Copyright Tesla Electronics Inc. 2003,2004.
Compatible with:
The G-tech PASS (Performance Analysis System Software) allows for analysis of both drag runs and road race sessions collected with the G-tech/Pro competition performance meter running firmware version 4.0. PASS will also allow viewing of drag runs collected with earlier firmware versions.
When the software first launches it will always start up in the Drag Run Mode.
In Drag Run mode, the top half of the screen will always look the same. Up to four runs can be seen at once, and their Results will always be visible. The bottom half of the screen will show additional information, specific to the tab selected. A brief description of all the elements:
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Menu Bar |
Various options such as Opening files, Switching to Road Race analysis mode, Printing, Downloading Data from the G-tech, Switching between US and Metric modes and other things not directly related to the display of specific data. |
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Run selector |
Once a number of runs are opened, click here to select which run is displayed as which color. |
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Open File Button |
A quick way to load a saved Run and show it in a certain color |
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Results |
Quick overview of results, also known as the Racing Ticket. |
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Graph Selector |
Choose what type of graph you will see. Graphs for all selected runs (up to 4) will be shown on the same plot. |
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Graph Tools |
Zoom, Unzoom, Move, Re-center, and Turn Grids on and off with these buttons. |
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Graph |
A plot of your data, up to 4 graphs at once on the same plot |
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Additional Information |
Additional numerical information, varies from graph to graph. |
Selecting Drag Race Sessions (or by pressing cntrl+R on the keyboard) from the mode menu bar menu will bring up the following screen:
Choose Drag Runs from them menu or press cntrl-D to go back to the Drag run mode.
When opening a saved file from the file menu, the drag runs screen will always come to the front if a drag run (file ending in .gtp) was selected. The Road Race Session screen will come to the front if a road race file (ending in .grr) was open
Either drag race runs or road race sessions must be downloaded from your G-tech to the PC at least once. In either case the process is the same.
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Downloading |
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Gtech Screen |
PC Screen |
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Downloading |
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Note: If you have both drag runs and road race sessions stored on your G-tech, they must be downloaded separately, one set from drag mode, and one set from road race mode.
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Gtech Screen |
PC Screen |
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Downloading |
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The PC did open the selected serial port, but the G-tech is not being "heard".
Solutions:
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On the G-tech: |
On the PC |
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The serial port you selected was either in use by another program, or the port simply does not exist. Choose another port, or turn off the program that is interfering. A common problem is a background program like the hotsync manager for a palm Pilot or similar PDA.
Saved Data can be opened in two ways:
Click on a file icon
Select the file
The data will immediately update and be shown in the color corresponding to the file icon you clicked. If you have both road race (.grr) files and drag race (.gtp) files stored in the same directory, only the drag files will be visible.
Select Open Gtech File from the File menu.
And then select the file you want to open. Then choose which color the run will show up as:
Click on one of the four buttons and the run will appear in the chosen color.
(NOTE: it is possible to select road race files when opening files from the file menu. If you do this, the analysis screen will change and ask to view your road race data instead)
Once many runs are loaded, Click on the Run selector to chosen which run will show in a particular color:
The picture above shows a case where 6 runs were loaded, and the Main Run (Thick black line on the graphs) is being changed. Note that you can hide a graph by choosing the top item in the list.
It is possible to choose the same run for two different colors at the same time, but only the left most run will show up. For instance, selecting run number 1 as both the Main Run and as Comparison Run 3 will not show a green graph, since it will be covered up by the black graph.
You can always add notes to a run in the Notes Area. Notes are saved with the run when you quit the PC software and can be seen again at future viewings of the data. The PC Software automatically fills in some notes for you, such as vehicle name, race date and time, and some other items. You can always change or delete these notes if you don't like them.
The above figure shows:
Main Run: Only the automatic Notes
Comp Run 1: Added one line of user Notes:
Comp Run 2: Added One line of user Notes:
Comp Run 3: Deleted all automatic Notes, and Put in one line of User
Notes.
When you exit the Gtech PC software, your notes will be automatically saved with your run and will appear the next time you view the run.
If you accidentally deleted some of the automatic notes, which includes vehicle weight during the run, etc. you can retrieve this information
by selecting Add Race Info to Notes from the Options Menu.
The race info will
be added at the end of the notes for all loaded runs.
You will be asked to confirm before the notes are added.
