Finally. Spent lot's of time and effort to get onboard cam. First idea was to mount my trusty SONY TRV-250, but it's size, weight and durability put me in doubt. After browsing some auto forums, and e-bay, I found, that now new approach to on-board video exists. Digital Video Recorders (DVR). Those things are recording to memory cards, so it means no moving parts inside. They are light (also from safety point of view) and relatively cheap. So the saga has began :).
First I've got digital DVR. It's very cheap, with shipping it's about 100$. Yeah right, what you pay is what you get... The thing appeared to be purely designed by China, not a copy of some more finished product. Extremely crappy. Build quality is also scarying raw. Also missed some text in description, and haven't noticed, that it only records half of the PAL frame. That's bad. However it works.
Quality is crappy, but at this point it's not so important. Next step was to get some input for this thing. Video was easy - just picked cheap lipstick camera. The sound was something more sophisticated - my DVR has no mic in, only AUDIO IN. There were two possible ways - first to get mic with amplifier (like for e-bay), or other was to use microphone capsule, and make amplifier myself. After some thinking - I made amp myself. It works suprisingly well, no matter, that it's simple as five cents. Cost of whole amp+mic (for materials), is around 5$. If you know how to solder. Here is the schematics (power supply part is omitted, because it supposed to run on batteries, but I've used 7809 and 12v directly from car battery).
Now, when all parts are working together, it's time to bring all this video lab to the garage!
Adding more flexibility benefits whole system, now the engine is not trying to break the exaust off the turbo, but pushes rubber. After engine returns to the initial position - the exaust returns also. Went to the street for a test drive - after some pushing, exaust still in place. Good :). For some reason DVR refused to record this run. This is bad. I think I need to rethink whole on-board camera concept.
And as expected - nothing good happened. No battery warning light, no charging on start. Okay, that means dirty job awaits...
Now battery light is on with ignition, and it seems, that battery is charged without rising rpm. Good.
It's not so restrictive as it might look, but was really PITA to make. And the elbows are poping from the hoses all the time. That's because engine is moving under load and the intercooler - is not. This radial movement turns elbow out of the hose (due to it's bent surface, elbow tries to exit hose when you turn it around).
Now the hoses have space to move. Also replaced three SS elbows with two, changing diameter silicon hoses. Those are more flexible than SS, so now hoses should not be under stress by the engine. No photos of the hosing, because it was done on the fly underneath the car. Only the final result (bumper was cut more after drive test ;))
Poor thing doesn't seem to be very happy with it. Hope it will hold the boost without leaks.
No time in garage, so nothing interesting to put into blog.
Next step was intake tract. Threw away 3b throttle body reducing piece, and put 76mm SS elbow with welded pipe for the ISV. Not very good looking, however does the job well:
Now car is ready for the track. Let's see what it will bring.
Microphone (that temporary fixing was replaced later by cable tie :)):
Havent' done DVR and all cables mounting and fixing to something, so everything lied as a mess:
Note black box - that's my microphone amplifier. Final overview of the "on board video system":
Here is result from it:
Quality is crappy, but at this point it's not so important. Next step was to get some input for this thing. Video was easy - just picked cheap lipstick camera. The sound was something more sophisticated - my DVR has no mic in, only AUDIO IN. There were two possible ways - first to get mic with amplifier (like for e-bay), or other was to use microphone capsule, and make amplifier myself. After some thinking - I made amp myself. It works suprisingly well, no matter, that it's simple as five cents. Cost of whole amp+mic (for materials), is around 5$. If you know how to solder. Here is the schematics (power supply part is omitted, because it supposed to run on batteries, but I've used 7809 and 12v directly from car battery).
Now, when all parts are working together, it's time to bring all this video lab to the garage!
