[gremlin]

I picked up a Garmin Catalyst during the 100$ rebate earlier this year and got a chance to use it this past week. I agree with the general consensus of if you're in the upper echelon and already use data a lot then it might not be worthwhile. I'm a pretty heavy data user, I generally use Harry's and the load all the data into track attack to better analyse it but I still found it super useful because it was very easy to look at things immediately. Also as an instructor it was nice to pull the unit and show a video clip of a line to a student right then and there.

However, I have the stock mounting suction cup as low as I can get it on the dash and it blocks my view through tight right hand corners, and it's even worse for my wife who's shorter than I am. I'm trying to work out some nice way to mount it lower in the car. I've seen the T-Design Tablet mount and wonder if that would be stout enough for the unit on track, and if it's removable easily for when I drive on the street. I sent them a question but never heard back. The other option that looks interesting might be to use their cupholder since it's screwed in place and then just fab a RAM mount ball to it instead of the cupholder and use that.

Anyone else have thoughts on doing this?

 

[grygst]

I mount mine up high (using the suction cup that came with it) on the windshield just to the right of the rearview mirror. I had my AIM Solo II in that same location, and it worked well. I'm not tall, so I had no issue seeing under it, and yet it is close enough to line of sight to easily check my lap times on the straights. Note that the RAM mount arms will work with the Catalyst ball on the back of the device and offer a cleaner, more ergonomic install (one arm as opposed to the triple-jointed nonsense that Garmin provides). I used a RAM mounts X-Grip arm.

 

[gremlin]

Interesting I thought it might bounce around there and be too distracting, I did mount my camera with this unit from Amazon so I didn't have to stick something to the windscreen: Amazon.com: Garmin Mini Suction Cup Mount for Speak, Plus, Dash Cam 45, 55 and 65W, 010-12530-05 and it worked great.

This time I heard back from T-Design and they say their tablet mount should work great, and it would put the Catalyst over the PCM which I don't use on the track anyway. In addition they say it's easy to remove and install, so I've ordered one of those, not sure what the lead time is as they say they're small batches but I'll report back when I have it

 

[T-Design]

Yep. Over PCM mount shipped, and we are eager to see this installation!

Porsche Accessories and Mods - Tablet Mount Bracket

Accessories and Mods for your Porsche 991, 911, Cayman, Boxster, Cayenne. Tablet mount. Use your tablet instead of PCM. Can also be used to mount other devices, like lap timer.

t-design9.com

 

[feeshta]

Don't know what the best mount option for a 981 would be, but I use a hard mounted phone mount from Panavise with a Scosche Magicmount XL for my phone in my 987 and I suspect this sort of option might actually work quite well for this purpose, in addition to offering you a nice easy to use phone mount for navigation and daily driving purposes. The Magicmount XL is a magnetic mount intended for heavier items like tablets with something like 5 neo magnets, so it's quite strong. You just have to adhere a very thin metal plate, several are included with the mount, to the back of your phone and the Garmin unit, or in the case of your phone it would probably slide inside your phone case just fine.

The trick would be finding a base mount that suits, as unfortunately Panavice doesn't seem to offer a solution for the 981. Someone probably does though, and all you would need for the Magicmount is a flat surface to mount it to.

Best of luck!

 

[gremlin]

Don't know what the best mount option for a 981 would be, but I use a hard mounted phone mount from Panavise with a Scosche Magicmount XL for my phone in my 987 and I suspect this sort of option might actually work quite well for this purpose, in addition to offering you a nice easy to use phone mount for navigation and daily driving purposes. The Magicmount XL is a magnetic mount intended for heavier items like tablets with something like 5 neo magnets, so it's quite strong. You just have to adhere a very thin metal plate, several are included with the mount, to the back of your phone and the Garmin unit, or in the case of your phone it would probably slide inside your phone case just fine.

The trick would be finding a base mount that suits, as unfortunately Panavice doesn't seem to offer a solution for the 981. Someone probably does though, and all you would need for the Magicmount is a flat surface to mount it to.

Best of luck!

Panavise was exactly what I was looking for! I had one in my 986 and couldn't recall the company, unfortunately they don't have a 981 version. I'll post the results on the T-Design mount

 

[gremlin]

Update, I received my mount from T-Design, thank you Vlad.

I think this will work perfectly. I had to just slightly oversize the mounting holes to accommodate the screws that were already in the Garmin, one just wouldn't quite go in without cross threading, took about 20 seconds with the next size up drill bit.

I did have to swap the included power cable to another Mini USB cable which was straight because the 90 degree bend in it hit the mount, here's some pictures

 

[gremlin]

Last post on this topic. I got out for a track day and the T-Design mount is perfect, works great, and easy to see the display for split times etc, and out of the way of siting apexes through the windscreen.

Quick review of the catalyst. I'm a long time user of Data Acquisition systems for vehicles. When I was competitively racing karts we had stack 8200 dash boards and would download my data between sessions pouring over laptops to figure out how to go faster. Several of my friends had systems and we could freely share data. I worked with the AIM Sport Systems stuff at the time (MyChron) but man their apps were bad at analysis. Fast forward many years and I've been running a combo of Harry's Laptimer and Track Attack on a PC to view the data, and it's worked really well for me. Now I'm not going to throw out how awesome I am, I'd say I'm decent, and I'm a local instructor running in the advance group. I've not yet gotten back to my Karting days levels of nailing consistent lap after lap within a 10th or two (and some of that is because kart tracks are like 45 seconds, and most our tracks in PNW are more like 2 minutes).

