Wireless sensor system for monitoring car health and performance

dustiner

Hey guys,

Having an old Ford Fairlane '67 as my daily driver for the past two years has given me a lot of trouble that I would not experience in a modern car (love too for that matter )

In order to minimize these these not-so-fun breakdowns I want to make a smart wireless sensor system for older cars. The goal is to enable older vehicles to be able to provide the same amount of data as a modern car such as a Tesla.

It will have features such as:
- Theft aid (tracking in a similar sense as ‘Find my iphone’)
- Oil-condition sensors (tracks PPM in engine, transmission, differential)
- An array of temperature/pressure sensors in coolant, transmission, engine-oil,
- Average fuel consumption
- Battery health status
- Air-to-fuel ratio
- Tire Pressure

The system will be made up of a Central Gateway Unit connected to the vehicles power grid.
The rest of the system will be entirely wireless. (powered by thermoelectric and/or motion harvesting)
The information will be provided to a smart phone/tablet/computer or an on-board screen.

All of this information can be remotely accessed when your not near your vehicle.

What kind of additional features would you like to see in a system like this?

Any questions or comments are valuable!

Cheers!

mancarlover

It sounds good, you can verify your car health on different online sites.

EfrainCooke

Sounds great, but where can it be bought? Or is this just a project?

thecardoc3

More likely just a pipe dream. There are things that could be done to a car of that vintage to improve reliability such as an electronic ignition conversion, the car lacks any other components that would be easily automated. Off the shelf conversions such as a Holley EFI "carburetor" would be a significant improvement but there is little that could be done to integrate those with any other upgrade. So, the best one could hope for without a full current system transplant from another vehicle is a couple individual tweaks so that you don't create a true "Franken car".