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Game Boy Advance Becomes Car Tuning Tool

Posted by simoniker on from the super-sonic-racing dept.

Thanks to 1UP for its story discussing a new Game Boy Advance peripheral which "turns the GBA into a data logging computer and tuning interface for sports cars". The story explains of TurboXS' DTEC peripheral: "The basic version of the DTEC turns the GBA into a customizable digital gauge for displaying boost pressure, RPM, and different temperature settings. Future upgrades will evidently allow it to show more indicators, like G-forces, knock warnings, and other data."

52 comments

  1. Oh good! by Toxygen · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now all those 2am drivers will be able to know EXACTLY how much they can rev their engine before it blows their car into a thousand peices on my lawn!

    Cause, y'know, when that happens they probably wouldn't clean it up themselves. Lazy bums.

    1. Re:Oh good! by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      I guess this is for the Ricer on a budget, can't afford a laptop? Get a GBA!

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  2. On the road... by Satertek · · Score: 0

    Another reason for a GBA car mount in addition to watching Spongebob on long trips... :D

    1. Re:On the road... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd think that its use as a car tuning utility and sewing machine pattern controller would be enough reason to keep it on your person at all times, not attached to your vehicle!

    2. Re:On the road... by Satertek · · Score: 0

      I mean like cell phone mounts, where it will snap in and recharge etc.

  3. Ricer next to me by mhesseltine · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now I won't be able to tell if he's sitting at the stoplight playing Metroid, or preparing to drop the clutch at 5,000 RPM.

    --
    Overrated / Underrated : Moderation :: Anonymous Coward : Posting
  4. Service Engine Soon? by BlindMellon · · Score: 1

    If it could give me the same info as they can pull at the garage, that'd be cool.

    1. Re:Service Engine Soon? by Alizarin+Erythrosin · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it you could get an OBD-II scanner that hooks into a GBA that would be awesome. Most people aren't concerned with hardcore tuning anyways (That's why I bought an Accessport) and would just like to read the engine codes or look at some telemetry that the ECU is monitoring.

      Or even some open source OBD-II software would be cool. Then somebody could port it or something.

      --
      There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
  5. Don't get too excited... by dchamp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before you all go out to buy this, you need to first purchase a custom ECU for about $1000, and this company only makes them for a handfull of cars (Subaru, Mitsu Evo, Toyota MR2, Nissan 300zx, Neon SRT4...). Follow the 2nd link in the original post for more info.

    1. Re:Don't get too excited... by Zangief · · Score: 1

      It's even more expensive to me to get this setup...

      I have a GBA AND NO CAR!

    2. Re:Don't get too excited... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a universal product. You do not need anything other then the cable, the sensors, and of course the gameboy.

  6. GameBoy Type-R by JPelzer · · Score: 3, Funny

    It needs a huge wing.

    1. Re:GameBoy Type-R by CMiYC · · Score: 1

      I wonder if the SP gives you more horsepower than the regular GBA. If it does, I'm sure a SP sticker would do the trick.

  7. You can already do this with a laptop by Wizworm · · Score: 3, Informative

    Plus have GPS, Cellular internet and WIFI connectivity.

    And all the games you can cram on.

    --
    I always thought of Creationism as the Raving Right's version of the Loony Left's Anthropogenic Global Warming-brightmal
    1. Re:You can already do this with a laptop by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "You can already do this with a laptop... Plus have GPS, Cellular internet and WIFI connectivity." ... fit it in your tool box, work for 10-20 hours on a single charge, buy one for $70....

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  8. Wow by 77Punker · · Score: 2

    It's just like Gran Turismo for my GBA...just what I've always wanted. :-)

    1. Re:Wow by Osty · · Score: 1

      It's just like Gran Turismo for my GBA...just what I've always wanted. :-)

      You mean something like this?

  9. Waste of cash by TwistedKestrel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Currently this useless waste of moolah displays only boost temperatures, engine speeds and exhaust gas temperatures, of which only one of those 'gauges' are not normally found in your average car. However, if I understand correctly, you also have to install the sensor for the EGT anyway, which while being logical in itself, proves that this device is completely useless. Apparently you will be able to use it later on to modify the maps in their custom ECUs, but when they advertise stuff like "Automatically retards timing when the knock is detected safeguarding against engine damage" (something my 5.0L 1988 Grand Marquis station wagon did), I would suggest looking elsewhere. For the cost of their dubious ECU and certainly useless Gameboy peripheral, you could at least purchase some quality performance gauges which would tell you this information, all the time.

