Vi Monitor Review

[Pot Of jam]

Hello All,

I have on loan a Vi Monitor from the good people at APS (www.autops.co.uk). I thought I would write a little review for people who may be interested in it.

Firstly it’s a very nice looking device about the size of a tom tom, and installation is VERY simple as it only has one cabel and that plugs directly in to your OBD II port under the stearing wheel (this is where it is on the Octy Mk1). This is how it collects its information from the ECU and also it’s powered from the same port.

Once connected I found the best place for it was in the corner of the drivers side like a Gauge.

You can only set up the device while it’s connected to the car which is one of its many coffin nails, set up is very easy though but unless you get it set up correctly you can get some odd results.

The device has three main functions:

1. Diagnostics

2. Performance

3. Monitor

We will go through them one at a time.

Diagnostics

This was, in my opinion, where it was the most useful. It could identify and describe any fault codes that may be present in the ECU, and it also allows you to clear them.

Performance

Under performance it has 0-60-0, 0-30-0 & 0-100-0 testers, a Acceleration tester, Dyno and ¼ mile. We only really used the Dyno, we were interested in this feature the most as we both have very similar cars with very similar mods. The Dyno was very hit and miss, when me and Mr G used it we got very random, and not quite right results. On my run we set up the car as its kerb weight @ 1375 and got a BHP of 174 now with my car I have an APS Remap and a Cat back miltek exhaust. Using the same setup in Mr G’s car we got a 183 BHP (his car has same as mine plus a forge diverter valve, forge relocation kit and an up rated TIP). At one point I’m sure Mr G would like to mention that the Monitor went a little mad and reported a BHP of well over 12k. Considering both our cars are remapped over the 200 BHP I’m surprised and very disappointed at the results.

Either it wasn’t set up correctly or Mr G’s vRS is a Veyron in disguise!

Monitor

This is why I wanted one, as I’m a colossal geek I like gadgets and an electronic gauge is my kinda thing. This however only showed me things that I already knew… you can customise your own setups with up to three different values being monitored and displayed at the same time. It will allow you to set up three different screens. The list of stuff it can monitor and display is:

Engine Coolant Temperature

MAF air flow rate

Air in take temp

Engine RPM

Vehicle Speed

Throttle Position

O2 Sensor Monitor Bank 1 Sensor 1

O2 Sensor Monitor Bank 1 Sensor 2

Absolute load value

Annoyingly the one I wanted the most was Boost Pressure but as you can see this is one of the things it can’t read (I’m not sure if the ECU knows this). The device can record and log any of the information it can gather and then it can be uploaded viewed and even printed off as a graph using the Vi Desktop software.

Conclusion

I think the Vi Monitor is a very clever bit of kit and if any of that information is needed to you, or you do a lot of track days then it is perfect for you as it can display it, log it, and you can view it on your PC. But the lack of a boost gauge was what put me off this device, also the sporadic results from the dyno aspect of it.

Hope this is of use!

Jamie

Edited 1 May, 2010 by Pot Of jam

[Bodge]

My sister gave me one of these for Christmas, and I have to admit I'm not really into things like this so it doesn't get a great deal of use.

As you found also, the dyno setting isn't much use! Different readings every time. The diagnostics part also seems to not work, or only picks up a few codes or something. My proper code scanner picks up codes perfectly, but according to this thing I don't have any codes.

So the only real point in it is the monitor function. Handy for seeing temperatures etc, but needs more functions.

The main problem I found was the datalogging. It only logs data that you are viewing on the current monitor screen selection, and if you switch selection to view different parameters while logging, it stops the original log, and switches to log the data you are currently viewing. Kind of annoying! Why can't it just log all the options!

I also don't like the mounting bracket jobber. It's huge! The one with my Garmin is nice and small and stiff, why couldn't they have just made it like that.

Basically I don't love it, but it does the job of monitoring pretty well.

[Pot Of jam]

Cool, cheers for the additional info!

[chicken_eyebrow]

The BHP figures are probably done in the same way as the Liquid Gauge - it divides the MAF figure at wide open throttle by 0.8 to get an approximation of the horsepower. So if the MAF is dirty or faulty you get all kinds of figures!

[RobClubley]

Good to get some independent information on these, thanks for posting.

[Pot Of jam]

The BHP figures are probably done in the same way as the Liquid Gauge - it divides the MAF figure at wide open throttle by 0.8 to get an approximation of the horsepower. So if the MAF is dirty or faulty you get all kinds of figures!

Well it reported two remapped cars as 174 and 183, both remaps should take them over 200 at least.

[Bodge]

Why doesn't the VI Monitor just automatically do this translation for you then?

They haven't released any software updates in ages either. So I presume they'll never improve the annoying datalogging issue.....

[Pot Of jam]

They already use the cars weight so they could and should have put a feature in which allows people to enter a few more simple pieces of information for their particular car (FWD/RWD, drag coefficient, frontal area - all available from the manufacturer or wiki) which could be used to estimate flywheel hp to within 5% I reckon - which is good enough for most people, certainly better than the confusing acceleration or "net" hp they use.

Yeah, the data logging is a bit of ****er but i use a different device to do mine which logs all available data channels at once.

Hello Andy, Dont worry I will keep the pitch forks down and ther isn't a windmill in sight... To be honest I almost brought a RX8 as I drove a mazda (323 V6) for 5 years and think there the most reliable car out there. But couldnt justify the £400 Tax for one

Thanks for the info though, 210 sounds about right, I was told the map should give the car 35-40 hp extra but I guess due to the age and other things I wouldnt get around those figures.

I was more disapointed that the data it could log was pretty much what the dials infront of me could tell me, making it pretty pointless to own.

[Pot Of jam]

Oh I see, that's pretty clever stuff! I never kept any of the run data, which is a shame as I would like to see it in your funky spreadsheet.

Thanks for the info though, it's much apreciated!

[G-slave]

Thats good, I can relax now! After recalculating, Your car is actually running about 225 max bhp at the flywheel........

Since I last posted Ive put alot of effort into developing a pretty complex spreadsheet now which takes the VI monitor dyno run files and converts them into a cool output like this......

<<IMG removed>>

This was done for my neighbours Stage 3 VXR, apart from the wheelspin/diff/ecu limiting the torque in the lower rev range, the graph is very similar to that produced by the professional tuning company who do the stage 3 map.

R

Andy

very nice indeed, I have to say

[G-slave]

which of these gadgets will allow you to record Boost pressure though?