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CLOSED NEW! 2016 Rule Change -Add method of compliance check


Michael G.

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Can you hook up an AIM box to a MoTeC ECU? Electromotive? Zytec? Pectel? Bosch?

Only one I don't see (on this list) is Zytec: http://www.aimsports.com/products/mxl-chooser.html

 

Not the "Black Box" but I'm sure it's a good guideline for compatibility.

 

So are you gonna tell the guy who has a MoTeC Dash, ECU, PDM and TC to ditch it and get an MXL?

 

The motec ECU can spit out the required data needed Eric.

 

-tony

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I vote yes for this new compliance testing. Since NASA already has AIM devices I'm guessing racers shouldn't have to do anything here? NASA will just plug their devices into the OBD2 ports to get whatever data they desire? Hopefully someone does some beta testing on 3-4 cars to make sure the results are consistent since 3% difference in angle seems like not much to me on a mechanical item, but then again this stuff is admittedly over my head. If the beta test shows that it's always 0% when there's no cheating then sounds like a winner!

 

Lawrence Gibson

Mid-Atlantic

Car #4

GTS2 e36 S54

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No way! This is some bullsh*t too! You're not connecting any kind of data recording device to my ecu! Totally ridiculous to allow something like this!!!

 

 

 

Just kidding. This is awesome. Get rid of that other asinine, overly complicated, and not-even-close-to-being-in-the-spirit-of-GTS rule proposal, and I'm all for this. And let's figure out something and stick with it. Major rule changes to a series every year will kill it.

Great thinking by people much smarter than me to come up with a sensible way of monitoring electronic detunes. I'm thrilled with this.

And hopefully it will shut up these people with their constant accusations of cheating by the front runners...but I won't hold my breath.

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I strongly agree with the theory, but the wording needs a lot of help.

 

Define "drive by wire". What about diesels? What about drive by wire cars for which AiM does not read TPS? If a car already has an AiM, can that be used in place of a "black box" to avoid potential problems from multiple data loggers on the CAN bus? How will the data be collected, compared, shared?

 

This is infinitely better than the previous 'proposed' rule.

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Eric,

 

The proposed is ANOTHER method of compliance as an altenititve to "restricting how much you can detune a car" (which is causing people to flip the hell out). The whole GPS tuning/wheel speed validation is done via black box to evaluate the disparity in acceleration data. This is ANOTHER method that we layer on top.

 

And to calm your nuts about the data tools - we use AIM data boxes as our compliance "black box" so we'd just plug into the AIM. Most likley via OBD2/1 or some simple connector. Need to talk with Randy about that.

 

Throttle cable systems currently have mechanical means to limit them via restrictor plates. The issue that's trying to be solved is the "suggested" cheating going on via Drive by Wire cars... and the same reason we implemented the "average HP" rule last year since you could detune a car to make effectively a square HP curve.

 

#getoffourlawnSCCAguy

 

Mike Sousa

 

Does this address

 

If Front Wheel Speed = 0MPH and Rear Wheel Speed >=xMPH and GPS speed = 0MPH then retard timing by Xdegrees

 

yes this would establish a base line for hp including TPS, which we can compare to the black box data to find an outlire.

 

it has nothing to do with TPS.

 

Can you hook up an AIM box to a MoTeC ECU? Electromotive? Zytec? Pectel? Bosch?

 

So cable throttle systems aren't required to have this. Cool.

 

What about secondary boost control regulated by front wheel speed?

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You guys realize you can detune by other means than TPS change right? You could have the same TPS profile but different outputs by choosing a different map (timing like Eric pointed out). Y'all are all over the other proposal and all for this one. I don't get it. People said "cheaters are going to cheat". I guess I don't see that as MUCH better system that you guys make it out to be. Maybe I don't understand how an ECU works as much as the rest of you do.

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You guys realize you can detune by other means than TPS change right? You could have the same TPS profile but different outputs by choosing a different map (timing like Eric pointed out). Y'all are all over the other proposal and all for this one. I don't get it. People said "cheaters are going to cheat". I guess I don't see that as MUCH better system that you guys make it out to be. Maybe I don't understand how an ECU works as much as the rest of you do.

