How's the visibility in bright sunlight vs darkness? Can you change brightness on the fly? The IQ3 looks more and more interesting with the MS3 communicating over CAN.

 

Current RacePak does not accept MegaSquirt CAN, and they've been tough to deal with. They had an adapter that worked with our old serial protocol, but when we updated our serial to be more robust (noise rejecting), that functionality was broken.

 

*****, admittedly it's been a while since I researched the logger dash. Probably in the time that it was unbroken.

 

Been using IQ3s since 2011 and IMO they are extremely easy to read. The backlight brightness is configurable, so you can turn it off entirely if you want. I have Rover's backlight set to the lowest setting, which is invisible during the day and perfect at night.

I typically configure the race screen to give me MPH on the top left, predictive lap on the top right, best lap of the session on the bottom right, CLT bottom middle, and AFR bottom left. In reality, the warning lights can be used to monitor all the engine vitals for you, so there's no reason to have CLT or AFR on the race screen, but I'm a creature of habit. You can set warning lights up for coolant/oil temp, fuel/water/oil pressure, low battery voltage, overboost, and a lean warning triggered by a combination of AFR and TPS with a short delay to prevent it from triggering on sharp throttle transitions. The warnings are probably one of the best things about the IQ3 - it monitors the engine vitals so you can focus on driving. I was never able to do both in my turbo car - keeping 350whp pointed in the right direction demands so much concentration that there's nothing left over for gauge monitoring.

 

IQ3 and MS3 do not issues over serial correct? I've read a few stories that some people had a problem with data lag, float, etc. I'm assuming this was probably user error but would like to confirm. I'm interested in using both, especially if you get the 01+ PNP for sale.

 

The serial stuff stopped working long ago and RacePak has been non-responsive to getting it fixed. I requested that we inter-operate over CAN instead of serial, which would fix the issues forever. RacePak is non-responsive.

Currently AIM supports MegaSquirt CAN, and Race Technology will very soon with their Dash 2-Pro.

FYI, the 01+ PNP is ready to ship as soon as we get a shipment of plugs in from Tyco, but I don't want to derail this thread.

 

Getting away from displays. And even hardware for a bit. Software is where the real meat it. For most of us a Race technology, Aim, Rackpak, Race Capture Pro they're just black boxes that all are capable of doing the same **** more or less with about the same reliability. What really effects us is the software that we have to analyze the data. I really like the Race technology software, its a lot nicer to use than the RCP software or the AEM AQ1 software. But I havent used them all.

 

I've used to have a DL1 and now have an AiM Solo. The Race Technology software was very intuitive and easy to use. The AiM software is nowhere near as intuitive. I usually just use the predictive lap time feature while on track and don't bother reviewing data after a session.

With that said... because I instruct almost every weekend I'm at the track, I don't regret switching to the solo. If I had time to review data between every session, I'd probably switch back to a DL1. Without that time, the predictive feature of the Solo is extremely useful.

 

Racepak's software has an extremely steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty powerful.

 

AiM and Hydra get along well. 2.6 uses a serial connection and 2.7 uses CAN at the Epsilon level. I've had both setups in my car.

 

James Colborn (driver for bimmerworld and formerly for honda) has a slew of videos on how to read data specifically off the AIM software.

^^this one helps me alot!! check it out.


https://www.youtube.com/user/colbornjames/videos

 

What are the top three data points that everyone uses? Or does DAQ simply become video with pretty charts?

 

The two big data points that tell the most is speed and GPS-lateral acceleration. aka Lateral g force. the other is GPS speed.

 

We have had no problems with our IQ3 or G2X using the MS2 EFI serial adapter on MS3X and MS3 pro. I'm not a DAQ expert so I don't quite understand what additional utility is gained by using CAN. Ben?

 

Serial is pretty slow, but that's more of an IT answer as to why serial sucks.

CAN has a lot of data available. I saw some data overlays from an E92 M3 and it had stuff like steering input angle on the CAN out. It's definitely more useful for cars where we aren't retrofitting all of these data inputs.

 

CAN networks are for intercommunication of a large network of sensors and controllers. Every device on the CAN bus can send and receive messages. Serial uses a master slave interface with only one Master device requesting or giving info to one slave device at a time. CAN has determinism and arbitration meaning priority signal get sent out first regardless of how many messages are trying to be sent on the bus. CAN is 2 wire interface regardless of how many controllers are on the network, Serial is more.

For just a simple 2 device ECU to data acquisition network, CAN and SPI will probably both work just fine and you wont notice much difference. For a OEM vehicle application with an extensive networks of computers and sensors (ECU, TCU, ABS, SRS, etc.) CAN communication is superior which is why it is used as the OBDII standard.

 

We were only using a few ECU channels on the IQ3

RPM
TPS
AFR
WT

For diagnostics once INJ D/C I think

 

Emilio,
Was it plug and play or did you have mess with it at first to get them to communicate?

Does anyone have a racepak log file they care to share so I can play with the software?

 

no center net #savington?

 

I don't build the cars here, I just design the stuff. Pretty sure John just names the channels for the ECU that are pre-scaled. Any (non ECU) channels that are not prescaled like fuel level are entered in manually. For those, we either use a scale provided by the sensor manufacturer or measure it ourselves. That only really applies to non Vnet and non ECU signals that we run through a USM (Universal Sensor Module). That's how we get fuel level and AFR on a G2X for example.