derrick090

I'm looking for one of these for my '03 4Runner, has anyone tried using either one?

Thx.

midiwall

I have two OBDII products:

• Auterra PDA OBD II reader/dyno (http://www.auterraweb.com/)
• OBDiagnostics interface for Windows machines (http://obddiagnostics.com/)

Both products have their place, and a couple of folks on the forum have one or the other. Use the forums SEARCH feature for more info and previous discussions.

To recommend one or the other (or the CarChip) depends on what you want to be able to do.

If you have a Windows based laptop and want to see what your truck can tell you about itself, then the best value by far is the OBDDiagnostics box. It will handle diagnostics codes, various ECU inputs like air flow, temp, etc, and do data logging and light graphing.

If you want to determine baseline info before performance mods, then the Auterra interface is nice. But don't expect it to be as accurate as a chassis dyno. It's also pretty pricey, but can be found on eBay for a lot less than Auterra sells direct for.

The CarChip is nice if you want to do long-term logging and not have a laptop ride along with you. The downside is that it's only a logger - there's no real-time display of data. This makes it kinda' useless for tuning.


Again... There have been many discussions here on the forum about these. Search around for "Auterra" or "OBDiagnostics" and you should be able to find a lot of words.

r854rnr

I have a carchip (brand name I believe, but if you're really curious I will check on details)

It blugs into the OBDII port on the vehicle and logs up to 7 (I think, but I'm not 100%) data entries for something like 100 hours before it starts to write over the forst data logged. After plugging it into the car and logging the data I just unplug it and bring it up to my windows (or Linux I believe) PC and download the data. Pretty cool to see what your RPMs are at certain times, and what kind of temp your engine is running at, and all kinds of mosly useless data. (my favorite is number of gs experianced during acceleration and braking.)

Overall it has been pretty good. I wish it had the ability for a few more data entrys at once, but for a quick review of your engine's running condition, or a teen's driving habits, I love it!

derrick090

Thanks! I guess the SQL server was down at 2am as I did a search on "scan tool" and "PDA-Dyno" and got zero results. Now I get a whole bunch.

midiwall

Actually... Knowing acceleration data is a big part of the data required to compute horsepower. The other part is the weight of your vehicle, and then the time it takes to move over a known distance.


And, here's a link to the CarChip home page:

http://www.carchip.com/drive/product...p_products.asp

midiwall

Also try searching on "auterra" and "obddiagnostics".

Have fun!