RX7 Endurance Racer Telemetry Advice Needed!

[RevvinKevin]

Hello! We’re neck deep in our 1990 RX7 endurance racer project and are just stating to look into getting some basic race telemetry hooked up as well as possibly even replace the entire OEM dashboard and instrument cluster with a better solution. We will be running the stock ECU for this season, but it’s not OBDII so I believe that pulling any data out of it and its sensor network is out of the question. Our car is currently completely stripped and we’ll be buying all new sensors with the exception of the fuel level sender, which we’ll be using the OEM one. We’re looking to get water temp, oil temp, oil pressure, battery voltage, fuel level, and engine RPM in for the initial build, but then add some more logging over time once we get up and running (fuel pressure, AFR, throttle position, brake pressure, steering angle, and more!)

Starter Questions:
* I’m a bit confused on when when/why do you need to use AnalogX, SensorX, or wire directly into the Race Capture MK3. Is there a reason to try and get as much as possible onto a CAN bus vs directly wire? If we’re going to expand the sensor network in the future beyond what the inputs on the box are, is there any reason to put some directly wired vs others on CAN?
* Would you recommend using the Race Capture system to control an electric fan and water pump? In our other car we have a Davies Craig pump with their controller and its pretty awful, very hard to see the screen very and has very limited adjustability. I would love to have a more flexible / open source controller for the pump and fan.
* Have other teams had success with using a RasPi for their primary screen? Which is more stable for a 10 hour+ race, Android or Pi? I’d love to be able to just get a Pi hardwired in there and have a totally self sufficient auto booting system.
* If the SensorX breakout board isn’t the way to go is there another package of known working sensors I could buy? Or maybe just a parts list? Is this wiki page up to date? https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapturePro_Sensors

Thank you!

[brentp]

Hi, Welcome! Here are some answers:

* AnalogX is a way to add additional analog input channels to a system, with the data reported back via CAN bus. If you have not used the maximum 8 channels available on RCP, then you don't need it.

* SensorX is a convenient break-out board that helps you wire up direct analog sensors. https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/SensorX

* You could use RaceCapture's GPIO output for controlling a device. Information: https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/GPIO_Output

You would need to write a small lua script to control the output based on a threshold. Example here:
https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapt ... ator_Light

If this is too complicated / overwhelming, then you may consider using an external controller or conventional thermo-switch.

* The Raspberry Pi integration is quite popular, but it is considered an advanced topic. Using an Android device can be very reliable as well and is considered our "plug and play option". https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapt ... spberry_Pi

* Sensor page is slightly out of date, but the point of RaceCapture is that it can work with just about any sensor, with it's mapping capabilities.

Hope this helps! Let us know how your project progresses.