All graphs have similar features which will be discussed in this brief overview:
| Item | Description | |
| Toolbar | Helps you explore the graph by zooming and panning. For more help click here. | |
| Vertical Axis | Highlighted in black, to remind you where zero is. | |
| Horizontal Axis | Highlighted in black, to remind you where zero is. | |
| Milestones | Same as those seen in the Run Results above the graph. The colors correspond to the graphs. From left to right, the Milestones are usually:
If the milestones are causing too much clutter, click here to learn how to turn some or all of them on or off. |
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| Gridlines | These help you read off exact measurements from the graphs. You can turn them on or off with the gridline too above the graph. |
At the upper left hand side of any graph, there is a strip of graph tools. The tool functions are as follows:
If the milestones are causing too much clutter in the graphs, you can always press 'control M' to bring up the milestone selection window or
select Milestones from the Options menu.
This will bring up the following window:
Choose what you want to see or not see, click OK, and from then on, all the plots will reflect your choices.
The distance a car moves from standstill to when it crosses the starting line at an official drag strip is called the rollout distance. This is typically between 2 and 12 inches, and can be set on the Gtech anywhere from 0-16 inches. Even though this distance appears insignificant compared to a full quarter mile, it typically takes at least a few tenths of a second to cover this distance. Since some car magazines include rollout in their 0-60 measurements and others don't, we leave you the option to include it in your figures.
Choose Rollout from the Options menu to see the following screen:
Your choice will be reflected in all displayed and exported 0-60 numbers, and the speed tables of the speed versus time graph.
When PASS starts up, it does not inlcude rollout. This is typically how magazines will rate 0-60 vehicle performance.
The main plot region shows Power versus RPM, just like a standard Dyno plot. The plot is expanded so the data fills the screen. If you want to create many plots with the exact same scale, you can click on the first and last numbers in the graph scale and simply type in the range that you want.
The smaller plot on the right displays the exact RPM range for which the Dyno plot was made. The Gtech and PC software always show the Dyno plot for the gear in which maximum horsepower was attained. For the RED run, the small plot shows this happened in second gear. For the BLACK run, we deliberately shifted very quickly through first and second gear, to make sure that maximum HP would be reached in third.
When making modifications, be sure you always perform your runs in the same way. A good Power run is not at all like a typical quarter mile run. You want to engage the gear of choice at as low an RPM level as possible. Doing a good HP run is not going to get you your best quarter mile time, but it will get you excellent Dyno Plots.
Notice how the HP and TQ plots cross at 5252 RPM. This is standard for US units of power. For metric plots, however, the plots can lie far enough apart to make accurate readings of the graph. In this case the HP and TQ axes can be unlocked to expand the HP and TQ scales independently. Click the large button to the right of the graphing tools to achieve this. Extra grid lines appear when this is done. The following graph is an example:
It is possible for a run to be disqualified for plotting HP and TQ vs RPM. An error icon will appear above the graphs and it can be clicked for more information. For instance, if RPMs were note properly picked up, or if he time spent in one gear was simply too short (less than a few seconds) a Dyno plot cannot be made. Similarly, the G-tech itself will not display Dyno plots in these cases either.
NOTE: The red regions are not part of the G-tech PC software, but only used to illustrate some issues in this help file.
The HP vs time plot gives you some additional insight on the power production during the entire run, not just for the gear which produced the maximum power. This graph is also valuable for vehicles which do not have a standard RPM signal, such as electric cars, cars with continuously variable transmissions, etc.
This graph must be read with some understanding. At first glance, one might guess over 200 HP from the engine, since the tallest power spike in the graph goes to this level. BUT, this power spike occurred directly after a shift, and is NOT a measure of continuous engine output, but more an indication of the energy stored up in the flywheel during a shift.
The Shaded regions, from left to right, correspond to: Initial clutch slip at launch: Shift from 1st to 2nd gear, and Shift from second to third gear.
The white regions are good measures of power output when the engine is fully connected to the drivetrain. Note that for this vehicle, the true power at the wheels, while in motion, peaked at a little over 140HP in SECOND gear. The peak in third gear is about 20HP lower, which reflects increased air drag at higher speeds.
The information on this graph is simply the measured engine RPM level as time goes on during the race. 0 time is defined as (as in all the graphs) the point where rollout has been completed. (Rollout is the distance your car would be positioned behind the track starting line, and was set to 9 inches in this case).
As an example we show 2 runs overlaid, with the graph grids turned off, and the 0-60mph mark turned off also.
What can we learn from this graph? First of all, the BLACK run had a much higher pre launch rev up and the RED run. (We actually smoked the clutch pretty badly on the BLACK run). At about 2.25 seconds, we see the BLACK run has passed the 60ft mark. Since the BLACK 60ft mark is to the left of the RED one on the graph, it means the BLACK run had a better 60 ft time, and was ahead of the RED run. From now on, we see that the black milestones are always to the left of the red ones. If these two cars had raced, it would have been decided in the first 2 seconds. The BLACK car was able to deliver more power at the launch, due to higher engine RPM. The RED run never caught up.