 

It's pretty simple actually. People are willing to put up with any type of compliance testing that NASA wants to do in order to ensure the credibility of the series. As long as no one is trying to change the fundamental principals of the class (power to weight) everyone is fine with whatever people want to do. Sounds like maybe you have some ideas to toss out there for compliance testing. Odds are if you propose it people will agree to it. The original detune proposal does absolutely nothing to prevent/detect cheating. This does.

 

Lawrence Gibson

Mid-Atlantic

GTS2

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The concept sounds good as a simple compliance tool. However, does it accomplish the goal? Is it simple to execute? Does it reliably work? Can it be done without affecting the car? If the answer to those is yes, then great, I am all for it. If not, then let's wait till these items can be confirmed. Stability in a rule set is a good thing...but so is compliance verification. Let's not mess with one unless we know the other works.

 

McAleenan

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You guys realize you can detune by other means than TPS change right?

 

Yup. This scheme looks like it can be easily defeated unless we log

 

- RPM

- TPS

- Exhaust cam angle

- Intake cam angle

- Injector duty cycle

- Spark timing

- Fuel pressure(?)

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You guys realize you can detune by other means than TPS change right? You could have the same TPS profile but different outputs by choosing a different map (timing like Eric pointed out). Y'all are all over the other proposal and all for this one. I don't get it. People said "cheaters are going to cheat". I guess I don't see that as MUCH better system that you guys make it out to be. Maybe I don't understand how an ECU works as much as the rest of you do.

 

It's pretty simple actually. People are willing to put up with any type of compliance testing that NASA wants to do in order to ensure the credibility of the series. As long as no one is trying to change the fundamental principals of the class (power to weight) everyone is fine with whatever people want to do. Sounds like maybe you have some ideas to toss out there for compliance testing. Odds are if you propose it people will agree to it. The original detune proposal does absolutely nothing to prevent/detect cheating. This does.

 

Lawrence Gibson

Mid-Atlantic

GTS2

 

 

Let me preface this by saying that I don't think cheating is as rampant as people think, however one bad apple (ECC at Road Atlanta comes to mind) can ruin the fruit salad (even if it just perception- not saying that incident was cheating or not cheating).

 

No, the other proposal that was resoundingly shot down doesn't do anything to prevent/detect cheating...but neither does this idea really IMO. Before FBW throttle a tuner had to manipulate all the engine parameters to detune a motor, now you can easily do it with a simple translation that limits air intake (pedal position is 100% but throttle opening is only made to 70%). If somebody is going to cheat this rule then all you have to do is do what Eric described- if the computer detects different wheel speeds front to rear and/or no GPS speed, then pedal position = throttle position...if somebody is going to cheat they will figure out how to do this.

 

IMO (and I am looking at this from a way to make sure the playing field is level) the other idea has merit. Somebody shows up with a whatever motor and everybody else KNOWS what the bottom horsepower number that car car have. Sure they can still cheat up, but a car that has a floor value of 250 has less upside than a motor that has 200 hp listed on their tech sticker. I think the other idea needs refining as I'd rather power down than ballast up to meet a class. There is still a rule about the max amount of ballast one can carry right?

 

I don't think there is a magic bullet way to police this. If there was then the smarter people on here would have figured it out by now. Whatever solution is figured out some people will not be happy...or the cheating vibe will continue. That being said, taking shots in the dark is not a good solution...the first choice needs to be at least a HUGE step the in the right direction because a complete change next year will drive racers away. I am playing devil's advocate a bit because 100% of the responses to the other idea was negative and 100% of this idea is positive...neither which leads to a discussion to tease out the right answer. Let's belly up to the table and DISCUSS this rather than "no that sucks" or "yep this is great". Neither of these solutions is perfect (or even close to it).

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Look, the whole reason everybody was against the other proposal and for this one is b/c we don't an extremely complicated set of rules that restricts what we can and can't do. We all joined GTS b/c of the freedom to do whatever we wanted as long as we met our required ratio. Most of the people (at least on the east coast) that have been accused or suspected of cheating have been running the factory dme's, which cannot be changed on the fly. That is where all the anger and frustration is coming from. Those guys are simply good drivers and that's it,which is is why we are all willing to do whatever it takes to squash this "perception" of cheating. If some of you think there are flaws with this proposal, then come up with some other way of monitoring the cars to ensure they are compliant. We will all gladly listen. I, myself, don't care what has to be done to ensure compliance, just don't tell us what we can and can't do to our cars. That will ultimately make the series less attractive and NASA will lose participants.

