I was just watching speedvision and a commercial for a product called GTECHPRO came on. It looks like a radar detector and you just plug it into your cigarette lighter. It is supposed to tell you how much horsepower you have, 0-60 times, 1/4 mile times, and various other things. I just thought it was a neat idea. If anyone tried it, tell me.

 

Well that neat idea turns out to be a big, unaccurate crock of ****. Save your money, cause that thing cant predict a thing.

 

Based on what do you make that statement?

Everybody I've spoken says it does what it claims. It is not a replacement for a dyno or a properly measured track, but it does give repeatable results, so can be useful for measuring changes to your car. It is only as accurate as the inputs you give it (use the same piece of road every time, etc).

 

it'll give u a close 1/4 mile ET but the trap speeds are off...seen it used on my friends car

 

GTECH read 13.9 1/4 mile ET
Timeslip read 15.5 ET
Must have been the slicks overloading the acceleromator.

 

A friend went to the strip with one of those in his S2000 and the GTech was consistently about .1 sec off on the optimistic side, ie 14.0 vs 14.1 real. The MPH is allways higher since the GTech gives the speed at the 1/4 mile mark, whereas the track timing systems measure the average speed for the last 60 feet.

 

I used the thing at the track once and had the thing zeroed out and everything and it was a good .4 sec off. This fact alone would still allow the thing to be usuable, but it was never consistant.

 

I owned one for a while, ended up selling it for more than I paid in the first place.

It was fun at first, for 100 bucks its not a bad gizmo to play around with, but its not a tuning device by any means.

Any car that pitches at launch (like my former mustang) throws it off pretty good, especially the trap speed. You really need to make 5-6 runs, half in each direction, to account for grade and wind, to get a decent average.

The times I had it at the track it read about .2-.4 quick and 4-7mph high. This is typical of other accounts I've read on the net.

It is repeatable enough to judge gross increases in power, or for bench racing purposes, but not for any kind of fine tuning. When I was playing with my carb and timing I used the "display acceleration" feature, where it constantly shows the real time acceleration, refreshing a few times a second. In a 2nd gear pull you can get a rough torque curve out of it, the stang pulled ~.5g through that gear.

Its worthless when turned sideways for lateral acceleration. Its weakness in all phases is the mount system, just a suction cup that eventually dries out and stops working. It is hard to adjust to level out the accelerometer.

Verdict: a fun toy to play around with, nothing more.

 

what about for lateral acceleration...
like pulling G's and stuff?

 

personally i think they suck ****.......maybe for a really really hardcore tuner who is already a ****** genius, MAYBE they could have fun with it. For my money, it was a small (way too small) pos that I couldnt reach and couldnt get to work right. I sold it and took a big hit, wish i had never gotten involved.....

 

Check out http://www.extremegeez.com. I have been a Geez! user for about 3 years now and it provides WAY more useful information than the GTechPro for not that much more in cost. Check out their web site and give them a call if you want more info. Btw: I am not in any way paid to endorse Geez! nor do I get a percentage of any sales. I am just a satisfied customer that has won a few National Championships since I started using it. Be sure to mention my name if you talk to them...

Below is a quote from the maker of GEEZ! (www.extremegeez.com):

"The G-Tech Pro is a neat toy, and has a great price point.
It's limited in it's usefulness. It won't record and
playback, even in it's single pole of measurement. And it
gives you something like 6 pieces of information about a
run: peak G, HP, 0-60, qtr mile time, qtr mile speed.
That's all, take it or leave it. And the stand alone
accuracy of these devices is about the same as ours,
although they claim much higher. We don't find the stand
alone accuracy to be acceptable for certification type work,
so we allow you to cross check the GEEZ output with another
source, such as a track timer, and to match the two up,
ensuring GEEZ accuracy. G-Tech Pro can't do that, and the
errors can be significant. They don't give you a way to
adjust for roll and pitch of the vehicle, for instance,
which has a definite effect on measured g's, and all the
numbers derived from there.

GEEZ uses a similar technology, but with two poles of
accelerometer running at the same time, plus recording
capability and playback through the GEEZ software which
analyzes the run a bunch of different ways. For an
autocrosser, GEEZ draws a map of where you went, and shows
you where you were strong and where you were weak. It rates
your Aggressiveness and Smoothness, as well as Usage, which
is just how much of the car's capabilities you got. You can
read strip charts, friction circles, or probably most
useful, you can color-code the map to see at a glance where
different things are happening.

Last week I worked on a project for General Motors
certifying the performance of two of their cars against two
of their competitor's cars. The data was taken with GEEZ,
then cross referenced back to the drag strip clocks at
Firebird International here in Phoenix. GEEZ allows you to
adjust a run to confirm that the readings are 100%, and by
doing this we have extremely strong accuracy and
repeatability. We can measure time to distance (such as
quarter mile, but any distance you choose) as well as speed
to speed runs (such as 0-60 or 30-50, etc) all to the
1/100th of a second, 1/10th mph, and the nearest foot of
distance. These measurements allowed us to certify results
from hundreds of tests in just 3 days. It works that
accurately and that easily.

In one braking test we cross checked two GEEZ units with
each other to verify that the readings wouldn't be different
if we were using two different GEEZ units. After comparing
dozens of runs, and working out averages to eliminate driver
input differences, we found the difference in the reported
braking distances from 60 to 0 on the two units to be about
4 inches. Again, having the ability to adjust a run is
paramount. In these cases, we adjust the 0 speed at the end
of the run (since we know we broke to a full stop) and
that's all that's required to get this level of accuracy.

GEEZ gives the kind of feedback you would expect from a
full-on instrumentation pack, but at a small fraction of the
cost. Our customers at the 2001 Solo II Nationals won 15
National Championships. Many of them had bought their GEEZ
system that summer, and had never won a National
Championship before. Folks like Vic Sias, Tom Harrington,
Michelle Seelig, and more credit GEEZ as being the primary
thing that has brought their driving to the Championship
level."



[Modified by DFauth, 11:58 AM 12/27/2001]