Electronics Project
 

I'm an electronics student and I have a final project for a class where I need to design any sort of electronically related project and I want I do somthing that will relate to cars, bmw specifically.

So the question is, is there anything you have ever wanted for your car, electronically related that you couldn't find or wanted to be different. Let me know and ill see what I can do.

i wish you luck, free bump!!

I will try to think of something.

electonics student isnt very descriptive but lets start wth complicated lol.. Im assuming this is for a e46?

how about assuming somebody can get magnetic fluid in their dampers and making the hardware for active suspension?

how about making a set of digital gauges that fit into the center air vents? (oil pressure, water temp, boost, AFR etc ...

if you need to do software too how about radar detection?

I wouldnt mind if my E30's electronics worked, how about just fixing them for me? a e30 with fully working electrics is some thing you cant find and is definately different :P

that was a joke. But being said, just making a wiring harness is quite the feat, if you want claim you have an aftermarket ecu and data logger, you could make a wiring harness for the car you would put them in... and should you choose something fancy theres no ened to the sensors you could choose, steering position, damper position, gear selection, infared sensors for tire temps, etc

hope this helps

Agreed with DIY on the datalogger...maybe even set up a "black box" type device, recording Gs, fuel flow, steering input, oil pressure, temps, speed, revs, etc on one level, and then ECU parameters on another.

export to file, and voila!

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74052
This is the vent gauge, I'm most interested in this idea because I want one :P also because ied prefer this over having to put gauge pods in when I boost my car

How about modifying the E46 DSC traction control to have a track mode that actively brake steered, had a track E-diff, and had track ABS?
That would be pretty awesome.

This is a good idea, and would be fairly simple to build your own version of something similar. Simply put you'd need a digital display and something like an arduino to interface with it. You could make a harness that has all your gauge inputs going to it, then just write some code to read the inputs, calculate the correct values and output them on the display, maybe one in each vent like this...



Being able to crack in an communicate with the OEM BMW systems is no easy task. It usually requires paying lots of money to some underground hacker in Germany who will send you a little black box that will allow you to communicate with the cars computer system.

Oh yea, I agree. That's probably why nothing like that exists. It would probably be easier to remove the DSC module and reuse the sensors with a new system, then you have to get that to work with the ABS module, so you'll probably have to remove that too, and maybe the ECU... so basically a totally new electrical system, like they use on track only cars... lol

For data acquisition, there's already great systems like this Race Capture Pro, so it's hard to imagine doing a cheaper system. Maybe doing some enhancements to it would be a good project, as it seems to be pretty open.
http://www.indiegogo.com/RaceCapture?c=home

Also the traction control idea is prob a messy set of algorithms ... There may be good systems out there for datalogging, but nothing beats the bragging rights of making it yourself, but the inhancements to the race capture pro is also a good idea. Dammit I really want one of those, I wish I didn't miss that bidding on kickstarter or whatever

Build this:

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/mods/E3678/sportmode5.htm

I know a few people who would buy one from you. Dont wait too long or im going to make it myself.

There's no design component in that project, just assembly of parts. Unless he were to design a PCB for it to make it a nicer looking package...

Hey guys thanks a lot for the ideas. I'm gonna keep it a secret for what I'm gonna do how, but i will make a decent step by step tutorial and ill drop if in the forum soon enough. Thanks again, much love!