Right, well I've been well enjoying my new toy! So much so, worthy of a new topic methinks.

I downloaded RaceChrono for my Nokia 6110 navigator. It's a little bit of free software, currently in beta testing, that uses the GPS receiver on symbian 3G phones to record time and distance, which means acceleration or even laptimes on a track.

Found here: http://www.racechrono.com/about/?lang=en

Immediate thoughts are;
1) my launches are utter crap - probably because of new cheap tyres (can't even remember the 'brand'. Pirelli rejects or something) and probably because I have issues with getting my head round a bit of wheel spin = much better than bogging down.

2) Not convinced of the software and/or GPS as my times varied wildly. Could be wind, hills etc. On an internal GPS receiver it is noted that results may not be completely accurate... sounds like a bit if a disclaimer tbh.

3) Perhaps my Coop really is Herbie and only wants to play when it can smell German meat ahead?

4) Feck me this was fun! Eeeeee!


(All in kph)
Anyway stat attack from an abandoned airfield I happen to know...:-

60 feet, best 2.98, the rest in mid-3s which I believe all to be sh!t?

0-100 runs varied from 8.7s (!) to 6.66, most were around the low 7s. The 6.6 run was where I had most wheelspin by a long way - right up to 4Krpm and I lifted a bit too or I'd have done nowhere for wheelspin on boost.

80-120, best was 3.17, 3.94, 3.99...

0-200, best 21.67, 22.88...

100-200, best 13.48, 13.67, 14.82...

1/4, best 14.66...

Breakdown of the 0-200 in 21.67s run
60 ft: 2.98
1/8 mile: 9.80
1/4 mile: 14.66
0-100: 6.66
80-120: 3.94
100-200: 15.01

Dunno what happened 100-200 because I didn't fluff any gear changes etc. so how did it lose 1.5s in ideal conditions? Using best efforts a 0-200 could be done in around 20secs dead, which matches an E39 M5 which isn't too bad given the rwd advantage.

At the very least this has been educational, re: my starts! but not so sure on accuracy. A hand-held stopwatch may have been as good. And I need to find a means of copying the grahps off or converting the data logs to Excel.

What about 96.5-160 kph?

AKA 60-100 mph

I think that's the best indication of performance.

You should be doing 0-60 mph in well under 6 seconds with your spec, whatever the tyres....

al give it ago tomorrow, try a find a nice private country road.

Yeah. I've just been looking at the graphs. On that 21.67s I have two really lazy gear changes. I'm too mechanically sympathetic it seems - 2nd - 3rd was over 1.1s! I took about 0.7s to change from 1st to 2nd too. I bet I automatically do it faster in a real world comparison. It's worse as you lose all boost pressure, rather than catch the DV in mid dump as I normally do...

Anyway, the 100-200 run had a 100-160 run included of course and that was in 6.48s @ 100.5mph.

You learn so much from all these logs!!

That sounds bang on what it should be. Can I borrow your phone?

All sorts of stuf becomes apparent. On all my starts I take between 0.9s to 1.1s to do a whopping... 1mph.

lol pathetic.

Hmm... Organic clutch? I'd better learn to start using it a bit more and try some dump starts. But I never go for starts. It's fwd. What's the point? To remind yourself of how annoying fwd is off the line?

I couldn't figure out how to use it and somehow got a 9 second 0-100kph and I was certainly there before 9 seconds lol

the silly 0-1mph is almost certainly a function of the GPS sampling rate

However, the 3+ seconds 60ft time is shameful - call yourself a proper driver? I strongly recommend you call BSM and take some more lessons - even their 1.2 Corsas could beat you off the line

Oh, I wondered why mum's with kids were going past me!

I don't think the 0-1mph was the sampling rate, as it's sampling all the time, it just works out where zero was when you view it in a graph. E.g. every time you come to a dead stop it thinks you're on the line at the 'pod but it's already recording. It is me being that bad off the line. I should be dropping the clutch.

tbh the figures, if accurate, seem to be much much more detail than I expected. The sample rate on normal satnav GPS is about once every second and the same rate would be sh!te for this, but it does seem to sample in 10th's of a second. In fact you can set it to record 1/10000th of a second - 4 decimal places, probably best for external GPS though.

Ooooh numbers

You're now slotted into my performance car database WF

Just a few points about your results there.

You said a 0-200kph time should be capable in 20 secs. By adding your 100-200mph time to a 0-100kph time of 5.7 (should be capable), you have only 19.2s, even better than you thought . Perfect gear changes should see high 18s here.

