I encourage any of you reading this to comment if you have something insightful to offer. Please correct me where I am wrong, inform me of existing products that have a feature I’ve listed, explain why my idea(s) simply cannot possibly work, tell me I am ignorant and explain why, and by all means pat me on the back if you found this to be an interesting article.

I assume the reader has exposure to aftermarket engine management systems. I am not going to explain what an EMS is or what Air to Fuel Ratio are, for instance. I still encourage unsavvy readers to check out what I have to say.

Why is the EMS world the way it is?: A guess.

I said in the introduction, “I’m not sure why.” That doesn’t mean I have no theories.

Low Volume: Any car model-specific EMS is relegated to a very low sales volume. The company can either jack up the price to compensate or leave out a lot of functionality in order to get a product out the door (small number of staff, possibly 3 people).

Wheel Reinvention: Every EMS I am aware of was a project started from scratch. It is possible that is how it needs to be, but it contributes to the currently lagging state of the art in EMS products. The smart companies with more resources at least create a product (from scratch) that can be reused in many applications with some in-house tweaking (AEM comes to mind, scroll far down to Electronics).

Inertia: The downside to the “one adaptable piece of hardware, many car applications” approach is product intertia and stagnation. So much has been invested in the product’s bug-fix evolution and adaptation to many platforms that change of any sort becomes a negative thought.

Lack of Task-Specific Talent: Jim the hardware engineer shouldn’t be writing the user manual, performing quality assurance testing, designing the user interface, nor handling sales calls. Find the resources to allow each person to do his or her job with excellence and focus. Without it, every piece of the product suffers. The majority of EMS user interfaces are pretty bad and clearly not designed by someone with years of experience in that area. The overwhelming majority of EMS manuals are atrocious due to being written by people with no writing skills nor perspective (lacking 100ft view). No EMS should ever be released to market without a comprehensive and well-crafted manual.

Lack of Vision: It’s as if EMS development teams have zero creativity at all. Why are you not developing a product that every competitor is jealous of? Innovate. The world doesn’t need another tired EMS design with nothing new brought to the table. I’m almost convinced at this point that the same 10 people have made every EMS package on the planet.

Competition: See above — The world doesn’t need another tired EMS design with nothing new brought to the table. Yet they keep getting churned out. More competition is needed to light fires under asses.

Serial Ports vs. USB or IEEE1394/FireWire

It’s been years since a serial port was common on every laptop. It seems to me that if USB-to-serial adapters exist the technology is readily available to include USB directly into the EMS, yet I am not aware of a single one that offers anything other than a serial port.

“Use a USB to serial adapter.” is the support group response. Unfortunately, very few work properly with EMSes for some reason.

“Buy a PCMCIA serial adapter card if the USB ones don’t work.” or “Buy an old laptop off eBay that has a serial port.”

Basically, this is the (hands over ears), “LA LA LA LA I can’t hear you” approach.

I’m ignorant here, but apparently it is impossible rocket science to make data transfer or stream over a USB cable instead of a serial cable. Nobody at any EMS company knows how to do it, yet there are many USB data acquisition units available with ridiculously high sampling rates.

Firewire? Sure, anything but a serial port I can’t get on almost any laptop anymore.

Platform-Specific Interface Software: Why?

I’m not one of the many tens of thousands who bought a Mac in the last 2 years, but I’d be pissed off if I did.

Do you really have any need to make your user interface software 100% locked to a particular operating system? There are cross-platform interface frameworks that include everything you could possible need for an EMS UI, usually including 2D graphing widgets and 3D wireframe drawing (which any talented software developer could implement on his/her own if they were not present).

Hardcoded Constants

AKA You don’t know what I want better than I do.

For example, when you give the user a segmented RPM range (400,800,1200…) to work with, make RPM points configurable. That is, if there are 8 allowed data entry points between 400RPM and 12000RPM and you don’t let me adjust the 8 RPM points to suit 400-7200RPM, I’m not fond of you. You have crippled your product for my application by needlessly reducing my control granularity.

Gauge Screen

• Always offer an option to display a full screen of gauges with an absolute minimum of (if you have to be lazy and hardcode it): Timing, AFR, RPM, MAP, and perhaps others.
• I should be able to display an on-screen meter for any monitored data stream. Ideally, I should also be able to size any meter on my gauge screen as I see fit.
• The colors of this screen should be configurable (and saveable!)
• Each on-screen gauge should allow a data value threshold to be set for a configurable alarm. The alarm options should be visual (color change or flashing) or audible at a minimum.

This is not a worthwhile gauge offering (left side panel in image) - Hydra EMS product:

This GEMS (also AEM since AEM’s EMS is a GEMS derivative) dash configurator is excellent:

This too is excellent - EcuTek DeltaDash product. Image shows a custom-configured dash display by a user:

Communications Protocol

Publish data transmission protocol specs, folks. You have nothing to gain by keeping this information proprietary and everything to gain by releasing the information (namely 3rd party companies building dash displays and the like).