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The upside of a motor is irrelevant and here's why. The current AIM data already used is sufficient to detect a 25whp discrepancy. I know bc this year in GTS3 in MA we had a guy who was able to mow people down. Once the data was pulled it was obvious that he had a 5mph lower exit speed out of a corner yet gained 10+mph down the straight. The dyno also supported this. That's a 17mph delta with only 25whp over. So 50whp over would be even more obvious, so who would actually cheat that severely? That's why the first rule makes no sense. I've seen S54's dyno anywhere from 270whp to 350whp depending on the supporting mods with fully stock internals. So with that rule to eliminate any chance of cheating everyone would have to be held to the 350whp standard which MANY S54's can't even accomplish. My motor wouldn't break 300whp if my life depended on it. Therefore I would personally be at a 50whp disadvantage to some cars directly as a result of the rule if it were set at 350whp for the class. Leaving it as the 285whp as proposed gives a cheater with a super motor 65whp to play with, so what did the rule accomplish? Nothing

 

In regards to adding additional parameters, go ahead and propose it. I'm sure none of the racers would care because the people who are being targeted are sick of being called cheaters and anything to stop that would be welcome. Now the problem that you would be getting into though is with tuners. My guess is a lot of the things you listed may be proprietary. If that's the case, why should a tuner who has spent a ton of money in R&D just give away all their trade secrets so others can steal it and market it as their own? You also have to make sure AIM is capable of recording all the data that was listed.

 

 

Lawrence Gibson

Mid-Atlantic

GTS2

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Can you hook up an AIM box to a MoTeC ECU? Electromotive? Zytec? Pectel? Bosch?

Only one I don't see (on this list) is Zytec: http://www.aimsports.com/products/mxl-chooser.html

 

Not the "Black Box" but I'm sure it's a good guideline for compatibility.

 

So are you gonna tell the guy who has a MoTeC Dash, ECU, PDM and TC to ditch it and get an MXL?

I think you missed the context of my post. (Nuance of it as well)

 

I wasn't talking MXL and everyone switching to it. I was referring to the fact that AiM MXL has compatibility with all of those systems listed and, therefore, one could discern from that list that the "Black Box" is compatible with a vast majority of OEM and aftermarket OBDII systems.

 

I love how some people immediately jump to worst-case-scenario.

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No, the other proposal that was resoundingly shot down doesn't do anything to prevent/detect cheating...but neither does this idea really IMO. Before FBW throttle a tuner had to manipulate all the engine parameters to detune a motor, now you can easily do it with a simple translation that limits air intake (pedal position is 100% but throttle opening is only made to 70%). If somebody is going to cheat this rule then all you have to do is do what Eric described- if the computer detects different wheel speeds front to rear and/or no GPS speed, then pedal position = throttle position...if somebody is going to cheat they will figure out how to do this.

 

To solve this problem, you run the black box all the time--on the track and on the dyno. If rpm vs throttle angle or throttle angle vs pedal angle is different between the two situations, you're busted.

 

Is this perfect, no, but it's a big step in the right direction and certainly better than the other rule that doesn't solve the "problem" cheating and has other bad side effects--promotes doing full race engine builds, etc. I agree that more parameters should be measured as there are more ways to detune the engine, but the pedal vs throttle is the main one people are using at least with S54s. I understand it's more difficult with the S65 with the stock ECU, so maybe Randy can chime in to the stewards on what should be looked at. Again, we only have to look for differences in parameter relationships on track vs dyno.

 

Will the hardcore cheaters find a way around this, probably. There are cheaters in every level of motorsport and the pro series have much better resources to police them. One thing Caddell mentioned when I was talking to him at ECC that in looking at all the Aim data they've collected that it's not hard to see true outliers and interestingly they are almost always back-markers/mid-packers not the front runners.

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I'm okay with the rule addition, I just think realistically it's going to be very hard to implement with the multitude of DBW cars and those that run standalone ECUs. Interpreting said data isn't going to be quick or easy, especially at a regional level, and what happens if one ECUs CAN protocol doesn't broadcast said data? What's the timeline it will take to review the data and possibly issue any DQ's? There needs to be a date limit, and I don't think it's realistic to expect to have this data reviewed the weekend of. Are there any issues with having two data logging devices connected to the CAN? I wouldn't imagine so but I've never done it. Is the 3% variance realistically enough? Hopefully Randy Mueller had some input on that number. As has been previously mentioned, there are more ways to detune a car than with the throttle bodies, the GTS2 car that was DQ'ed at Road Atlanta wasn't even a DBW car. I do think this is a step in the right direction to quell the perceived cheating rumors. How accurate are the GPS based "black boxes" anyways? Are they just AiM Solo/DL? They still seem like the best and simplest option.

 

I'm fine with you taking whatever data you want from me if this avoids the other proposal, I just think this is going to be a lot to implement and police.

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Let me preface this by saying that I don't think cheating is as rampant as people think, however one bad apple (ECC at Road Atlanta comes to mind) can ruin the fruit salad (even if it just perception- not saying that incident was cheating or not cheating).

This is the part I want the rules to address. The bad apples were the loud protesters and the officials.

 

What we had then was the most infuriating misunderstanding of basic math and physics I have ever seen, and the end result was the car with the 2nd highest rate of acceleration of the 3 (yes, they did a comparison, not math) was disqualified.

 

We now see some of that understanding of what actually transpired coming back, with comments like:

Dyno is not capable of policing the modern electronics and AIM will need at least an RPM feed, as well as become mandatory before it becomes true compliance tool, which will need some time to develop.

 

And with that, I am glad to see I'm so far ahead of the curve.

Does this mean we will take a more serious look at past issues in an effort to prevent them in the future?

About a year ago I offered the answer with a bow on top if we have RPM (and ideally throttle).

NASA seems content with trying to bury the past, and with more time and more "general understanding" it becomes more clear as to why.

 

 

 

As for compliance:

The source of the throttle angle will need to be prescribed per vehicle. We can't just grab OBD2 throttle angle, as on many cars that is pedal position, not throttle plate position. Someone would need to build the database of what is the proper channel/data.

 

Logging throttle angle should be easy on most cars, even early cars like OBD1 E36's. We have a 0-5v TPS signal. Logging cam position is more difficult, but i suppose we could log vanos on/off. Logging injector PW and ignition angle is likely not feasible. On OBD2 cars, depending on the car, it may be easier. On the MS41 based systems, that data is there (throttle, cam angle, injector pw, ignition), but not on the can bus. If you request it via OBD2, the reply is very slow. (i'm also not positive you can get all of that via OBD2 request). Probably enough for compliance checking though, assuming you trust the output.

 

Logging cam position could prove dangerous though. They won't always be in the same place, as there are a number of influences to cam position on the dvanos motors and beyond. I'd hate to see a bunch of people with completely stock motors disqualified for "cheating" while the inspectors try to figure out what is or isn't normal.

 

Logging everything for the inspectors to see would be nice, but what happens if someone shows up with a carb'd car with a distributor? What is to save that guy from "well we can't log cam angle and throttle position and all that, so he must be cheating"?

 

if we step back to the compliance box as a concept, its quite good. It shouldn't matter how you make X hp, it should only matter that you do. We shouldn't need to police the methods. (limiting detunes? limit ignition timing below stock? limit cam deviation from stock? WHY??)

if we go back to the original premise of the black box, but feed it RPM, then we can calculate power and drag.

If we have a box spit out X hp and Y drag, perhaps as a range, we could use both because if HP is high and drag is low, perhaps they were drafting the entire session.

 

All we should need to know is that dyno says you make X hp, box says you make X hp, and the vehicle was Z on the scales.

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Logging cam position could prove dangerous though. They won't always be in the same place, as there are a number of influences to cam position on the dvanos motors and beyond. I'd hate to see a bunch of people with completely stock motors disqualified for "cheating" while the inspectors try to figure out what is or isn't normal.

 

It's not quite this complex. The logger doesn't need to be able to interpret things like TPS, cam angle, etc. All it needs to do is to be able to verify that the RPM-vs-TPS(etc) curves are the same on-track as they are on-dyno.

 

So the logger can just record RPM versus input0, input1, input2, ..., input6. It doesn't even need to know what those inputs mean. As long as these RPM-vs-X tables are the same on-track as on-dyno, you're good to go.

 

Anyway, I solved all this stuff over in the other thread, but it met with stunned silence

 

Require that every ECU contain a tune from a tuner who has a NASA certification, and that the tune is locked down so nobody else can alter it. If a tuner is caught facilitating a cheat then he loses certification and suffers reputational damage.

Why can't something along these lines work?

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