16.2 Porsche 911 997 Carrera 2 S
16.5 Noble M12 GTO
16.6 Audi A4 RS4
16.9 Mercedes C 32 AMG
18.2 Alpina E46 B3s
20.1 Audi A4 S4
20.1 Alpina E34 B10 Bi Turbo
20.7 BMW E90 335i


Your 100-200kph (62-124mph) time of 13.5 can be related to a very similar 60mph-120mph, maybe a bit less. I'd say around 12.3 seconds with perfect gearchanges. For reference here are a few cars making similar times.

11.5 E39 M5
12.1 Cayman S
12.5 Monaro VXR 8
12.9 Countach LP500
13.0 E87 135i
13.0 E86 Z4 M Coupé
13.2 E36 M3 Evolution

Nice!

The 13.48s 100-200kph was pretty poor tbh. I had a lazy gearchange in there that lasted over 1.1s and it was on a long bend, went up hill by 5ft then downhill by 10ft, according to the altitude measurements... and there was some strange tail-off in acceleration between 115 and 119 before it picks up again.

HTF does a Cayman get there in 12.1?! I seem to be able to out-gun these in 2nd gear IM(limited)E, let alone a run to 124.

Maybe you've been blasting the 2.7s? They're 245bhp so a fair bit quicker than a Boxster I'd imagine? The Cayman S is 295bhp and a fair bit more slippy than a coop. This reminds me actually...

I've noticed something in Autocar's S2 2.7 Boxster road test that might shed some light ont the baby porkers' impressive shove. Here are the numbers it made followed by the good old 20vT's roadtest.

Year: 1996
Manufacturer: Fiat
Name Coupé 20v Turbo
Weight: 1345
BHP: 220
Peak BHP (rpm): 5750
Torque: 228
Peak Torque (rpm): 2500
BHP/Tonne: 164
Lbs/ft/tonne: 170
0-30mph: 2.5
0-40mph: 3.5
0-50mph: 4.8
0-60mph: 6
0-70mph: 7.9
0-80mph: 9.9
0-90mph: 11.9
0-100mph: 14.5
0-110mph: 18.3
0-120mph: 22.3
0-130mph: 29.2
30-70mph: 5.4
60-100mph: 8.5
70-120mph: 14.4
30-130mph: 26.7
60-120mph: 16.3
60-130mph: 23.2
0-400m: 14.6
0-400m Terminal: 100
0-1000m: 25.9
0-1000m Terminal: 126
Top Speed: 149

Year: 2005
Manufacturer: Porsche
Name Boxster S2 2.7
Weight: 1360
BHP: 236
Peak BHP (rpm): 6400
Torque: 199
Peak Torque (rpm): 4700
BHP/Tonne: 174
Lbs/ft/tonne: 146
0-30mph: 2.2
0-40mph: 3.2
0-50mph: 4.7
0-60mph: 6.1
0-70mph: 8.1
0-80mph: 10.3
0-90mph: 12.5
0-100mph: 15.1
0-110mph: 19.2
0-120mph: 23.2
0-130mph: 28.8
30-70mph: 5.9
60-100mph: 9
70-120mph: 15.1
30-130mph: 26.6
60-120mph: 17.1
60-130mph: 22.7
0-400m: 14.8
0-400m Terminal: 98
0-1000m: 26.6
0-1000m Terminal: 126
Top Speed: 157

This clearly shows that even the lowly 2.7 has the legs on us as standard past 120mph. I've noticed this when I've had a blat with them on a few occasions. 40-120mph and I was all over it, but as I couldn't pass, I had to start again both doing 120. It was dead level despite me making around 240-255bhp at the time. A 2.7! It is all down to Aerodynamics in my opinion. The porkers are just better engineered for top end.

I should really dig up the CD of these little fellas, but I can well believe that even a Cayman S would have the legs on your car past 120mph WF.

Hmm impressive!

Welformed perhaps you can write how-to on how to get this thing working, I got 1 run 0-100kph at 9 seconds.... bit wrong I think!

Maybe those Caymans are pretty slippy. They do seem to keep pulling, assuming the stats to be correct.

DC, I just RTFM! It seems quite simple (cool) IMO.

You tell it what GPS to use. You give a session a title. Choose a session type, in this case performance measure. Choose your type of performance measure (If you set it to the max 0-200kph it will record all the others inbetween - 60ft, 1/8, 1/4, 0-100kph etc.) Switch to the live timer to start the session. It then waits until it finds enough satelites to work out your GPS location - the red "no fix to satellites" message will disappear and you will be left with the blue "Waiting..." [for you] message. Then go for a drive. It will give you a time when you hit the target speed but will keep recording to catch your next one. This is clearly how it works for laptimes.

