TunerStudio Custom Dash

Inspired by the Jalpa, and Fast and Furious...

Ok, maybe less so F&F, but still.  I've wanted to take a RaspberryPi and create a custom dashboard / car computer for the Mini.  There's not a lot of information available on the stock gauges.  My goal is to get more information on what is going on under the hood, especially on track days.  I'm not planning on doing any "tuning" just visualizing the information on a custom dashboard.

The download / order page for TunerStudio states: "TunerStudio does not support Factory OEM or OBD2 tuning!" does that mean I can't monitor as well?

If TunerStudio won't work, what other options do I have?

For those who need a refresher on the Jalpa: https://github.com/TheJalpa/RasbpianMSDash

If you are using a stock ecu and obd2 the only options I am aware of are the ones like Racepack IQ3s, AIM Strada MXL... nothing customizable.

You're going to need something that reads the data stream from the OBDII port which TuneStudio does not.  The easiest way to accomplish what you're after is to use an app like Torque on a tablet or phone and a Bluetooth OBDII adaptor. 

If you want to roll your own and use a dedicated display you'll still need an interface to the OBDII port.  There's a tutorial on how to access the data stream with a Raspberry Pi here -> Link to a tutorial that I found but didn't read in detail so I can't vouch for it's accuraccy.

Why do you mention TunerStudio?  Is it just because it's an application that animates dashboards, or are you using a megasquirt or other ECU that it can be used to tune?  If you're using a stock ECU then I recommend ignoring TS, it's not even close to doing what you want.

If your goal to know what's going on with the car under the hood on track, I would argue that a dashboard is not what you want.  All that will do is display data while you're out on track, but if you're on track you are probably much too busy driving the car to actually pay attention to the data.  What you want is a data logger, something that can store all of this data so that you can review it later.

I would look into an AiM Solo 2 DL.

You want to read the CAN data and react accordingly. OBD-II is more of a request-based system, you ask the car for some information and it replies when it has time. This can be laggy. But if you can read and decipher the CAN traffic, you can see what's happening immediately. Then you display some of the data (slow moving trends the driver can respond to like coolant temp, for example) and have it react accordingly when parameters go out of range (hose came off the wastegate, too much boost, danger to manifold).

That's how I ran the first iteration of this, you can substitute a display of your choosing: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/building-an-analog-race-dash/181498/page1/. APEowner's link looks like a decent start and I'm happy to help.

Note that while you can often access CAN data via the OBD-II port, it's not the only way. It's really important to separate the two concepts. One is the internal traffic used by the car's modules, the other is reporting on the status of emissions equipment.

In reply to BradLTL : RealDash Android app is highly customizable and can log from OBDII. Ok for casual monitoring.