Here at GeorgeCo, we’ve been using on-board video for driver education for a while, but our previous systems were full of compromises. Dedicated professional systems are expensive. Consumer video equipment is not rugged enough. Place the camera outside of the car and you can’t see what the driver’s hands are doing. Place the camera between the rear seats and you can’t see all of the controls. Place it between the front seats and you only see what’s out the front window. There had to be a better way without breaking the bank. Now we think we’ve cracked the code.

The goal of this project was to create an off-the-shelf solution for under $500 that would provide lap timing, in-car video, and telemetry ($300 if you already have an iPhone).

The iPhone 4 gives you a video camera, GPS, accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope. Optrix makes a rugged mil-spec case with a 175 degree wide-angle lens that works with either an iPhone 4 or current generation iPod. It costs about $100. Put your iPhone in the case and attach it to your car using the CruiseCam mount which costs about $50 or make one yourself. We already had a mount so it didn’t cost us anything. Now to get the telemetry data from the car. PLX Devices makes a cable for $150 that plugs into your OBD-II port and provides telemetry data via a local wireless network. We went with the Kiwi WIFI unit, but they also make a Bluetooth model. BMW doesn’t make everything available that you would like to have (such as A/F ratio or oil temperature), but it does provide some key measures: RPM, gear, speed, throttle position, boost pressure, and intake manifold temp. Set-up is very easy if you follow the instructions for iPhone.

Pulling it all together is a piece of iPhone software called Harry’s LapTimer available from the iTunes store. This $29 program has features often not found on professional systems costing hundreds more. You can download a predefined track map, or create your own as we did in the video below.

If you aren’t getting power to the PLX unit, check your fuses. Typically fuses F3 or F36 may be blown on the MINI and you wouldn’t know it. We look forward to getting it out on the track in September.