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The worldwide concerns and some countries stricter legislations regarding the CO2 emission of light duty vehicles are motivating new technologies adoption, such as hybrids and electric battery vehicles, and discussions about what fuel economy data comparison between different countries. International discussions were done about the need to reevaluate the existing standardized driving cycles due to large emission and fuel economy differences when compared to the real road values, leading to the creation of a new cycle called WLTC (Worldwide Harmonized Light Duty Vehicle Test Cycle). Light duty vehicle fuel economy tests are usually performed on a chassis dynamometer using standard driving cycles under controlled laboratory conditions. Each country regulation defines the standard cycles used for the fuel economy tests.

The development of new fuels involves several areas of an oil company and several tests, including vehicle emissions tests on chassis dynamometers and engine performance tests on engine bench laboratory. Particularly for diesel and blends of gasoline fuels, an important test is to evaluate the engine speed profile during the vehicle cold start. In this work, for engine speed profile analysis, it was developed a system to acquire data using the engine's flywheel ring gear information and the audio input of a standard notebook computer. It was also developed a specific software to analyze the acquired signals. The system is able to point out several important features of the engine start such as the starter motor beginning of operation, the maximum engine speed during the start time, the settling time and the engine idling speed. All of this information can be collected using a low cost set of instrumentation devices.

In order to simulate the real behavior of vehicles during laboratory tests, such as fuel consumption [1] and pollutant emissions [2], coast down coefficients must be set on the chassis dynamometer control system. These coefficients are used to determine load curves, which represent the resistance imposed on the vehicle movement by the wheels rolling and the air, being obtained from track tests performed according to Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 10312 [3]. However, coast down tests depend on the availability of long and flat tracks. This may entail costs for deployment or leasing of facilities with these characteristics, which may include even long commutes of human and material resources, depending on its location. This paper proposes an alternative methodology for coast down coefficients determination, from experiments on chassis dynamometer and vehicles aerodynamic specifications. It was applied to some Petrobras Research Center (Cenpes) test vehicles.