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      11-16-2011, 07:43 PM   #17
MFGJR
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Drives: 2007 Z4 M Coupe
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Richmond, VA

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Update on supply--I talked to BimmerWorld and they're currently sold out of DLs, but do have some base Solos available. They expect another shipment of DL around the end of the week. If you need one real quick, other vendors may have some.

If you're getting a Solo and want to get a jump start on software, go to http://www.aim-sportline.com/pages/d...n_software.php and download BOTH RaceStudio2 and GPS Manager. The former contains the analysis s/w, data download manager, and configurator for various AiM devices. The latter is required to add tracks to the Solo. You might want to download the documentation/manuals for each application, too. The software loads some sample test data, but it’s not that great. It’ll help some with the learning curve, though.

Besides hooking the Solo up to the ECU per the DIY (obviously, skip that if you have a base Solo instead of a DL), you'll need to do the following:

1. Put the above software on your laptop--not a desktop--so that you can download and analyze your sessions at the track. It wants Windows, though I believe it'll run on a Mac emulating (that the right term?) Windows. See the AiM website for further info on that. Note that the s/w also comes on disk with the Solo.

2. Go through the initial start-up on the Solo—selecting language, units, etc.

3. Load your track(s) onto the Solo using GPS Manager. Not critical, but this will let you skip manually marking start/finish at the track assuming you track is in AiM’s database. Just for kicks, load Spa Francorchamp and the Nurburgring while you’re in there. A guy’s gotta dream…

4. If using a DL, you'll need to download the appropriate ECU protocol to the Solo using RaceStudio. This tells the Solo just what all those signals coming over the CAN connection are.

5. Note that, in item 3 above, you're essentially just giving the Solo the start/finish coordinates (and maybe sector divisions for some track--not positive about that). The track map that's used in RaceStudio isn't provided by AiM--you build it yourself starting with the GPS data from one of your laps once a track session is downloaded from the Solo to RaceStudio. You start with that GPS-determined map, and then tweak the shape, identify corners, etc. If you have friends using RaceStudio who've already done all this for your track, you can simply copy their files instead and save some work. If anyone wants my VIR Full Course file, PM me with your email address. If you don’t get a map file ahead of time, you’ll need to build one only when you start analyzing, but you don’t need to worry about it before you run on the track—it just assists with the back-end analysis, so you can relate a spot on the longitudinal plots to a particular point on the track.

6. Configure any custom display screens you want—or disable “illegal” real-time lap timing displays (for you BMW CCA HPDE’ers). This is done on the Solo, and NOT via RaceStudio.

7. Drive some laps around your neighborhood (the local school bus loop makes a good track proxy) to capture some data, and go through the data download process so that you’re familiar with how that works before you get to the track. Being familiar with this before getting to the track will be beneficial—you don’t want to be hurried and lose data. You can also practice building a track map in RaceStudio should you need to (see step 5 above).

8. For DL users, once you have RPM data coming in, find an open stretch of road where you can engage each gear for 5-6 seconds, and go through the gear calibration process. You launch that from the menu on the Solo. Essentially, the Solo learns and remembers the relationship between RPM and speed in each gear. Speed isn’t important; just avoid wheel spin and ABS engagement while doing this.

9. RaceStudio lets you customize the file name syntax, including driver, car, track, etc., and further lets you decide whether you want one data file to contain all laps for a given track session, or one file to contain all laps from all sessions on the same date. (i.e., if you run 4 sessions of 10 laps each on a two-day weekend, do you want 8 files with 10 laps each, or two files with 40 laps each.) I went with one file per session, as that's how my video files are organized. If you’re going to share a Solo, decide on all this ahead of time so that you know what’s what when you download data. Note that RaceStudio lets you load multiple files and select any lap(s) from each, so you’re not limited in your analysis by the decisions you make here.

Spend LOTS of time playing and experimenting with RaceStudio. There’s a steep learning curve and it’s sometimes not very intuitive. For example, sometimes you tweak a display setting through the “Modify” menu, other times through the “Options” menu. These menus are contextual to the view you’re currently in, so they change. In particular, you’ll want to play with changing the scale of displayed channels in the “Measures Graph” using MODIFY>TEST CHANNELS, else sometimes you won’t see the channel on the graph. (The Measures Graph is the Speed/lateral accel/longitudinal accel/whatever channel, plotted against distance or time—the basic analytical tool.) You’ll want to understand, conceptually, at least the Test Database, Lap manager, Measures Graph, and Track Report views. Tip: when analyzing using the Measures Graph in Distance Mode (you want this instead of Time mode), de-select your out and in-laps as they’re different distances than complete laps, and will confuse/stagger the X-axis scale. Most of this won’t make sense to the data logger noob (me, a week ago) until you start getting your hands dirty.

See the LapFaster reousce posted above for basics on reading and ienterprting the data. Well worth the time investment.

Hope this helps, as the AiM manuals are confusing.

Last edited by MFGJR; 11-17-2011 at 06:04 AM..
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