By Steve Parker Tornante
CAR LOVERS REJOICE! ONE OF THE third-party applications developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch comes from Dynolicious, an apt name because their app is a delicious piece of software that turns any iPhone, classic or 3G, and the iPod Touch, into miniature and easy-to-use versions of the sophisticated and expensive testing equipment used by car enthusiast magazines, testing laboratories like Consumer Reports and the car-makers themselves.
Sure, all their big-bucks, fancy-shmancy test gear costs a lot more and is probably more accurate than an iPhone outfitted with Dynolicious, but there’s a huge saving grace apart from making all this information available to anyone with an iPhone: It costs $12.99 (that is, after you buy the iPhone).
Dynolicious will run, with all its features, on iPhones (classic or 3G) or iPod Touch models running Apple’s 2.0 firmware.
We picked a long, empty and flat road in the desert near Palm Springs and put our 2002 Toyota Prius hybrid, with about 55,000 miles on it, through some initial Dynolicious paces.
Dyno uses the accelerometer hardware built into iPhones and can measure the performance characteristics of any vehicle (even motorcycles; I’m sure we’ll see reports of all sorts of weird things being “tested”).No external wires or equipment is necessary. Don’t even have to plug it into a cigarette lighter (or whatever they call them these days).
We’ve had our iPhones for quite some time now (at least in terms of a world with a five-minute news cycle) and last week picked up our 3Gs. Its performance, compared to the classic, is outstanding, especially when it comes to truckin’ around the Web; while Apple says the new 3G network is three times as fast when working with the phone’s Safari browser, we think it’s often faster than that. A quantum leap in online speed, definitely.
“Tested” — Dyno uses the accelerometer hardware built into iphones and can measure the performance characteristics of any vehicle [even motorcycles; I’m sure we’ll see reports of all sorts of weird things being ]. No external wires or equipment is necessary. Don’t even have to plug it into a cigarette lighter [or whatever they call them these days]
And Dynolicious provides a quantum leap for casual and serious tuners. Those looking for the most speed and horsepower from their car, truck or motorcycle will benefit, as well as those working to create the best balance of speed, horsepower and engine efficiency for improved miles-per-gallon. An efficient engine is a clean and happy one.
In-putting your vehicle’s weight and a few other details, including what Dyno calls dri-vetrain loss (though we like the term “parasitic drag” better) enables iPhone + Dyno to work their magic.
Find a suitable area, stop, and start your tuning exercise. You’ll first calibrate the iPhone (which takes about one minute) and then slip it into a cradle or cupholder. The test session begins the instant you hit the gas or twist the throttle. We found it best to wrap the iPhone in some foam rubber to keep it from moving during testing or being influenced by vibration from the vehicle. A passenger holding the iPhone steady in their lap during a run seems to work well, too.
Our ferocious Prius’ 0 to 60 time was a blazing 15.31 seconds. We covered the 1/8-mile in 13.20 seconds at 55.4 miles per hour. Our maximum speed in the test was 69.5mph. We always knew it was slow; the testing confirmed it.
And our Prius’ peak horsepower? A veritably throbbing 62!
Dynolicious also maintains a history of test runs, displaying averages and trends in results. It also allows entry about modifications performed to your vehicle (new exhaust system, different tires or wheels or a different engine chip, for example) and will instantly show before-and-after results to easily identify gains or losses. Results are available in “time slip” form and as a graphic showing G’s, horsepower, distance and speed. It will definitely add new dimensions to “test and tune” sessions.
The annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas is coming up in a little over a month, where hundreds of performance equipment manufacturers and many of the car-makers, import and domestic, display their latest wares for 2009 and beyond. We’re looking forward to seeing what other auto-related applications have been developed for Apple and other cell phones, and how programmers might have already tweaked Dynolicious to offer even more helpful information. And we’ll let you know what we find there (find out more about this application at www.dynolicious.com).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 23, 2008. Read the original PDF.