My friend just got a device that plugs into the cigarette lighter of the car and it will read how fast your car goes from 0 to 60, and it will tell you the horsepower and everything. I tested my car (totally stock) and my results were: 0-60 in 8.2 seconds with 165 horsepower. This was on a flat street, too. Also, I had two of my friends in the car with me (which is an extra 300 lbs.). Is this about right? Any comments or opinions are appreciated, thanks!

 

If it actually works I am definitely interested, but I kind of doubt it. The 4 banger is rated at 166hp and the V6 is at 244hp. So, if you have the for banger, I'm assuming, it's right on the money. I don't understand how it can calculate all that through the cigarette lighter...

 

look at my sig (that is my car, lol). but i guess it wasn't the cigarette lighter...it was an outlet located in the middle console of my car.

 

Ah yes, I even read the 4 cyl part before i posted, dur. Maybe it was plugged into the obdII port or something.

 

i am really not sure, but it probably was the obdII port. hopefully someone else who has done this can give us more info.

 

also, would me using the 89-rated octane gas instead of the 87-rated octane gas improve my car's performance?

 

The device is an Escort G-Timer or something like it. It doesn't get info from the cigarette lighter, only power. It is basically a very sensitive 4-way accelerometer (measures acceleration front to back and left to right) combined with a timer. By measuring the acceleration as a function of time, it can perform integral math functions to figure out your instantaneous speed and distance traveled. From these "graphs" (internal, not displayed) the device can tell you 0-20,30,40,50 .... etc. times as well as braking distance and through another calculation, horsepower. I'm not exactly sure how HP is calculated since the vehicle weight is not entered, but it does seem fairly accurate. My favorite use for the GT2 is the skidpad mode. According to it, I can hold 0.9 g's with grandma's family sedan! All in all, it's a good toy & I love my toys!!!

 

No. Use what the manual recommends (87 octane). Any higher octaneis throwing your money away.

 

Those GT2 readers were praised for their accuracy when they came out. They are not 100% accurate (of course) but they are as close as a normal person without expensive equipment is going to get. For HP calculation I think it takes the cars speed and time and calculates distance traveled, then compares that to speed and can figure it out....

 

Haha! I would love to see someone put one of those in a Lotus Elise then. If the thing really doesn't takevehicle weight into consideration. I bet it would say that thing has a ridiculously higher number ofhp than the car really has. Or on the opposite of the spectrum, I bet if you plug it in tosomething heavy like a Chevy Suburban it would show a lot lower hp numbers than it should.