The plots shown here are for the same runs discussed in the previous (RPM) section. Gridmarks and 0-60mph mark have been turned off.
Notice that winning BLACK run picked up a lot more speed between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds elapsed. From that point on, the BLACK run always stays faster and head of the RED run. This race was completely determined in that ONE SECOND interval! Also notice the little steps (around 3 seconds, and 9-10 seconds). These indicate gearshifts. During a shift (at least on most manual transmissions) there is no power going to the wheels, and the car coasts. The shorter these steps are, the faster your runs will be.
To the right of the plot, a information is listed like you may find it in car magazines.
The 0-XX times are not measured from the zero time mark on the graph, but rather from the left most milestone, the point where the car just barely starts moving.
Passing times, are taken directly from the run. Pay some attention to the gearshifts though. No power is delivered to the wheels during a shift, and the figure for 60-80mph includes a shift from second to third gear. It is quite possible for this car to have a better 60-80 time if we had shifted into third at 55mph and then floored it so that the whole 60-80 range was spent in third gear alone. By setting the Gtech speedlight at 55mph, such comparisons are easily made with a couple of different runs.
Zero-XX-Zero times are not shown for these runs. In order for this information to appear, the Gtech must sense that a brake test happened. Since no strong negative Gs were detected, and no stop was detected at the end of this run, the information is left blank.
If the brakes had been applied immediately after the run was over, the Zero-Speed-Zero times would have been filled in.
How are these times determined?
| 0-60-0 | The Software measures your time from 0-60, then ignores any time during which the car is going over 60, and then adds the time from 60-0 during braking. If 60 was not reached, or if a stop was not detected, no time is given. |
| 0-80-0 | The Software measures your time from 0-80, then ignores any time during which the car is going over 80, and then adds the time from 80-0 during braking. If 80 was not reached, or if a stop was not detected, no time is given. |
| 0-100-0 | The Software measures your time from 0-100, then ignores any time during which the car is going over 100, and then adds the time from 100-0 during braking. If 100 was not reached, or if a stop was not detected, no time is given. |
| 0-MAX-0 | The Software measured your time from 0 mph all the way back to zero mph at the stop. You can read the max speed from the graph. NO time is given ONLY if no stop is detected. |
Note: depending on how you have set your preferences, the time it takes for the car to roll out (usually a few tenths of a second) may or may not be included in the tables. Please read about including rollout times here.
This function displays you the FORWARD Gs being experienced during the run. Notice that the BLACK run experiences much more acceleration during the beginning of the run, therefore picks up more speed, gets ahead early on in the run, and wins out over RED.
Large negative spikes occur while the clutch is DIS-engaged. Large positive spikes occur when the clutch is dumped.
Sustained negative Gs occur while braking.
This feature displays the forward distance travelled as a function of time. Notice that the vehicle BLACK run is always above the RED run, indicating that the BLACK car was always ahead of the RED car.
For the runs discussed above, no braking information will appear, since the G-tech PC software must detect that the vehicle came to a full stop at the end of the run. A typical speed versus time graphs for such a run can be seen below. For the first 10 seconds of the BLACK run, the car picked up speed. Then brakes were applied and speed drops very quickly. The graph is automatically cut off when the car comes to a full stop. Notice that the 0-max-0 figures are showing now.
Now we select the braking distance tab:
The plot shows speed on the vertical axis, and distance on the horizontal axis. To find, for example, the braking distance from 45mph to 0mph, simply find 45 mph on the vertical axis, see where this gridline crosses the graph, and follow the vertical gridline down to the horizontal axis to see that the answer is 90 feet.
Typical braking distances are automatically tabulated in the top table on the right.
Less common braking distance intervals are shown in the table below.
Make your choice of US or metric mode from the Options menu:
This can be done at any time. Once the change has been made, EVERYTHING which was previously displayed as US will be shown in metric, or vice versa.
A few things you should understand:
Select Print Window from the file mneu to simply print whatever information is displayed on the screen of the G-tech PC software.
Choose Save Screenshot from the File Menu.
Instead of printing the screen, lets you create a graphics file which can be easily stored, put on your website, or e-mailed to your friends.
If you want to perform additional analysis on your data, you can export it as a text file.
NOTE: Tesla Electronics will not provide any customer support related to the use of exported data.
The file format is comma separated values.
A typical exported drag file is shown in the next figure, as seen in Microsoft EXCEL.