    1. Re:Waste of cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you're an idiot. A UTEC does just a bit more than tell you what guages report. Try reading sometime before flapping your lips.

    2. Re:Waste of cash by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What cars are you buying that regularly come with BOOST temperature and exhaust temp guages? engine temp maybe. Engine speed probably (in RPMS) but the other two? Even my Corvette C5 didn't have that before I traded it in...

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    3. Re:Waste of cash by Osty · · Score: 1

      What cars are you buying that regularly come with BOOST temperature and exhaust temp guages? engine temp maybe. Engine speed probably (in RPMS) but the other two? Even my Corvette C5 didn't have that before I traded it in...

      Your Corvette C5 also didn't have a turbocharger on it as stock equipment, so boost temperature and exhaust temperature are meaningless for that car and engine (the former doesn't exist and the latter doesn't matter for a NA car).

    4. Re:Waste of cash by Beatbyte · · Score: 1

      BOOST and Exhaust Temp gauges are useful only in forced induction applications.

      That's why your C5 didn't have it. It was naturally Aspirated.

      There are many cars that have the boost/exhaust guages. Boost makes sure you don't have boost spikes and blow your engine. Exhaust temp makes sure you don't go over 1600 degrees and melt your pistons.

      --
      Get paid to code OSS
    5. Re:Waste of cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the "dubious ecu" as you put it will put >400 all wheel horsepower to the ground on my subaru.

      don't speak about that which you do not know.

    6. Re:Waste of cash by Akira1 · · Score: 1

      Problem is most stock ECU's can pull too much timing when a knock event happens. This gave rise to many items like the J&S knock sensor products:
      http://www.jandssafeguard.com/
      that do a much better job of it. The main thing about the GBA interface to the tuna is not the guages but its ability to interface to the utec ecu's though. Also, the tuna is a wideband O2 sensor, something that is UNBELIEVABLY valuable when tuning your own car. You are correct though, many of these things are present in the stock computer. But the stock computer isn't always the best tool for running your car when it significantly departs from the scenarios it is used to dealing with.

      I'm not the biggest fan of this product as it adds even more cost to what used to be a cheap product (the utec) in order to give functionality closer to that enjoyed by users of true standalones (AEM EMS, Wolf3D, Haltec, Motec, etc). But from a geek factor it will be pretty cool once it comes out and all the features are implemented.

      --
      Food: It's whats for dinner
    7. Re:Waste of cash by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Typically speaking your average car does not display any of those things. Only your average turbo diesel displays exhaust temperature, which is critical because if you shut it off too hot, you're going to fry your turbo. Most cars today are sold with an automatic, and the vast majority of automatics don't have a tachometer, and even many vehicles with manual transmissions don't have a tach for some bizarre reason. As for "boost temperature", I don't even know what that is, is that the intake temp at the throttle body? Definitely not something most cars display.

      Assuming their ECU is fully tunable, $1000 is a pretty good price with the GBA integration. It's a nice low-cost peripheral and if they let you do tuning through it later it will be very convenient for a lot of people. After all, there's a lot of crossover between gamers and ricers^H^H^H^H^H^Htuners* and many gamers with money have a GBA SP.

      * My car is a Nissan 240SX, so please don't get your panties bunched up over the ricer comment. I resemble that remark, although I don't have a wing big enough to lift the car off the ground if you pitch it up.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Waste of cash by TwistedKestrel · · Score: 1

      (I'm replying a bit late, but what the hey)

      Pretty much any car that comes with a turbo, will come with a boost gauge. And I didn't say that any car came with an EGT gauge, but getting this for that purpose is not a terribly good idea. No car will come with an EGT gauge, because it is primarily used for tuning an engine/keeping an eye on it during drag racing. I'm not saying track racers don't use it, I honestly don't know.