That said, I'm really enjoying the Catalyst so far. The process of getting laps from harry's to Track Attack to view differences is a bit onerous (pack of the data, e-mail it to myself, hook the laptop to my phone, get the mail, load it into track attack process...) so I tend not to do it at the track. The catalyst can give me some immediately observable feedback on some things I can try, and since I'm not consistent it's valuable. If you're nailing consistent times it's not going to tell you jack btw, so don't bother if you're already at the top of your game it's not for you.

The other place I'm finding it uber useful is for teaching and debriefs. I have this 7" Screen that I can easily show video of track sections to students on in seconds, no trying to get the gopro attached to my phone and suck the data down if I want to show them what I mean about driving through a corner, just snag the unit and show them. They love looking at it too. I had a student who just swore up and down they were driving the line like I described it so I went out and followed them and showed them the screen, and they were like, okay I'm not doing what I thought I was doing!

Is it work $1000? Probably not if you already have a system that's doing more than just giving you lap times and you know how to use and read the data already and have a flow that works for you. If you just use a lap timer and don't know where those variations in your time could be because you don't have a good way of looking at the data, then it might just be for you.

That's my opinion and it's worth what y'all paid for it

 

[paffinity]

Update, I received my mount from T-Design, thank you Vlad.

I think this will work perfectly. I had to just slightly oversize the mounting holes to accommodate the screws that were already in the Garmin, one just wouldn't quite go in without cross threading, took about 20 seconds with the next size up drill bit.

I did have to swap the included power cable to another Mini USB cable which was straight because the 90 degree bend in it hit the mount, here's some pictures

View attachment 274511

View attachment 274512

Sorry to resurrect this, but I tried using the same mount but it basically fell out when driving on rough track / curbs. Have you had any issues with this and have you tried to do anything about it?
I ended up just stashing it away in the glove compartment after starting, but have moved on to just using the suction cup mount again.

 

[gremlin]

@paffinity I'm not even sure how that could happen, do you mean the garmin fell of the magnet? The mount itself coming out I can't imagine it's tucked in there by like 1.5" or so of metal, it takes a bit of effort to slide it in, and pull it out, and I've never felt it come anywhere close to loose. When you insert it are you pushing it all the way in? it won't contact the screen behind it but it's close enough that I checked and wrapped the wiring.

 

[paffinity]

@gremlin the mount itself came out. This happened a few times before giving up (back in October 2021), but this was at COTA driving over curbs mainly and some sections can be quite rough in general. I'm pretty sure it was pushed in as far as it would go, but perhaps this car is somewhat out of the ordinary (981 GT4 with radio delete). I did just get into a 718 GT4 and will try to see if it fits any tighter.

 

[gremlin]

Oh yeah I wonder if the radio delete means there's less friction on the panel? In that case could you remove the sides and just screw the mount in place of the radio delete? or is the radio delete a blocking plate? Maybe just attached the garmin mount to that. In my case I use the radio when I drive on the street and wanted to keep it. I also don't ride the curbs at our track that much but I've never felt it was in any danger of coming out at all!

 

[paffinity]

I just tried mounting it in the 718, which does have the radio/PCM. It does seem to fit tighter and there seems to be some glue in between, unfortunately test fitting it seemed to have caused it to come out a little bit. When I tried to push in where about where you have yours it seems to get caught on something. I'll try again some other time.

 

[gremlin]

Mines in a 981S, but I'd be curious because I'm working on getting a GT4RS so if you find out anything that's different there I'd be curious

 

[paffinity]

@gremlin Sure, I'll keep you updated. I also got the rennline phone mount that I was going to try and adapt to work with the Ram mounts with varying sizes. Nice thing about that is I can use the phone mount for normal driving and then switch to the catalyst mount on track.

 

[gremlin]

I used to have a pana-vise or something like that mount in my 986 that was screwed into the panel behind the radio and held a Sirius Satellite box, and I looked for something like that initially but found nothing that worked on the 981 series that was close. This solution works great on the 981 but if won't work in the 718 I'll definitely want something else. My wife nixed the windshield mount because at her height she can't see through it to the apex curbs on several corners of the track, so if I want to keep using the garmin it needs to be out of the line of site on the windshield.

 

[ledbette]

I used to have a pana-vise or something like that mount in my 986 that was screwed into the panel behind the radio and held a Sirius Satellite box, and I looked for something like that initially but found nothing that worked on the 981 series that was close. This solution works great on the 981 but if won't work in the 718 I'll definitely want something else. My wife nixed the windshield mount because at her height she can't see through it to the apex curbs on several corners of the track, so if I want to keep using the garmin it needs to be out of the line of site on the windshield.

Try top left corner of the windshield rather than bottom or near the mirror. I've found that to be a good location. Getting power to it is a little more difficult there, but the placement is good as to not interfere with vision on the track.

 

[gremlin]

I could give that a shot, but the amount it sticks out would concern me a bit I'd think, plus the possibility of if it came loose it would fall out of the car onto the track. I also think I'd find it fairly irritating there. Really in front of the radio display is perfect I can glance down to see the delta which is all I really need while I'm on track, and it's not blocking anything at all that might be needed.

 

[paffinity]

I went ahead and installed the rennline phone mount with some mods. It's a little close to the shifter but should be okay. And the rennline mount is a little flimsy but hope it'll do okay on a rough track.
Here's a list of the parts needed:

• Rennline Magnetic phone mount
• Ram mount 1" ball
• Random M6 socket head screw
  • I had one lying around from my simracing rig

 

[ledbette]

I could give that a shot, but the amount it sticks out would concern me a bit I'd think, plus the possibility of if it came loose it would fall out of the car onto the track.

I use a tether to make sure whatever I have mounted in the cockpit doesn't go flying away, regardless of where it's mounted. The Schnellfest HPDE group that runs at COTA required it, so I started the habit then.

I use the adhesive Go Pro camera tethers. You can stick them on just about anything and remove them a hair dryer without causing any damage.