Explanation of exported file content:
| Lines 1-3 | Header information |
| Lines 4-9 | Run and Staging Information |
| Lines 11-20 | Milestone Results |
| Lines 22-26 | Other information |
| Line 31 | Data Column Descriptions |
| Lines 32-end | Output data. |
Notes:
Metric Results:
Road race sessions:
Pass always starts up in the Drag Mode screen.
To quick switch to the Road Race screen, press Ctrl+R or
select Road Race Sessions from the Mode menu.
To open and view a Road Race Session, click on the yellow file icon next to the main run pulldown menu. If the file has never been edited before (i.e. it was freshly downloaded from a G-tech and never altered) the entire session will be shown in the graphs below. In the case of the next figure 24 minutes of data were recorded at 20 samples per second.
One can make out the 34 laps by noticing a repeating pattern of bunches, which correspond to the same turns in the track for every run. Zooming into the data helps the visualization, but ideally lap times are collected at race time with a stopwatch. It is best to start your stopwatch the same time you press OK to start the G-tech recording, synchronizing the two clocks. Then record every time the car crosses the line. When finished, press OK again to stop the G-tech recording, when the car is back in the pits.
To enter these times and "chop up" the data into laps, click on the stopwatch icon below the yellow folder icon. The following window will apear:
The total recorded time is shown at the top, near the center of the window.
First, enter the time when the car first crossed the line (the starting time) into the box at the top of the table. This will cause the first (uninteresting) part of the race to become hidden from selection later on. If there are other laps which you want to hide, place a 'y' or 'Y' in the 'Hide' column. This is handy for events which have wait time between the laps.
Fill in names for the laps, anything that will help you identify the lap later on, in the third column. This will help later on when analyzing your data.
Next, enter all the split times in the left column of the table. Lap times are automatically calculated. Short notes can be entered in the right most column. The next figure shows a table which is partway completed.
In the table above, the first lap was for warmup. To speed up your typing you can use colons between hours, minutes, seconds, but also other symbols: * and -, which are usually found on the numeric keypad of extended keyboards are also allowed.
If you are only typing in total split times, but accidentally type in a lap time, it is possible for all the split times to be automatically recalculated. If this is not desired, then check the box at the bottom of the table to protect the total time column. This way entries in the lap time column are not allowed and your original total time data will never change.
To insert a row in the table, or to delete one, use the buttons at the bottom of the table.
There are several ways to enter in numbers that PASS cannot accept. For instance, if the total time in the next lap in the table above is put at 7 minutes and zero seconds, an error message will appear, since total times on a stopwatch must always be increasing. Until you fix the error, the message will stay visible and PASS will not accept timing information.
Another error occurs when the lap time is less than one second, and a third if the total time entered is longer than the time for which data were collected.
The figure below shows a situation where all three errors happen at once:
Lap 7 gives an error since the time entered was only 1/100 of a second later than the previous split time, not the required 1 second.
To fix this error, simply type in a total time which is at least one second later than the previous lap, or enter a lap time longer than 1 second in line 10, which will calculate the total time on the left side, or simply delete the line.
Lap 8 gives an error indicating that the total time is before the total time of the previous lap. To correct, either type in a total time later than the previous one by at least one second, or enter in a lap time which is at least one second long, or delete the line.
Lap 9 gives an error indicating that the total time is longer than the session duration. Either reduce the total time to be less than the session duration, or type in a lap time which is shorter than the session duration, or delete the row of data.
Once all the rows of data are entered into the table (34 laps in this example) accept the timing information.
Now the data can be viewed one lap at a time by selecting them from the lap pulldown menu:
The best lap is automatically highlighted.
The hidden laps are marked with --, and you will not be allowed to select them.
The hidden laps are not considered for the best lap time.
If you want to see a hidden lap, go back to the lap time editor and unhide them (remove the 'y' in the hide column). If you want to be able to select the warmup and cooldown periods, you can unchech the hide boxes at the upper right of the lap time editor.
When comparing laps of the same session, first select the session in the Comparison session pulldown menu, and then select the lap. Below is a screenshot of a comparison between the best lap (RED) and lap 18, which was over one second slower.
The laps are automatically aligned on the left, and the faint vertical gray line indicated zero lap time. By looking at the lateral Gs, it is clear that the black lap is steadily lagging behind the black lap, already at 8 seconds into the lap. The RPMs of the fast (redeploy show a proper gearshift between 8 and 10 seconds, where the black line has no such signature. The forward Gs of the black line are also jumping up and down a lot, indicating the driver was braking and accelerating in rapid succession. The car was not controlled as well as the red lap and this was a likely cause of time loss.
