I took the plunge and bought one of those cheap OBD to Bluetooth adapters recently (I bought this one
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009F4JHHO/) and also bought the $5 Torque app from Google Play. I loaded it onto my old HTC Droid Incredible and for $20 I'm learning interesting things about my car!
This is a screenshot after my morning commute. I drove the car harder than usual just to see how high I could get the gauges to read. The interstate highway part of the trip was about 50 miles, got it up above 75 mph for a stretch and was able to see passive regen temperatures start to appear. It's true that you really need to be above 2,000 rpm for the temps in the DPF to climb. If you normally cruise around doing 60 mph in top gear, you will probably have more active regens.
My Torque screen, starting with the top-left and moving clockwise:
Cat B1S1 - I believe this measures the temp before the DPF. During a regen this goes up above 1000°F. I have this gauge configured to blink when going above that temp so I can be aware of an active regen.
Cat B1S2 - I believe this measures the temp after the DPF. During a regen this goes up above 800°F. I also have this gauge blink above that temperature to signify an active regen.
EGT1 - I believe this measures the temp before the turbo. This will go above 1000°F during the start of a regen and/or during aggressive acceleration. Once again I have this gauge blink above that temp. Not only will it alert me to the start of an active regen, but I think it can help you drive more economically if you so desire.
Fuel flow - This is a useful gauge for driving economically. At idle it's 0.2 gal/hour. With the AC running it's 0.3. During a regen it's 0.4. In gear, foot off the accelerator, it reads 0.0. So far the highest reading I've seen is 9 gal/hr, this was during max acceleration.
Coolant - As most of you know, the temp gauge on the car dashboard is "dumbed down" and "190" actually includes a wide range of "normal". It's interesting to see the real value.
Boost - After getting off the interstate, I did a full blast 0-60 run, shifting at about 4,000 rpm, and this was the first time I saw the boost climb up to approx 20-21 psi. Most of the time I've only been able to get it to max out at about 16 psi, I was wondering if the reading was totally inaccurate. My understanding is that this value is calculated and not directly measured, so an actual boost gauge would be more accurate.
Any other interesting things you guys are monitoring with Torque or a ScanGauge? Any thoughts on my observations/hypotheses above?
Best,
Jason
