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Hi all, so I hope you'll keep up with me as I want to explain everything I've done in case I've missed something.

I first purchased a Haltech IQ3 about 2 years ago. I called Racepak and discussed if the Haltech IQ3 would work OK with a Link (VIPEC) ECU and they said yes if I purchased a VIPEC interface and disabled the built in Haltech channels. So I purchased the interface, setup the new channels in the IQ3 and plugged it into a Link ECU and got data read on the dash OK.

Since then I have purchased a Smartwire, USM and upgraded the firmware in both the ECU and the IQ3 as we have been building the car up and haven't had time to test things as we've gone along and haven't had all of the wiring working till we tested it today. For some reason I'm not getting any data from the ECU streamed to the IQ3 or if I am getting data stream to the IQ3 its not displaying it (I can't tell which it is).

I have confirmed in the ECU that the communications is set to 57,600 baud and have set data stream mode to both OFF and Request-Short .....which the Link documentation says does the same thing, but neither work.

I am definately getting data through the VNET as I'm seeing information from sensors connected to the USM so that side of things is working OK, but I'm unable to tell if the ECU just isn't putting a stream of data out, or if the ECU is putting a stream out and it's getting to the IQ3, but that the IQ3 just isn't displaying it. I've got a load of channels showing from the VIPEC module on the pages and none of them are displaying anything.

I've tried enabling the CANBUS side of things also, as even though it's not using CANBUS to communicate, someone else had shown that they had that enabled when they got their unit working so I tried matching the setting that person used, but still no go.

I have tried rolling back the ECU firmware but that didn't help either.

Is there any way for me to check if the stream of data is getting to the IQ3 ??? That way I will know if it's just some odd setting on the IQ3 I've got wrong.......

I have gone through all of the Haltech channels and set the sensor drop down to disabled, which in turn blanks the VNET ID (I assume that was the right thing to do assuming I don't want to use any of the Haltech channels). Then I have made sure that in the IQ3 setup page that the values selected to be displayed on the pages are all from the VIPEC EFI module rather than trying to display the built in Haltech channels.

So now I'm really lost. I've made sure that I don't have the USB tuning cable plugged into the ECU when I've got the dash on and I've reset the ECU after any changes to make sure it's starting up fresh but no data stream............ very frustrating.

Anyone see anything obvious I've missed ?? IQ3 can see VIPEC channels and has those channels set on display pages, VIPEC / LINK ECU is set with communications enabled and 57,600 baud...... as far as I was aware that was all that was needed to get the IQ3 to display data.

One thing I've thought about was that when we got all the new stuff working (Smartwire and USM) I just read in the VNET config and it complained that the Haltech channels were conflicting with the VIPEC channels. I understood what was going on and assumed if I disabled the Haltech channels after it completed its read that it would solve the issue, but maybe I need to plug only the IQ3 in on it's own and disable the Haltech channels first, then plug the other stuff in and re-read the config so it doesn't conflict ?? Could that be the issue possibly ??

Am I doing the right thing setting the Haltech channels to have the sensor disabled if I'm not using those channels ??? I can't delete them as they're built in hardware so I assumed sensor = disable was the best option....... (comments Racepak guys ???)

Oh well, sorry for the long winded post, just wanted to throw in all that I've done in case there's something obvious I've missed. I know the waters are muddied a bit with having to disable the Haltech channels, but I didn't think it was a bit deal.

So no channel from the vipec/link is working?
I dont know about the haltech dash, when you set the sensor to disable you say the vnet id goes blank? are the vnet id's the same as the vipec ones? i assume some will be but not all? Can you change the vnet id on the haltech channels? like to engine 2 rpm or something random, and then save and then send config to the dash.

You had it talking fine a while ago didnt you? before the smartwire/usm/firmware upgrades

I believe most of the Haltech channels are the same VNET ID as the VIPEC ones as they cover the same things. Engine RPM, H20 Temp, Inj Duty cycle, Ign timing etc etc, so yeah the do use the same ID's but I've tried changing the Haltech channels to different ID's (I used some of the aero dynamic sensors that I will never actually use) and changed all of the Haltech channels to those so they wouldn't conflict, but that was after I had read all of the channels in.

What I'm wondering is if I need to start from scratch with my config, read in just the Haltech channels only, change them so they won't conflict, then read in the VIPEC channels............ I think that's how I did it originally, but this time around we just had everything plugged in at once and did a read VNET.......... might try that today and see.

If that's not it then I'm totally lost as to why it's not working. Didn't want to roll back the firmware on the IQ3 as I wasn't sure if that was safe to try, but I can only assume it's a firmware issue from either the ECU update or the IQ3 update that's changed things. We tried unplugging the USM and Smartwire and powering the dash directly with the the VIPEC module and ECU plugged in to make sure there wasn't any issues there, but that didn't help.

Very frustrating. If I can't get it going I'm going to give up and just remove the dash and send it back to Racepak to fix the faded display issue and hopefully by the time it's ready to come back the CANBUS version of the interface for the VIPEC will be ready to test and it won't matter, but it would be good to know why it's not working and would also be helpful to have a way on the IQ3 to see the stream data from the ECU just like you can watch the realtime data from the channels on the USM. At least then you would know the ECU is actually streaming data so you'd know where the issue is...... at the moment it's hard to tell.

OK so today brought its own weird issues.......... some positive results though, but then negative.

So I wanted to test my theory about the channels, and I have no idea if it was what made it work, but I unpluged the VIPEC interface, just leaving the Smartwire, USM and IQ3 plugged into VNET.

Then I opened Datalink and selected new car configuration to start a blank. Read VNET....... then made sure Haltech channels were disabled and that was all good. Then switched off. Plugged in VIPEC module and read VNET. Then did write VNET and voila ........ it worked..... I got data from the ECU on the dash........ awesome.

So then I used channel maintenance to move the Haltech channels to the end of the list so they were out of the way. Then I made some changes to the IQ3 screen layout and did a write VNET to make the changes stick and when I powered the ECU back up I've got no data again !!

Then I thought Oh well I will re-do what I did to get it going the first time around assuming it was something I'd just changed that broke it again but I'm back to square one as I can't get it displaying data again !!

Still none the wiser if it was in fact an IQ3 issue with the channels or if it was just that the ECU decided for that little instant to send data properly !! So annoying !

Seems like it could be a faulty module. I gave up on trying to get it going and left it and next time I started the car to warm it up I saw that the dash had RPM and water temp displayed.... !!

Then within about 5 minutes the display had gone again........ I'm not sure if it's some kind of interferance issue, but it doesn't work even with engine off so I'm assuming not, but it might be something odd. When the data is displaying, the RPM is laggy so you rev the engine and there is a slight lag before it changes on the display..... that's not how I remember it being.....

Then as mentioned, eventually I just get no data and that's all she wrote...... usually once it's gone, it's gone for the foreseeable future and only leaving it to cool down sees it work again on the next cold start....... my module plug where it attaches to the VNET gets quite warm....... is that common ??

Hoping someone at Racepak can offer me a fix or suggestion........ I have my first meeting with the car on Sept 17th so need some kind of solution before then.