If we look at the data zoomed in during this time:
We see that the GO plot indicates that the red run more properly followed the vehicle's G limits through the turn.
NOTE: zooming or moving one graph will always zoom or move the other graphs in a similar fashion.
NOTE: there is a slider above the playback buttons which allows for finer control of playback, including 16X, 4X, 2X, 1/2X, and 1/4X.
NOTE: Realtime playback only works smoothly on computers with relatively fast graphics cards. Some older machines and laptop computers will not update smoothly.
Click on the (i) icon above the yellow folder icon to view detailed information about a road race session. A screen will appear such as this:
NOTE: nothing can be edited on this screen. It is for viewing only.
The view buttons adjacent to the maximum RPM and G figures will exit this screen and jump the cursor directly to the event.
Lap information includes a ranking for the fastest (1), next fastest (2), and so on. Two laps with the same time are given identical ranks. For instance, if two laps rank as number 3, there will be no rank 4. The next rank will be 5. Hidden segments of data are not considered for lap ranking. The max figures in the upper table consider ALL DATA. It is possible that one of these max figues was found in a hidden lap. There numbers were determined by the G-tech itself, and lap information could not be taken into account at that time.
To print or file these data, you can export your road race run, just like a drag run. You will find all this information at the top of the exported text file.
Once a main session has been selected, data can be played back using the controls above the main plots. Playback will cause the black cursor bar to indicate current position. G figures, RPMs, and the GG plot will update accordingly. Black and red dots in the GG plot will indicate the cursor position also. The GG plot lines become slightly dimmer once data have been played back. G bars beside the GG plot give an additional indication of acceleration, as do the numbers above the GG plot. All update with cursor movement. Playback can be sluggish on computers with slow processors or graphics hardware. Sound should be left off for such computers. On faster computers, simulated engine sound can be activated by clicking the loudspeaker icon on the RPM gauge. Sound in only produced for realtime forward playback. This feature can be useful when concentrating on the GG plot. Without having to look at the Gauge or RPM graph, shiftpoints can be clearly heard.
This will quit PASS and will ask you to save changes to any files which were altered. Alterations includes changes in notes for drag runs and changes in notes and/or lap time information for road race sessions. If you made changes to many runs, you can either choose to save or discard one by one, or to save or discard all changed files.
There may be slight differences between the numerical values displayed by the G-tech graphs and the G-tech PASS PC analysis software.
This does not pertain to critical measurements such as race milestones (60ft, 0-60, 1/4 mile etc.)
For the most accurate graphing results, rely on the PC software.
If your windows fonts are set to a nonstandard size, you may find that the fonts appear jumbled, and the appearance of the screens is not the same as what you see in this document. The only remedy is to change your windows fonts back to the standard 'small' font size. Follow the steps below. The numbers in the table of steps and the figure correspond:
| Step Number | Action: | |
| 1 | Open the control panel | |
| 2 | Double click on display | |
| 3 | Click the settings tab | |
| 4 | Click the advanced button | |
| 5 | Click the general tab | |
| 6 | Choose small fonts | |
| 7 | Hit OK for all open windows. | |
| Windows may ask to restart. |
G-tech PASS is designed to work on a 1024 X 768 pixel screen. Almost any modern computer has the ability to display at this resolution. If you cannot see all of the screen, follow steps 1-3 in the above picture, and then choose a large enough screen resolution. Some very old laptop computers may not be able to do this. Such a computer does not meed the PASS minimum specifications.
Even when the G-tech itself gives you a message that the HP cannot be plotted due to insufficient RPM data, the PC software will still try to produce a graph. Sometimes you can learn something from this graph, but sometimes the data can be meaningless if the RPM data has noise in it. Please use your best judgement.
There is a known bug in the 2.0 firmware which stores incorrect speed versus time data for runs which are longer than 26 seconds. These graphs may look quite messy. The solution is to upgrade to the 3.0 G-tech firmware, available at www.gtechpro.com.
If you forget where your files were saved, first look in the directory where the G-tech PASS program is located. This is most likely in c:\Program Files\G-tech PASS\gtechdata\
If you cannot find that, use the fact that all stored runs end in the letter .gtp (you may not be able to see this on all windows machines) and you can do a search for such files. On most windows operating systems, do the following:
If you any further questions or find problems we did not, please visit www.gtechprosupport.com or discuss your questions with other G-tech users at www.gtechproforums.com.
Version 1.0.0, initial release, June 13, 2003.
Version 1.1.0, June 10, 2003.
Changes:
Version 2.0.0, Summer 2004.
Changes:
