Evo Black Box?
 

Alright,
I was reading through my local paper this morning and I came across a question that got me to thinking.

In this story, a court had found a local teen delinquent on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a passenger in an accident. The teen was driving a winding road and he, and all the other passengers interviewed in the case said they weren't aware he was going over the 45 mph speed limit. The teen got off the road, caught in a ditch, and rolled the SUV multiple times resulting in injuries to all the other passengers but the death of an unbuckled passenger. The court found him guilty based off the findings that the car's Black Box said he was doing 65 in the moment before the crash.

This reminded me of a story I had read a while back about another person that was in an accident that the Black Box in his car stated that he was going such and such over the speed limit at the time of the accident, but also showed that he had at some point reached a peak speed of some number. This article continued to state that almost all General Motors vehicles have the Black Boxes.

So, needless to say, in a forum based on the idea of improving an already fast car, has anyone done any research into the existence of such a system within the Evo 8? Cause, I'd certainly hate to get into some accident, at any speed, where the cops can find out that I hit 130 racing a turbo Eclipse down a long, straight road at 2am!

Thoughts? Info? Please? :confused:

Damn, no idea on our cars.

From what I know, "Black box" snapshot (a snapshot when there's a catastrophic event, high-g stop airbag deployment and several other conditions) are features of OBD-III, I am unaware of OBD-II having this, however OBD-II does do a parameter snapshot when a CEL (MIL) light is thrown and could indicate activity that would show high rate of speed (High injector duty cycle, throttle position, O2 voltage, engine speed, etc..) if there is a CEL Thrown just before an accident.

I think it's great that OBD and EDR are becoming more widespread. maybe people will start realizing driving is a priveledge and responsibility and spend time on the track enjoying sports car activities safely.. I hope the Evo VIII has EDR in it's airbag ECU.

if i ever get a car with that crap in it i'd definatly get it out asap.

Dude all they did was check the ECU for the speed rev limit etc..

I'm told that our ECU's capture the conditions surrounding CEL's....and thats it.

Corvettes have rolling event recorders on board. The owners were all in a roar about it last year, if I remember correctly.

SC~

:dunno: GM cars have this system.

A peak speed recorder is ridiculous. How can they determine whether I was going 140 on the highway or at Thunderhill two hours before?

I have serious problems with this concept at all (having your property testify against you in a court of law!) but if it's keeping a log of non-accident activity then it can easily shown to be invalid.

Another concept to consider, in cars that have a rolling data logger and that store peak usage data is the manufacturer themselves. I mean, would it be outside the realm of possibility that you roll your car into the service center for scheduled maintenance or a problem resolution and they turn you away because they checked your computer ans saw taht you got to a certain speed, regardless of whether or not you were on street or track? Could the retailer say that you've been abusing the vehicle and deny to cover repairs that would normally be covered under warranty?

ez76, I agree it sucks. But we don't have to worry about it in our Evos. btw, the recorders track only a few secs before the airbags get deployed....

Heres some info on EDR's.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/edr-sit...20Corvette.pdf

This link shows you exactly which cars have EDR's, and what each EDR actually records. Scroll to the last page.

http://www.harristechnical.com/downloads/cdrlist.pdf

Sorry to disappoint you Mister2ZX3....The Evo is not on the list. :P

SC~

I'm a little pessimistic regarding that list, since it only lists GM cars. It could be that other companies use different sstems for the same function or that this list only covers GM products? Just my curiosity playing out some more.

That's just a list for that particular tool.. Ask some tuners who are more familiar with the all of the computer systems for a vehicle... THey have a *lot* of information going through them and being tagged, sorted and stored... Ever wonder why a different ABS pump might prevent a car from starting... The computer systems on cars have a wealth of interesting bits if you know how to decipher them...

These things only record the last 7 seconds before destruction, so they don't get "WAS I AT THUNDERHILL DOING 140 TWO HOURS AGO?"

They pull them after a catastrophic accident.

zlancer, you'd never be able to "get it out asap" because it's built into the OBD-III system. You'd kill your car.

Tinfoil hats off, yet?