Data Logging

At a minimum:

• Data items to be logged should be configurable. “All or Nothing” is lame.
• Data logs should be at least exportable as CSV files. Requiring commercial software such as MS Excel is lame.

Data Analysis

Since we’re talking about the Ultimate EMS, it should include data analysis tools. The end user should be able to at least graph data in 2 dimensions with X and Y axis data sources configurable (not just RPM on the X axis).

The EcuTek DeltaDash (OBD-II-based logging and analysis) software gets it right and has had this functionality since 2003 for many Subarus.

That’s all for now, people. I welcome any input and further topics to explore in part 2 where I’ll say my 2 cents on Auto-Tuning Fuel with Closed Loop, Turbocharger Control, User Interface Preferences, Knock Determination, and a few other things.

1. You can do this.
2. It is incredibly safe.
3. Nobody cares how bad you are at it. Everyone cares that you are happy with improvements you are making, even if very slowly.
4. You need a car that doesn’t leak, isn’t on bald tires, is registered, and is safe by road-going standards. The car you drive to work is fine.
5. Your car will NOT be damaged.
6. Don’t be shy. On your first day, “All you need to do is ask. Anyone, anything. If they can’t help you, they’ll point you to someone who can.”

Enough prefixing.

Introduction

You’re not as prepared as you need to be on the road with your car. You think you are, but you aren’t.

You may have great reflexes, but have you ever repeatedly practiced avoiding an obstacle at 50mph? How about 30mph in the rain? How about braking from 60mph down to 10mph as fast as possible without skidding out of control?

How could you be even remotely prepared for unexpected situations on the road if you never practice dealing with them?

What if I told you there was an excellent way to learn all of these things in order to be confident in your relationship with your specific daily-driven car? What if I told you these events were run (and participated by) very friendly people who go to great lengths to help you through the learning process? What if I told you it cost $30-$40 to completely change your mind about your assumed level of skill in your car?

Enter “Autocrossing” or “SCCA Solo II”. The layman explanation is: Bring your car, helmet, and money. Drive your car on a huge parking lot through a course made of traffic cones as fast as you can (your time will be recorded by timing equipment). Just you, your car, and cones. Throughout the day, improve on your time.

But I am not a racer!

Who said you have to race? Yes, many people attending autocross events have been doing it for a year or more (often many years) and are competitive. There is absolutely zero requirement that you drive at a speed greater than you care to. You should, however, feel far more comfortable driving and better understand the limits of your car by the end of your first day. If you don’t, you did not seek help from someone at the event, and you have let yourself waste money.

I have never seen this happen. Ever.

I don’t have a race/sports car!

There is absolutely no need for one.

Your First Day: Prep

Ideally you’ll handle a lot of this the night before your event (trust me):

• Before leaving home, remove absolutely every unnecessary item from your car. This includes all coins, maps, floor mats, extra pens, pillows, stuffed animals, deoderizers… etc. Anything you do not need in the next 10 hours should be left at home. You will not be allowed on the course with any loose items in your car.
• Bring sunblock and sunglasses if you have them (I never wear mine, but I’m weird like that)
• Bring a hat
• Bring a towel
• Unless the event information specifically states that bottled water will be available, bring water to drink. As in… 48+ ounces, not 1 tiny bottle.
• Wear closed-toe shoes. Sandals of any sort are not allowed.
• Bring some snacks.
• Ideally, bring something to cover your snacks, towel, and other stuff that will be sitting in a pile during the event. If it downpours, you will want at least a tarp over mildly valuable stuff. I use a large Rubbermaid closet container with lid to hold some tools, my radar detector, my granola bars, towel, etc.
• Bring your registration receipt if you have one. Some events do not do pre-registration for the event and you will pay when you get there.
• Bring your helmet if you have one or borrowed one. If not, you surely by now contacted the event organizer and made sure there would be loaner helmets.
• Bring rain gear and/or umbrella. Autocross events are almost always rain or shine with no refunds. Don’t be a wuss. Testing your car in the rain is an excellent opportunity.
• Get a good night’s sleep the night before your event. Entrance to autocross events are almost always limited to a window of 1-1.5 hours early in the morning. They also have the habit of being a 90 minute drive from your house.

Your First Day: At The Event

After hitting snooze 5 times, you roll out of bed and saunter casually down the hallway to the bathroom. If you haul ass, you might just make it through the event gate as the last person. It will be a great start to the day when you are faced with 50 veterans waiting on your car to get inspected before the driver’s meeting (all required to attend).

So back up.

Honestly, if you can’t get out of bed and make it on time to your first event, you ought to probably stop reading here and I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.

