Get the information of the car

hi all,

is there anyway where i can recieve information about the car from the computer available in the car as in fixing a socket into the output socket of the computer of the car....

can i get information such as rpm of the engine etc.... i want more information about the engine, if i can get information about the car as well it would be better.... :D

i'm a software engineer who wants to start a research on this....

please forward me any information you have on this subject

Thanks

i'm available on yahoo and msn
[email protected]
[email protected]

email me on [email protected]

:D

It depends on what ECU the car has.

The Lotus Elise for example uses a GM derived ECU.

With the right reader (its just a hand held unit that plugs into the ECU, and contains the right software to read information stored by the ECU) you can get all sorts of interesting data:

Best 0-100kph time. (uses speed sensor)
How long the engine has been run at each 1,000rpm bracket.
Top speed.
Average speed.
Average RPM.
Average operating temp
Average throttle opening
etc
etc
etc

thanks for the reply that u have sent..... it really gave me some confidence to go ahead with this research..... anyway u have mentioned that you can speed rpm and everything rite....

my whole idea of this it to write a software to read these information or somehow get this information and do all the necesary calculations and give some extra information to the driver on when to shift gears optimally and some other stuff :D i dont know whether this can be done or this has been already done...

anyway what i'm trying to do is calculate the information and send the information wireless to a device :D

just if someone have any idea of this let me know