicle speed, throttle position, etc. It has no idea how much weight I am hauling around. Is it just a very rough estimate? The only way to measure HP at the crank is to either connect the engine itself to an engine dyno and measure it, or to run the car on a dyno and get Brake horsepower. Devices like the Gtech Pro use the mass of your car and the gforces you generate to find horsepower.

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by thomez

it can probably calculate horsepower only if you input the mass somehow

Thats the thing. It doesn't ask for mass.

Publius · 10-25-2007, 03:32 PM

does your car's computer store the mass information itself, and your gauge hooks into that?

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by Publius

does your car's computer store the mass information itself, and your gauge hooks into that?

Beats me.

The only thing I can figure is that the gauge makes some assumptions based on perhaps the engine size that I do enter. It might be a safe assumption to say that any car with an engine size of less than 2 litres is probably in the 2800 lb class. Any car between 2 and 3 litres is maybe 3000 lbs. anything 3-5 litres is maybe 3500 lbs, and over 5 litres is a truck with 5000 lbs.

But obviously that would leave ALOT of room for error.

Either that or it's performing some sort of very rough calculation based on rate of fuel comsumption, rate of acceleration and RPM. After all, your power output is directly related to how much fuel you can consume.