You don’t have to be the person waiting at the gate in the morning darkness for the event coordinator to show up, but it truly is in your best interest to be one of the first 10 people on your first day. This will give you plenty of time to introduce yourself to others as a new person in need of guidance.

But I’m ahead of myself. Pull in, talk to the people at the entrance to the event. They’ll ask for your name, maybe do some registration type stuff (like assign you a car number), etc. Be sure you tell them you have never done this before.

Drive slowly through the event entrance to where the other cars are and park. If it’s not obvious, ask the people at the entrance for guidance! Remove last-minute stuff from your car and make a pile (or put it all in your container or whatever).

Now where was I? Right, you’re parked now and chatting it up.

Ask lots of questions, just don’t tie one person up for 10 minutes straight. Remember, they’re very likely to be willing to talk to you and smooth out your nervous feathers, but they’re also trying to prepare their cars for the event. Walk around and meet people! Nobody is going to bite.

“Hey, how’s it going? I’m Jeff. I’ve never been to one of these before.”

I know, it’s excruciatingly difficult isn’t it?

From there on, this is how the day will proceed:

• You will notice some cars forming a single-file line. Some will have their hoods up. This is the tech inspection line where your car is examined and deemed safe to drive on the course for the day. At some point, you should join the line with only your helmet in the car. Stop, shut off the engine, prop up your hood, and pop open your trunk. Leave your car unlocked and stay with it until you have been given the “Okay” (usually a sticker placed on your front windshield). When you’re done, close your car up and drive it slowly back to the spot where your belongings are.
• You’re free to chat more. Use the time wisely. Meet people. Be friendly. Ask questions.
• Shortly before the full start of the event, everyone will be called in to gather around for the mandatory driver’s meeting. Pay attention and ask questions. If you miss something, ask for it to be repeated.
• During the driver’s meeting, you will be told which “Run Group” you belong to. Your run group determines when you will be driving and when you will be working the course (working the course involves setting cones upright when they are hit by cars, recording peoples’ times, etc). Be sure on your first day to pair up at a worker station with an experienced person and let them know you need to be given a tutorial about what to do. Your event may proceed differently, but every event I have been to has been split into 2 run groups. Run group A and B. When “A” is racing, “B” is working the course and vice versa.
• After the driver’s meeting, workers are expected to gather their materials and head out to their worker assignments. If you’re supposed to be working and do not have an assignment yet, speak up. If you try to sneak out of working, you will likely never be welcome at another event. If your run group is first to drive, you should be headed to your car in order to enter the staging area (cars will be dispersed from here out onto the course one-by-one in a directed manner). When your turn is approaching, be in your car with your helmet on, seatbelt on, and car stereo off.
• When it is your turn, you will be directed to pull out of the staging area and head to the start line (note that sometimes the “staging area” is nothing more than a single-file line of cars). Slowly approach the start line while watching the person manning the starter flag. He or she will indicate when you should come to a complete stop because you have reached the proper starting point. Get ready. Look forward.
• When the starter tells you to go (or waves the flag very obviously)… GO! Take your sweet time the first time around the course as you will need to get a feel for where the course even IS. It will appear to you as a confusing sea of cones the first time. Relax and keep looking for the next course turn, “gate”, or obstacle.
• When you cross the finish line, it is imperative that you come to either an immediate (controlled) complete stop or just barely even rolling. That means the instant you cross the finish line, get on the brakes HARD even if you’re only doing 15mph. 15mph kills people. Go slow, breathe, and focus on your surroundings as you pull back into the staging area for your next run (you will be getting back in line).
• Maybe go 1 more run (your second) on your own, then ask for an instructor to take you out as a passenger in your own car if you are comfortable with that. At the least, have an instructor be the passenger. You might do well to have the instructor go with you for the rest of the day. It is up to you and your skill level: Depending on the length of the course, if you look at the posted times for the day so far (other drivers) and are 5 seconds slower than the slowest person, you most definitely should have an instructor helping you. Don’t feel bad, just get some assistance! More than likely you will have been noticed already and an instructor may approach you on his/her own before you get a chance to ask for help.
• “But you said it’s not a race! Who cares about time?” Well, no, it’s not a race… but are you learning any valuable driving skills for the real world by taking an extremely slow Sunday drive through the course? Nope. It is necessary to carefully and gradually (over several events, if not tens) increase your abilities with your vehicle — to push boundaries a bit.

What does a course look like?

In the following “bird’s eye” image, the orange dots are cones and the thin black line shows the general path through the course.

That’s all for Part 1…

What would you like clarified in Part 2? Are you still confused about a particular item? Comments are encouraged.

Further Viewing and Reading

1. The Solo 2 “Handbook” contains some good information, but is heavily geared toward the SportsCar Club of America (SCCA) events.
2. For autocross videos on the Internet, search YouTube, StreetFire, and/or Google Video for the word autocross.