Dozenspeed
Top Post Dawg
- Joined
- May 1, 2012
Jetta MK6 and the Torque App for Android via ELM327 OBDII Adapter
You may or may not have heard of this thing but I have now tried it out for myself and have to tell you it is more fun than a bucket of puppies for the $35 I spent. (not including phone of course)
You can get some more enlightenment about it in this thread from the OBDII/Scanner forum, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread for exploring this tool/toy as it relates specifically to the MK6 Jetta. This post is part experience review as well as discussion.
Allow me to start at the beginning:
There has been some praise and much complaint about the MFD and the information it provides. We all know the ECU is managing loads of data it withholds from us stat junkies, like engine coolant tempertature! Well this is a pretty nifty fix for the money!
Essentially what you buy is something called the ELM327 OBDII Adapter that plugs in under the driver side dash by the fuse panel. ELM327 is not a brand name and is made and sold by several sources. The word is the BAFX spec is the one to get because it is the one that is truly universal across all or at least most makes and models. I won't post a link, but I got mine on Amazon from the top seller with the best reviews, even though they were not the cheapest at $24.
Then you download the Torque Pro App for $5. Enable the bluetooth connection and the rest pretty much sorts itself out. (Depending on order or number of times you start the car or app, it may require closing and restarting the app.) I had to tweak the engine displacement for some reason as well as units of measurement suited to yankee tastes in the settings menu. It allows you to set tailored profiles for multiple cars, too.
The upshot of all this is you get loads of the car's sensor measurements presented on a super-customizeable virtual gauge cluster. I realize this isn't the most scientific of instruments but it's quite enlightening as to the unlying behaviors of the car. It may even be elementally useful for pending issue warnings.
Now the good stuff: Screenshots!
After several hours I'm more or less currently settled on this arrangement. It looks a bit cluttered but it works for me. This is just one of 9 screens you can customize with "gauges"
How do you like the MK6 Jetta theme?
It's called "pure white"
A couple points first: I don't know yet how to get a screeen shot without the screenshot button in there....and this first one has the status bar in it....but as you can see here I have:
A RPM gauge ranged to 5000 with bar graph
A big fat turbo boost gauge in the middle, ranged to 25psi
4 temp gauges down the right side (in Farenheit); engine coolant, outside air, EGT1 (exhaust gas temp pre DPF I think) and Cat B1S1 (post DPF maybe?) Nice to monitor these as verification of regen cycles. I have both set right now to flash if they exceed 1000 degrees Farenheit. EGT1 rises and falls more rapidly, from 300s after a few minutes of idling at near-freezing temps to spikes of 1400 when pushing through a regen. CAT B1S1 is less dramatic, but can exceed 1000 degrees. With this I can readily practice ensuring temps are below the 400 degree mark before shutting down for complete cool-off.
A tiny speedometer (OBD, not GPS option), a tiny voltage readout, and a tiny MAF with bar graph capped at 1000 CFM (don't mind the acceleration box next to the speedo, it is experimental)
THEN two fuel gauges: the left is ranged 0.0-2.0 gallons per hour for fine sensitivity at light throttle, (having a mythical optimum of 1.0 GPH at the top middle of the gauge) and the right one is for full range (set to 15 anyway) but also not set to kick in until 1.0, so it seems to not kick in until the other one pegs. Just an idea of how rediculously tweakable this app is. I fit all this on one screen! One caveat, the "small" gauge seen here only shows tenths, but a medium one would show hundredths. I do have a complaint however: The gauge won't read between 0.26 GPH to 0.01 GPH. It's like the blank-out on the MFD when coasting down speed in gear. What's worse is that it stops registering also when coasting in neutral (6MT) above ~40mph- drop to 35 or lower and the 0.3 GPH comes back....
Coasting in neutral shot to demonstrate:
Now here is a series of cruise control shots. I think it's neat to see when the cars manages boost, AI and fuel to maintain speed.
Relatively level ground, about 52 mpg: Under 2GPH, no boost:
Now going uphill a bit, about 35 mpg, 50% more fuel to maintain speed, little bit of boost:
Now going downhill a bit, about 72 mpg, almost 1GPH and off the boost again:
Now coasting down the exit ramp in neutral, about 275mpg at 0.26GPH:
Of course it's also fun to punch it and watch the gauges spaz out:
This is just part of what this app "does" as some features are GPS or phone orientation based and not therefore wholly credible but still, what a toy! Check this bit out!
