It’s done! I think we’re probably the to fully replace the factory cluster with an aftermarket unit on a street driven Z, and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I’ve always lusted after these all in one units from the time I first saw a Stack meter, but they had always been so expensive. Plus, being universal pieces, there was always a mess of wiring to go through. When Racepak announced this affordable unit earlier in the year, I just had to jump on it. The The Racepak IQ3 is a bargain in my opinion, especially considering it comes with the VNet cable to plug right into the Haltech ecu (which used to be over $350 itself).
Of course the install was not without it’s hurdles – but what on the car this year hasn’t been a biotch! We discovered a major hurdle a few weeks back. Apparantly Nissan in their infinite wisdom decided that the alternator should not work if the factory cluster is unplugged. Ask me how I found out! Thanfully I was able to limp it back to the shop. I turned to some buddies who race their Z for help. They are running a Bosch Motorsport cluster on their race car, so I had a feeling they had enountered this same scenario before. After working out the various wiring issues last weekend, today I finally sat down with the software and handled the programming side of things. As of now I have the dash setup to display RPM, Air Inlet Temperature, MPH, Wideband AFR, Water Temperature. The software is pretty slick. I tried snapping some screen shot pics for you guys to look at, but it;s not easy capturing it with a camera, so forgive the low quality pics. Once connected, it lets you select what parameters to display, and what scale to display them on. It also lets you select where you want to display the data on the screen. There are 4 pages total of data it will let you display. To turn the page, you either need to have the laptop connected, or you can purchase optional switches. Since my car is NA, for right now, I am doing without the switches. Should I need to access the other data pages, I’ll do it with the laptop. I left the serial cable connected to the back of the unit, and stashed it up under the dash, so connecting it to the laptop is quick and easy. Since this is primarily a street car, I have the standard display unit. There is also a version of this cluster that has full datalogging capabilities, for those doing more serious track duty. Anything I do need to log, I can do via the Haltech anyway.
To have a real fuel level gauge, there is a separate module that you need to purchase and configure. However, I am fairly confident I can at least get it to display “Miles to Empty” as I believe this info is streamed on the CAN network. I need to get with Racepak and/or Haltech this week and figure out how to access that data though.
This would not have been possible without the awesome work of my buddy Dave from Performance Outfitters Group and Rich from NoHotWireRacingI’m glad I know you guys, otherwise I would not have been able to get this done!
Kwame
Z1 Performance
Jonathan
Corner Balance 
good job adam……..the racepak looks great….
Adam,
This unit is awesome. One though I had is maybe you could stash one of those new mini laptops under the dash too (off hand I don’t know the available space) or somewhere within cable reach and wire it to a screen where the nav goes. you could use a wireless mini keyboard to access anything you needed.
maybe ; )
Love the blog and the car.
That’s a neat idea – or just use one of those netbooks.