      I am saying this is useless, because to the racer, everyone this device offers is redundant.

      P.S. What was your Corvette, an automatic? I wonder what you traded it in for, Jim ...

    9. Re:Waste of cash by TwistedKestrel · · Score: 1

      Right, I'm not really disputing the fact that a stock ECU isn't up to these things most of the time ... I shouldn't have taken on the GBA thingamabob and their ECU at the same time. I guess I'm not really familiar with the UTEC in particular. But when you say "what used to be a cheap product", then I suspect my initial opinion of it to be correct.

    10. Re:Waste of cash by TwistedKestrel · · Score: 1

      Shit, I don't even know how stuff like that gets garbled from the trip from mind -> keyboard. I didn't mean to say boost temperature, I mean just to say plain old boost pressure. And as I said in another reply above, I did not say that any car came with EGT gauges ... I said that buying this for that purpose is silly (though not in those exact words).

    11. Re:Waste of cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is having to install an EGT probe in order to use this useless? You need an EGT probe AND a reader to be able to read EGT anyways. This is the reader. It also doesn't read "boost temperatures", it reads boost and various temperatures, and no cars taht I can think of have a air intake temp gauge. Furthermore, OEM knock sensors on cars are not very good, which as someone pointed out, is why anyone that really has a use for them ends up with a J&S or another quality safegaurd, like this will do.

      ALSO, none of the quality gauges you can buy DATALOG. This is something it seems everyone is overlooking, the unit datalogs and I'm sure it parses according to RPM. This is indispensible to a tuner. While there are other choices to do this, this isn't a particularly BAD one and TurboXS does make some quality components. Their ECUs are not dubious, they're quality products. Perhaps you should research the company a little bit more, or find out how the knock sensor in your Grand Marquis worked.

    12. Re:Waste of cash by Spoke · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say that the UTEC has ever been cheap, the cheapest I can remember it being was around $750-800. So now you're paying another $200-250 for a very small portable tool which lets you tweak UTEC maps, where before you'd have to get a laptop. Not easy to find a laptop for $200-$250.

    13. Re:Waste of cash by Akira1 · · Score: 1

      Well in reply to this post as well as the parents, the Utec was cheap in comparison to its competitors. Utec at around 800-900 bucks is much cheaper then for example an AEM EMS at about 1500-1700 bucks. Most other standalone engine management systems are near or above that price as well. Utec is hard to compare to standalone ems's though, because it is a piggyback system, but that doesn't show the whole story. It is kind of a hybrid piggyback as it can do full standalone fuel control and piggyback timing control.
      However once you add the tuna, the gba thing and everything else, you are talking about 2k and mitigating some of the advantages of the turboxs products.

      It is all more expense then a 300 dollar safc, but an safc only does fuel. Greddy e-manage is quite a bit cheaper as well but off the top of my head I can't think of a car produced in the past couple years that the emanage can actually control the timing on....

      --
      Food: It's whats for dinner
  10. Almost there... by Thedalek · · Score: 3, Funny

    We just need a few more of these senor/diagnostic cartridges to turn a GBA-SP into a Next Generation Tricorder.

    --
    Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
  11. YIC! by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

    "Future upgrades will evidently allow it to show more indicators, like G-forces, knock warnings, and other data."

    I drive a diesel, you insensitive clods!

    1. Re:YIC! by HFXPro · · Score: 1

      This only holds true for smaller diesels... but: If the valves ain't a rattling, you got them suckers to damn tight.

      --
      Reserved Word.
    2. Re:YIC! by Guppy06 · · Score: 1
      Actually, I was talking from a technical standpoint as opposed to "all undesirable noise is called knock" standpoint. Engine knock as the Otto cycle knows it doesn't happen in the Diesel cycle because there's no possibility of pre-ignition since
      1. There's nothing to ignite (clean air is compressed instead of a fuel-air mixture) and
      2. There ain't no stinkin' sparkplugs (no "preferred" source of ignition, the fuel ignites by itself upon injection)
      In a sense, a diesel engine works by knock, relying on ignition by compression instead of a spark (which means you get to build engines with disgustingly large compression ratios and still have a uniform ignition front) and anything done to a fuel, etc. to prevent knock is Very Bad for a diesel engine (and vice versa).