Probably a thing I shouldn't have. Don't make fun of my score either, I wasn't the one who decided the interstate needed a speed limit.
You may or may not have heard of this thing but I have now tried it out for myself and have to tell you it is more fun than a bucket of puppies for the $35 I spent. (not including phone of course)
You can get some more enlightenment about it in this thread from the OBDII/Scanner forum, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread for exploring this tool/toy as it relates specifically to the MK6 Jetta. This post is part experience review as well as discussion.
Allow me to start at the beginning:
There has been some praise and much complaint about the MFD and the information it provides. We all know the ECU is managing loads of data it withholds from us stat junkies, like engine coolant tempertature! Well this is a pretty nifty fix for the money!
Essentially what you buy is something called the ELM327 OBDII Adapter that plugs in under the driver side dash by the fuse panel. ELM327 is not a brand name and is made and sold by several sources. The word is the BAFX spec is the one to get because it is the one that is truly universal across all or at least most makes and models. I won't post a link, but I got mine on Amazon from the top seller with the best reviews, even though they were not the cheapest at $24.
Then you download the Torque Pro App for $5. Enable the bluetooth connection and the rest pretty much sorts itself out. (Depending on order or number of times you start the car or app, it may require closing and restarting the app.) I had to tweak the engine displacement for some reason as well as units of measurement suited to yankee tastes in the settings menu. It allows you to set tailored profiles for multiple cars, too.
The upshot of all this is you get loads of the car's sensor measurements presented on a super-customizeable virtual gauge cluster. I realize this isn't the most scientific of instruments but it's quite enlightening as to the unlying behaviors of the car. It may even be elementally useful for pending issue warnings.
Now the good stuff: Screenshots!
After several hours I'm more or less currently settled on this arrangement. It looks a bit cluttered but it works for me. This is just one of 9 screens you can customize with "gauges"
How do you like the MK6 Jetta theme?
It's called "pure white"A couple points first: I don't know yet how to get a screeen shot without the screenshot button in there....and this first one has the status bar in it....but as you can see here I have:
A RPM gauge ranged to 5000 with bar graph
A big fat turbo boost gauge in the middle, ranged to 25psi
4 temp gauges down the right side (in Farenheit); engine coolant, outside air, EGT1 (exhaust gas temp pre DPF I think) and Cat B1S1 (post DPF maybe?) Nice to monitor these as verification of regen cycles. I have both set right now to flash if they exceed 1000 degrees Farenheit. EGT1 rises and falls more rapidly, from 300s after a few minutes of idling at near-freezing temps to spikes of 1400 when pushing through a regen. CAT B1S1 is less dramatic, but can exceed 1000 degrees. With this I can readily practice ensuring temps are below the 400 degree mark before shutting down for complete cool-off.
A tiny speedometer (OBD, not GPS option), a tiny voltage readout, and a tiny MAF with bar graph capped at 1000 CFM (don't mind the acceleration box next to the speedo, it is experimental)
THEN two fuel gauges: the left is ranged 0.0-2.0 gallons per hour for fine sensitivity at light throttle, (having a mythical optimum of 1.0 GPH at the top middle of the gauge) and the right one is for full range (set to 15 anyway) but also not set to kick in until 1.0, so it seems to not kick in until the other one pegs. Just an idea of how rediculously tweakable this app is. I fit all this on one screen! One caveat, the "small" gauge seen here only shows tenths, but a medium one would show hundredths. I do have a complaint however: The gauge won't read between 0.26 GPH to 0.01 GPH. It's like the blank-out on the MFD when coasting down speed in gear. What's worse is that it stops registering also when coasting in neutral (6MT) above ~40mph- drop to 35 or lower and the 0.3 GPH comes back....
Coasting in neutral shot to demonstrate:
Now here is a series of cruise control shots. I think it's neat to see when the cars manages boost, AI and fuel to maintain speed.
Relatively level ground, about 52 mpg: Under 2GPH, no boost:
Now going uphill a bit, about 35 mpg, 50% more fuel to maintain speed, little bit of boost:
Now going downhill a bit, about 72 mpg, almost 1GPH and off the boost again:
Now coasting down the exit ramp in neutral, about 275mpg at 0.26GPH:
Of course it's also fun to punch it and watch the gauges spaz out:
This is just part of what this app "does" as some features are GPS or phone orientation based and not therefore wholly credible but still, what a toy! Check this bit out!
Probably a thing I shouldn't have. Don't make fun of my score either, I wasn't the one who decided the interstate needed a speed limit.
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