Enter the Dashhawk

During the months I have owned the Camaro, I started moving from obsessing over visuals, to obsessing over performance. Now to some people, performance is really all that matters when it comes to cars. You'll hear most people start off with the question, "How much horse power do you get on this car?". Then comes the two other most common questions, "How much torque does this car output?", "How's the gas mileage on the car?"

These questions I find to be the most basic, because they are the easiest numbers to remember and compare to your own car. Is that bad? Well, not exactly, but it really does show you how much they know about cars. Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert when it comes to cars, but there is a side of me that wants to really dive into the details and depth of cars. However, for the sake of staying on the subject, let us take a step back to the three most commonly asked questions. When it comes down to horse power, and torque, the root importance is NOT the numbers stated on paper. Instead, what is important is how fast you can get from point A to point B. The two most common speed tests are 0-60 tests and 1/4 mile tests. ENTER THE DASHHAWK!

Now when you calculate your speed from point A to B, it becomes somewhat more complicated than one might think. You have to take into account of all variables that may affect performance: elevation, humidity, ambient temperature, car weight, air flow, tires, and the list goes on. The Dashhawk really makes all of this super easy. This is a little device that you plug in to your car's OBD II port. Comes with a OBDII connector, a USB cable, and an installation CD for windows. The Dashhawk requires no batteries, which is both good and bad I suppose. No batteries also means no On/Off switch, which can be kind of annoying because you can't turn it off while it's plugged in the car. From what I have read on the internet, the Dashhawk can drain your car battery overnight if you leave it plugged in. That is kind of annoying, because that means you have you unplug the device everytime you leave the car. Which I should mention, the device stays on even if your key isn't in the ignition.

As you can see, the device is pretty small. So really, there are numerous places where you can place your Dashhawk. Some people mount it on to their center console, or hook it onto an air vent. I just decided to buy a GPS/Cell phone window mount from a local electronics store.

There are too many functions to show for the Dashhawk, so I won't go into full details. However, I will say this, the night I recieved the Dashhawk, I attempted a stock Camaro 0-60 run. Well the results are embarrasing... 0-60 MPH in 6.66 seconds. Why 666? Don't know, maybe the car is hinting at something? I admit 6.66 seconds is a very bad time for the V6 Camaro, the advertised time is 6.1 seconds. No excuses for me, the night was at a cool 65 degrees. A friend of mine told me that I need to work on my launching technique. Well, wish me luck! More on the Dashhawk later...