Laptop - how to secure it while road tuning?

[Jonny Rochester]

I gather a few people like my self on here like to tinker with their ECU, more than just once. The laptop gives fully featured tuning ability on the go, plus water and air temps etc. You need to spend the time to get cold start and everything just right. After a while, a laptop with a flat battery just sitting on the passanger seat is not so good. I will probably be happy with a laptop with a good battery, a car charger, and will have to ditch it if I want to drive hard. But how would I mount a small laptop in the dash?

If I built a stupid car for a car show, the dash would probably be a full computer running Windows or whatever, with 3D maps of whatever ECU brand you had, a touch screan etc.

I saw a guy enter a hillclimb once, and he drove with the laptop on the front passanger seat the whole time, it held in place with a jockey strap.

I have a Dell Latitude D series, as it is one of the few modern laptops with the 9pin serial port. This laptop is also featured on Stargate Altantis!

[oldcorollas]

passenger

[river]

Hi,

Or get one of those display units that can take the feed from your ECU and display the parameters you desire. Of course you can't do changes on the fly... but one would assume you'd be busy driving and not playing with the lap top.

seeyuzz
river

[X kyle X]

Some form of bracketry?

[RAAAH23]

Duct tape?

[thu187]

Hi Johnny Rochester, I know you from such forums as ae86dc lol

For the passenger seat


RAM Seat-Mate $99

or



RAM Universal Laptop tray $299

You can get em from www.gpsoz.com.au or maybe ebay or google to find cheaper places.

[Jonny Rochester]

Yeah, AE86DC, what a joke that is...

That laptop bracket looks like a real solution, yet not as elegant as I imagined.

[JZA70 R]

Ive done many hours of on road tuning with a laptop and the whole time it resides on the passenger seat.

First of all, I dont recommend it as it can get you into a lot of trouble, and put your life and other peoples at risk. But i understand the expenses associated with hiring a dyno, so moving right along...

I would only have the lid open to monitor temps for the warm up period, otherwise the lid will be closed while the software is left running and logging. With the laptop closed its not moving from my recaro's regardless of driving style.

If I need to interact with the laptop I generally pull over and sit it on my lap.

My laptop has a feature where it will protect the hard drive if a bump is felt or the orientation of the laptop is changed suddenly, this has cause some problems with data logging.

Basically Id much prefer to have an ecu with onboard logging so after a session i can go back home on my pc and review data and make changes. Obviously the ultimate would be to hire a dyno and not worry about any of this hassle!

Todd

[lojik]

You should just buy one of these,

http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Office-.../dp/B000IZGIA8

[Billzilla]

passenger

+1.
I've tried to do it a few times and rapidly decided that it was a remarkably dangerous and stupid thing to do.
Just don't do it, get either a reliable passenger to work the laptop or the car, or put it on a chassis dyno.

[TTECelica]

I saw a guy on a 4x4 site that had a laptop mounted behind the rear seat in a hilux, and had an ebay spec touchscreen lcd mounted in the dash where the factory stereo was. this was obviously linked to the laptop and he ran itunes, dvd's etc. So im sure you could just run whatever tuning software on the laptop and just view it on the smaller lcd, not sure how user friendly it would all be without a mouse and keyboard?

[fixeruperer]

ive never strapped a laptop down, as im not cornering hard only tromping my foot, and i never tune and drive hahaha, i stop, make a few adjustment, take off and repeat.
and congrats on finding a modern 9pin lapy im so sick of usb adapters and playing with port settings.

it may not be super strong, but if you put some velcro strips on the bottom of the lappy that should be strong enough for light force.

[Maverick]

This might work, I do know however tarzans grip will work 100% definate

[JP]

I'm in the middle of making a stand for mine at the moment, similar to the RAM universal laptop tray but a bit more vehicle specific. Mine bolts to the two front passenger seat mounting points and then has an arm that goes up and the tray can swivel/tilt.

I also use a Dell D series as my tuning notebook but am looking to upgrade to the Dell Latitude E5510 that gets released on Wednesday, it's one of the few "new" systems that has a built-in serial port (the old E5500 had a serial port too, as did one of the 15" Toshiba's and I guess HP had an equivalent system in different plastics too).

Edit: There's a few stands available out of TW etc if you've got a contact over there too, eg:
http://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11091101386696
http://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?20912315317307

They're less than $100

[MWP]

Why do you need a serial port?
Most serial->usb converters work perfectly.