gums

What is known about these Opti-Grip gadgets for monitoring tires? One sends a signal to a dash display that tells you each tire's temp, and another tells you each tire's pressure. The pressure ones seem to read off of a valve cap that is a transmitter. and is only $200. I saw this in Grassroots, page 181.

www.opti-grip.com

A930Rocket

Would the tire temp system read one spot on the tire? Or across the width of the tire? Seems to get accurate readings, you would need 3 readers for each tire to get an accurate reading from each shoulder and the center.

Gary R.

Yes, it's one spot. In reality better than nothing but not much better as you need to know what the whole tire is doing. I may at some point install the pressure sensors though, if for nothing else to know I have air in all my tires..

95m3racer

They need to have the data export at a high data rate via canbus or rs232 so you can datalog it...

Or, they can just create a universal junction box that sends these signals to a data logger (aim, motec, etc).

Knowing you have a tire going down is nice, but you'd need to have an alarm on it, as its going to be difficult to constantly monitor that while on track...just another distraction.

The temp is only useful for comparing corner to corner, its not going to tell you much more than that since its telling you the temperature of the inside wall of the tire, or more likely the air near the sensor...can't tell much about the tire from that. But you can tell if one corner is getting hotter than another, or if front is hotter than rear, etc.

I'd rather just run IR temp sensors to AIM, and be able to correlate it with other data to actually help determine setup changes.

wanna911

I like the pressue sensors.

MCain

I'd love a 3 sensor version that I could move from tire to tire. Seeing real-time temp changes across the tire could be handy.

gums

I'm also thinking that the pressure monitor is the more useful one, even as a safety device. Wondering if it actually works though.
My spec car doesn't really have much adjustability, at least trackside, so tire pressure is the main thing I watch. This thing would make it easy, if it's accurate.

jrgordonsenior

For only $200. I think the presure monitoring system sounds interesting if it's accurate. Nothing affects consistant performance more than consistent pressures....

Accelerator

I bought and returned sometning similar. It required removing the device to read pressure from my gauge and to add or bleed off any air. Seemed like too much trouble to me.

DCP

This, like some other pressure alerting systems, appears to hold the schrader valve open. That means you are relying on the seal in the system and threads on the valve stem that were designed to do nothing more than hold a dust cap on to hold air in your tires. Does not sound like a good solution to me, but I would be the first to admit, I have no technical background.

kgorman

They do have a IR config that works for DA gear, and they are working on a version for pressure monitoring that works with DA gear. We are getting the 'Opti-grip Analog Tire Temperature System' in our hands ASAP to start testing it.

I posted about Opti-Grip over on the Boxster Spec Forum:

http://www.boxsterspec.com/index.php?showtopic=2182

wlittleman

I foresee a combination of the two devices as a more useful tool; perhaps even enhanced to include a 3 pt sensor for each tire so you can correlate the temperatures across the tread width with tire pressure. It is probably too much info for in-car display, but as a data logging feature, it would be very useful.

It would be a device I'd be willing to rent to help me set up proper alignment and air pressures. After setting my alignment properly, all I'd need is the pressure monitor to get an idea how optimal my tires are performing.

kgorman

Opti-Grip will be offering 3 units for $799 which can be combined to have 3 sensors per tire.