rusefi.com

Because it was just $5 and because they are rationed out, I decided to order a Pi Zero. Now it arrived and I have no real project for it.
Does anybody have an idea how I can use it to help make a car go faster? Or better?

Boost control ...

I like the way you think, but that should easily be handled by rusefi

A multimedia system with some loud musik?
I guess r-pi could become a great tool for collecting some realtime data? On the other hand, rusefi also has some SD support to monitor all those signals.
There was a guy here who suggested moving the algos to FPGA(?!) to avoid any performance bottlenecks the stm board might present. Although it sounded insane at first, probably it was not that crazy at all.

I can't think of much use of a zero for automotive. I recall they have no analog, very limited temperature range, and non-standard interface boards. They are basically low cost low performance PC's which are good for educating 3rd world countries. Perhaps it could be made into an entertainment systems or an ejector seat.

MultiGauges

FluidPressure
wideband oxygen sensor
air intake temperature
Vac/Boost accurately
exhaust gas temperature .....................................................

I like the multigauge idea. One of my main problems with digital readout gauges is that they require too much thinking. I actually have to read numbers. Analog gauges with indicators are easier to understand at a glance. Even easier are high-intensity color-coded LEDs. So I always wanted to do a hybrid display with a few analog-style stepper-motor gauges (something like this: http://store.hackaday.com/products/analog-gauge-stepper) for general info like speed and boost and a few 2812-controlled LEDs for status information- oil-pressure water-temp, oil-temp and shift-light.
I'd also like to have a digital readout for speed- seems useful on the track for hitting that entry-speed just right.

If rusefi had CAN-out for all parameters yet, reading all of them with a RASPI and running a display off it would be perfect!

For multi-guages my dream is noted here http://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=775 In that I propose the use of low cost RC servo motors. They are a bit slow compared to steppers, but they also have feedback so missed steps or needle movement from shock and vibrations is not a problem. The STM32F429 board includes a touch LCD for about $30usd. As well I have a start on the software, which allows you to display some buttons and display some information on the LCD while using uGFX graphics library and Chibios as the OS.

I am for lcd touch gauges too. Receive data from can (rusefi broadcasts) Does rpi Zero have CAN ?

rpi doesn't have native can bus abilities, but there are plenty of boards that will provide the functionality:
Example: https://hackaday.io/project/346-canpi

STM32F429 has CAN on board. However on the discovery board, the CAN lines are shared with other features, so this might present a problem with using it on this particular board.

How about a logging system for acceleration, deceleration, G-force and GPS tracking?

tigeryan wrote:How about a logging system for acceleration, deceleration, G-force and GPS tracking?

I like it. Track focused. It doesn't make the car faster, but it might make me faster by letting me know where I screw up. Or, in my case, letting me know the few points on a track where I don't screw up.
Does anybody here have any idea how to feed a GPS into a raspi?

stefanst wrote:

tigeryan wrote:How about a logging system for acceleration, deceleration, G-force and GPS tracking?

I like it. Track focused. It doesn't make the car faster, but it might make me faster by letting me know where I screw up. Or, in my case, letting me know the few points on a track where I don't screw up.
Does anybody here have any idea how to feed a GPS into a raspi?

There are some GPS modules on adafruit.com, and one built for raspi: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2324

I've seen are some examples on youtube of Tunerstudio running on raspi used for dashboard displays. I built up a display similar to this one, but have not tried it in the car yet:

The PI I have is a B+ model and TS is kind of slow on it. I just bought a PI 3 for another purpose, and I'll see how much faster it is for TS.

I could see a PI as useful for developers who want to develop rusEFI instead of figuring out how to install the development system. However windows vs Linux might be an issue. Perhaps the PI could be setup as a low cost development environment were you simply get PI download and install image on SD card then go develop code.

Some years ago, I once saw a project were someone was building a computer simulation to determine the best line on a track. They collected telemetry data from a real race car driver. This particular track they had very detailed 3D space information. The software would look at the 3D data and after several reiterative processes, it was able to find a line that almost matched a real race car drivers line. Perhaps that kind of software could be used on a device like this to help you find the best line.