cj9694

Ken Hill

No, Like other programmable ECUs, the Link Obiwan does not return any OBDII codes or diagnostic information.

jstck

The Link ECUs do have a CAN bus though, which is one of the things commonly found in an OBD2 port and what many data loggers use to read sensor data from the ECU. So it might work for that, depending on what the Link is sending there.

Edit: WTF is an "Obiwan" in this case?

AlwaysBroken

No, it would be illegal for FM to have sold it if it could spoof obd2 codes. Despite the fact that 99 percent of them are street driven, it's technically a race only ECU. If you want an obd2 simulator you're going to have to roll your own.

The Link for the 96-97 cars was not just a rewire of the earlier boards. It has slightly different software and some very minor improvements to injection behavior and autotuning. I remember the earliest boards had bugs. FM referred to it as the obiwan for some reason. This was right around the time of the Star Wars prequels tho, so there is that.

cj9694

Wasn't looking to spoof codes, this is going into a race only car. Was just wondering if after replacing the ecu with the obiwan ecu if there was data pushed out to the OBD2 port so I could run a race capture and collect data the easy way.

AlwaysBroken

You gotta log using the ribbon cable and the serial interface, which is a huge pain in the ***.

cj9694

Hmmm maybe I can still get it out to the race capture via a usb cable

jstck

Race Capture loggers, as most aftermarket dashboard and logger things, read data off of the CAN bus. And the Link ECUs (at least current models, assuming "obiwan" isn't too ancient or weird) can send sensor data over the CAN bus. Wether using the OBD2 connector or not to physically connect them, I don't see any obvious reason why that setup wouldn't work for data logging.
Of course it won't do trouble codes, but the logger wouldn't care about those anyway. It wouldn't be "real OBD2", it would just be a somewhat roundabout way of physically connecting up the CAN bus.

AlwaysBroken

Are you taking about the current products made by the (I think Australian) company that originally made the Link ECU? The FM Link isn't connected with any recent versions of the Australian Link.

I think FMs Link and software are forked from the mid early 90s versions of the ozzy Link. The FM stuff is a big improvement over that and the obiwan was a further development on that. But FM stopped development on Link stuff in the early 2000s. And the original manufacturer kept making improvements as well. The FM Link ECU wouldn't have any of the features that the Australian company built into later versions of their stuff.

concealer404

iTrader: (3)

By "really good deal" i hope you mean you gave the dude a 6 pack of Bud Light, at most.

cj9694

Yes its a FM Link I paid $150 shipped for a never used setup. Its for Lemons so im trying to stay within the budget rules. Whats wrong with the link other then its old? DLL isnt terrible. Sure its not as nice as a MS3 but so is having an extra $450 and I'm not out to make championship winning power or anything.

concealer404

iTrader: (3)

Well, good luck then. OEM ecu would sound pretty nice to me in a Lemons situation, though. :lol:

cj9694

I guess thats what I am trying to figure out. Is there a way to get CAN bus or some other data from the ecu to out to a race capture. the cable that this Old FM Link uses is some wonky 14 pin ribbon cable. 13 grey and 1 red (im guessing power) most of the data Im looking for is streamed to the handheld keypad which is neat but you have to scroll though menus to find it and that data logging isnt exportable. Actually that just got me thinking, you can data log all that back to a laptop VIA the DLL program, I wonder if I can somehow get that serial data to talk to a Race capture.....

cj9694

hard to run a turbo FE3 off from the oem 96 ecu and program it....

concealer404

iTrader: (3)

Sounds like the difference in ways we would approach a Lemons car goes far beyond just ECU choice, then.

AlwaysBroken

If you want data logging on a link you have to roll your own. I had a datalogger up and running years back, but the laptop I used to use died (it had a serial port) and I've been too lazy to get everything working with USB adapter.

As for the ECU itself, there's nothing wrong with it and it can make perfectly good power so long as you stay below say.... 18-20psi of boost. Manifold pressure is an unsigned byte, so aiming for 230 or so and leaving 25 kpa of leeway for boost overshoot is about as high as you can go without causing bad things to happen.

AlwaysBroken

If you can get a 3 or 4 bar map sensor to send the same voltage signal as the stock map sensor, you'd have to redo your fuel maps but you could theoretically run much higher boost. Of course, the ECU would think it was sea level when you were at like 10 psi of boost, but you can work around that I think.

jstck

Ah, that explains it. Stuff related to the current linkecu.com product line were the only things Google was interested in showing me.

If the Kenobi ECU has a CAN bus (which seems dubious) and you can somehow figure out which two pins it is, you should be able to wire that to a race logger thing and get whatever data comes out on it.

x_25

The link ECU is useable, and for $150 not a bad choice. My friend has one on his 1.6 turbo car. Works fine, bit oldschool to tune but whatever. The car runs great. I don't know how it will do running a totally different engine though.