M-from-Germany, sorry from straying off topic, but just noticed a couple of replies I wanted to address.
For all intents and purposes the gen 90 kit with the Clio Cup adapter loom and reprogramming licence and software is £1972 incl vat. Are you genuinely insinuating that you couldn’t source A.N.Other alternative and adapter loom with say the RT Dash 2 for significantly less? Are you high?
Re-read my post, I made no comments about sourcing other products and comparable pricing. This is something you've come up with all on your own.
Fully appreciate I may be wrong, but was the OP not referring to an evo 2004 clio 2 cup? Just to be clear, you’re implying the sole justification for the comparatively astronomical retail for Ktecs Clio 2 Cup solution relates solely to the Gen90 having been developed to utilise the architecture and feedback on a clio road car? What?
Aside from some brutal profiteering – how is a reworked GEMS platform really any different from any other management considering what Steve has already achieved with the DTA unit?
Yes, the price of the Gen90 could well be largely attributed to the fact it was solely designed for the 172/182. Can you justify a "reworked GEMS platform"? By that do you mean some of the electronics may have had the same schematic, and some of the underlying software is the same? If so, yes, that's probably where the similarities lie. I'm guessing you've noticed the Gen90 is plug and play for the 172/182. Did you consider that it therefore uses the Renault OEM connector, and these sorts of connectors have high MOQs, and if not all the connectors are going to be used, the excess cost from them will have had to be amortised in? Next, the PCB and custom case. What effort and cost do you think went into designing a custom PCB, making the prototypes, proving out the design, designing the custom housing and having them machined. The DTA box uses an off the shelf connector and what looks like an off the shelf case. Both will be considerably cheaper than custom made units. Even if they aren't generic, and are custom, the DTA solution is intended as a part that can be used for different cars, therefore the quantities produced are likely to be higher, with the NREs amortised over a higher quantity resulting in less cost per part.
Next, the custom software for the 172/182. Do you think the software to make the Gen90 work on the 172/182 just fell out the sky, or was time (that needs to be paid for), spent on it, developing and testing it, and those costs need to be recouped? The same goes for the software for the cup racer. Do you think this just magically appeared, or needed working out, testing etc?
Jesus, give the man a chance. He's already made good on his efforts to integrate the cup loom and its ancillaries. Once the can-bus protocol for the dash is figured (for what its actually worth), how is this any different from what ktec have achieved albeit at a fraction of the profit margin?
Try reading the other topic relating to this. He said on 03/01/14 "
should be up and running on the rollers next week". If he can give us an update to confirm it's all working, with the dash behaving correctly, then excellent. If he does it all, then yes it's no different in terms of functionality. As for profit, what K-Tec want to mark up by will be determined by their business needs, but at the end of the day they're in business and are entitled to make whatever profit they can get away with, and the purpose of s business is to make money!
As per previous comment, the Marelli ecu offers limited functionality and isn’t even back lit - are you being deliberately obtuse? Are you genuinely implying that in the event of transitioning to itbs with alternative management that you wouldn’t replace the dash for something more functional?
What have you been reading? I specifically said "whilst technology has moved on, it still works and people use it. If someone doesn't want it, they can replace it". Please let me know how this is being obtuse? Yes, people may not want to replace the display, and I said they could. At the end of the day for circuit racing, why do you want a full colour screen? Plenty of race series have done without fancy colour screens for plenty of years, and quite a few still do (try having a look in Blancpain or USC). Do you think a fancy colour screen makes you go faster? Try having a look at the actual race cars have on when they're racing, and see how much information they actually need from a display! For example, look at this old fashioned, 7 segment 'esque display. How old fashioned! Oh no, hang on a minute, that's a 2013 F1 steering wheel!
Perhaps next time you’re booked in for a reacharound over at Ktec you could enquire as to how many of these clio cup specific Gen90 kits they’ve sold? It’d surely equate as a pretty good indicator for the willingness of the customer base to pay comparatively more for management where the sole benefit would appear to boil down to retention of the out dated marelli dash.
:quiet:
Why would I want to know how many they've sold? It clearly bothers you (a lot), so why don't you ring up and ask!
Well said.......
Regards investment of time and resources Ktech didnt do the CAN BUS work a customer of theres did and they took it so 0 investment....... Regards the MM dash it has a seperate feed for tacho so rev counter works without any CAN BUS work. I know it works as people are doing in Spain with a DTA so it just time until mine is up and running but have seperate dialfor water / oil etc as the MM dash can only display one at a time so plan to use as a rev counter.
Oh dear. So you're absolutely adamant there was no investment. Not in the time to develop the software, to test it, to release it etc? With the tacho, I thought the MM dash had only 4 pins on it (PWR, GND, CANH, CANL). Where's the tacho feed into the dash?