      Theoretically there is a chance that, if the fuel didn't burn completely during the last power stroke and didn't quite all get out during the last exhaust stroke, there might be something left to ignite during the compression stroke (i. e. before you want it to), but note the comment on "disgustingly large compression ratios" above; if it doesn't ignite upon injection at those kinds of pressures/temperatures, it just won't burn.
    3. Re:YIC! by obtuse · · Score: 1

      "This only holds true for smaller diesels... but: If the valves ain't a rattling, you got them suckers to damn tight. "

      It's easy to burn a valve on an aircooled VW engine, since with air cooling you run much closer to overheating all the time. It's safer to have the valves too loose than too tight. Besides, it makes all those cooling fins ring like little bells.

      Valves too loose hurts your performance a little, but burnt valves hurts your performance a lot more.

      There are VW mechanics who tunes the valves so they don't rattle (too loose) and don't burn valves. There are more mechanics who think they do. As a hamfisted amateur, I prefer to err on the side of caution.

      Mmmm... Ham...

      --
      Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
  12. boost temperature ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what is that ?

  13. other gba uses by hiroshi912681 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    looks like it's just a cable to multiboot the gba. I have a coder's cable for my gba that allows me to run small homebrew programs. One homebrew program, for instance, lets me use my GBA as a virtual keyboard (or really, a virtual joystick!). I never thought of actually displaying info on it, it's pretty ingenious of them (and pretty cheap to manufacture, just a GBA link cable). Imagine if someone displayed the weather, displayed RSS feeds, or alerted you when you got email? all on it's own little screen sitting next to your PC... that would be a pretty cool alternative to the LCD mods people have on their cases (full colour! high res!).

  14. This proves it: by kunudo · · Score: 1

    Gameboys are for ricers.

    1. Re:This proves it: by MORTAR_COMBAT! · · Score: 1

      better a ricer than an XBox killer.

      --
      MORTAR COMBAT!
  15. Bluetooth by holymoo · · Score: 0

    All we need now is a bluetooth module for the gameboy and you do all your car sensoring right from the back seat.

  16. dtec, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    first off you dont need our ecu to use the dtec.

    second the dtec will be cheaper than buying a gauge pod & gauges, it will be more accurate and perform more functions.

    third, it can display afr with the use of our afr box. To anyone who actually can tune a car this will be a very useful tool.

    1. Re:dtec, by Akira1 · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up would ya, I replied to this already so I cant mod anymore :(

      WTG guys getting mentioned on slashdot ;)

      --
      Food: It's whats for dinner
    2. Re:dtec, by Llama_STi · · Score: 1

      Not really, unless the AFR sensor is wide-band, it's going to be useless for tuning. The tuner would pull your 1V sensor and put in his/her 5V one anyway. :P

      The GBA can only show what your ECU sees so the AFR wouldn't be very accurate. It's the same thing as my Apexi turbo timer that shows AFR. Since my sensor is narrow-band (1V), the ECU reading is only to get a general idea, not to tune the car with.

    3. Re:dtec, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The DTEC connects to the TurboXS Tuner which uses a wideband O2 sensor (Bosch).

    4. Re:dtec, by Llama_STi · · Score: 1

      no, it says that it can connect to the other tuning module, not that it does. If you were going to tune you'd need this other TurboXS Tuner module (which is ITSELF a wide-band O2 sensor.)

      One cool thing I didn't see the first time I looked was that the DTEC can actually become a fuel controller and boost controller! So thanks for posting as I would have missed that little tad of info otherwise! :)

  17. aircooled V by obtuse · · Score: 1

    This only holds true for smaller diesels... but: If the valves ain't a rattling, you got them suckers to damn tight.

    --
    Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
  18. Limerock by bjb · · Score: 1

    I think this is so cool how the Game Boy is being used for non-gaming applications. Recently, I went to a memorial day race at Limerock (a road race track in north western Connecticut) and they apparently had special WiFi cartridges for Game Boys there that you could track the race with. As the commentator on the public address system said, "Everyone who has kids has one (or several) of these things lying around in the car, the house, etc. Pull it out and track the race with them!"

    --
    Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...