If you set the thing for 0-200, everytime you come to a dead stop it will assume you are at the line. As soon as you move it will think you're off. If you set it to 100-200kph, it will only start logging once you pass 100kph. It keeps logging constantly.

Pause the session at anytime to stop logging and then exit to review your times.

I'm going to be sneaking my phone into my pocket when Karting with PistonHeads next a month. See what it does. It records your actual position as well, so it could even be good for studying racing lines too.

Very interesting.

You assert, on an almost daily basis, that you are able to beat almost every single performance vehicle which crosses your path. Your recorded and published stats, however, suggest a rather different outcome.

It's entirely possible that your system hardware and software is crap. However, whilst you might travel from point A to point B more swiftly than the drivers of your "meat", it's far more likely that they may:

- be less interested in who's in front/behind/alongside them than you think

and/or

- be less inclined to stretch their cars to the limit

and/or

- have nothing to prove

and/or

- (whisper it) be less-capable drivers

QED, I once again assert that 99.99% of the entries in the "Coupe vs" section are utterly irrelevant. Either way, the game's up. Although of course it may be useful to some members of society to carry on posting, if only in order to ensure a continuing supply of wnak fodder for when they return to their dingy bedsits.

I know this. Oh I get it, this is a "you've been rumbled" claim.

None of my comparisons happen from 0. Most happen 40+ and end around 120. I alread know this to be my sweetspot. I also include as few gear changes as possible...

Maybe vid evidence doesn't exist at all either? Maybe I dreamt it? Maybe I made the whole lot up? This is my plausible deniability officer!

The game is up? Nah, is terms of frustrating you, it's only just beginning.

The frustration isn't at this end, old chap - I refer you to the final phrase of my last post

I think it's just my difficulty reconciling some people's chronological and mental ages.....

Fair enough. My get-out is that men are genetically designed to be "immature", playful, competitive, willy-wavers. No number of self-serving laws are going to change any of that. So if you have an issue with life officer, take it up with god.

Wellformed just to make you aware I'm almost certain the GPS receivers in these Nokia phones are of the 1Hz variety, so the maximum accuracy you will get is +/- 1s, to get the figure you are returning I'm assuming the program is estimating when you hit the speed by taking into account current acceleration.

If you want a program where you can extract the data to Excel download nokia's sportstracker program, samples speed/height/location every second, may be useful?

Ben

Well in that case the sample rate will be once per second, but the overall accuracy would be better than that as I believe, from reading their forums, it calculates the rate of acceleration (an accelerometer) in software. So you need to sample a minimum of 3 times to get a rough rate of acceleration? 0-100 is going to get 13-14 plots.

I do notice that the timings seem to go up in 0.5sec increments and the 1/100th figure could well be arbitrary, but yet is consistent from when the timing starts.

Put it this way, wheelspin at different revs in 1st gear was very clear to see. Pity I can't get the graphs off my phone though.

my 80-120 was 3.9..

Was that off a cliff?

i feel like doing that 2 me car but no not this time skipper

I thought that too, until I realised they were talking kph, so that's 50-75 mph

haha, looked good though.

Quick KPH to MPH Conversion

KPH MPH
30 19
50 31
60 37
80 50
100 62
120 75

Right I'm having another go tonight then !

Didn't realise "waiting" meant waiting for me lol!

Right well my 0-60's are rubbish as I can never get traction and end up on the wrong road, best I've had is 7.46 in the wet with spinning start through the whole of 1st.

80-120kph I managed 3.45 my best and then a series of 3.8s and then a 4.13

I haven't done much else yet as soon after my alternator not working killed the car lol!

I remain justified with my miserable 0-62mph runs then!

80-120kph in 3.4s isn't at all bad. All mine had a [lazy] gear change in the middle as they were part of another run, except one which was done in 3.1s. Seesms abotu spot-on for the difference between about 240Bhp and about 300Bhp.

How consistent does the timing seem? I haven't been out in the Coop much lately. The mrs has been repaying the 500 miles she owes me on her new FTO. I did ask if she wanted to do some 100-200kph runs for the science but I just got a frown instead. What's that got to do with timed runs in cars?

The timing seems ok with the 80-120kph but the others I can't see are very good, perhaps I need an external GPS source for my phone to pick up.

Glad to see my 3.4 is about right though, car must be fairly healthy to be pulling those times then..hmm!