I searched on MegaSquirt, and found a few old posts about past versions, so I wanted to start a new thread about this standalone system.

My history again: Drive a Kia, made it a turbo, have been struggling with fuel management for some time. I have it running fairly well but there are just some things that I am perpetually unhappy with.

No matter what I do, I am stuck with these problems:
1) I cannot change my rev limit.
2) The OBDII ECU really does not want to change its AFR when I get into boost. I have to try to trick it by forcing the ECU into closed-loop.
3) Timing is impossible to tune right, especially if I want to add larger injectors (and use the hack)

So I have been looking at various standalone units. I have looked at all the systems you commonly see here, and recently have been reading and learning about the MegaSquirt.

What it is: A simple standalone ECU that can be used in almost any EFI system, and which has many great features.

Some features include (I am now referring to the V2.2 ECU with the MSnS Extra software and MSnEDIS ignition control modification):

Onboard 2.5 bar MAP - good to 20 PSI in the box
12x12 fuel map in Alpha-N or Speed-Density (S-D must be used for turbo)
12x12 ignition map (The configuration I am looking at is for DIS ignitions, like on the D17, and of course my car. However, it can be configured for distributors using Hall Effect sensors more easily)
Uses stock TPS, IAC (not stepper IAC), IAT, CTS -doesn't use stock MAP
Uses either stock narrowband O2 sensor or your WBO2 controller's output

Will control:
Injectors (up to 12 high-impedance or low impedance with optional card)
Ignition
IAC function
Cooling fan
*Boost control solenoid
*shift light

*with additional hardware*

Cost: ~$120 if you build it yourself (requires the same amount of know-how as the DIY-WB) $269 on http://www.rs-autosport.com/ completely built and tested and with the ignition modifications. (Not currenly configured for boost control, staging rev limiter, shift light or other optional do-dads)

Oh, and if you Honda guys want a DIS ignition, you just have to buy the Ford Probe 4-cylinder EDIS module and crank trigger system, and have the 36-tooth crank trigger machined to fit your Honda crank snout. (I have to do the same thing)

Okay, so here are some of the complaints that I have read about the system, here and on other sites, and I would like to address them with my thoughts.

1) The MS is a batch-fire EFI system.

True. The MS has only 2 injector drivers, meaning you can only fire 2 sets of injectors at seperate times. However, note that even in sequential-firing EFI, the injector is only firing at an open valve about 25% of the time. Sequential-fire injection was created to aid idle fuel economy, though, and doesn't make any power differences.

2) The MS uses antequated technology.

I used to think the same thing. Batch injection, lack of ignition control, 8-bit fuel maps.... But with the recent addition of the MSnS Extra software, it now has 12-bit maps and full ignition control. In the near future, it will be possible to swap in a new 16-bit Motorola processor.

3) The MS isn't OBD.

No it isn't. That is a downfall, in that it will not give you trouble codes. However it can laptop datalog for troubleshooting. The unit also doesn't use a second O2 sensor to check the catalytic convertor, so you would have to ensure the cat was working for emmission testing. But, one thing that it will do: You can set target AFR tables, and run the ECU just like OBDI+ with short and long fuel trim corrections. It will also self-learn the fuel tables if you give it time. (And have O2 hooked up)

Why I think its better than Uberdata:

1) It will self learn.
2) It is laptop programmable, so no ROMs to flash.
3) All the other bells and whistles

But all of this have just been my thoughts. Right now, I plan on purchasing the $269 pre-assembled unit. Then I am going to get the Ford EDIS stuff (~$30), and am going to build an adapter harness to reuse the OEM wiring harness. That way I can remove it later if I need to. Then I am going to sell that damned SAFCII and MSD DIS-2 ignition on Ebay to recoupe most of the cost.



Modified by beepy at 2:53 AM 1/8/2005

 

Bump...i also wish to learn more about MegaSquirt.
my friend is going to be using this on his awd turbo festiva and he already has, i believe its the non-preassembled unit. IMO it seems like an awful lot of wiring/work to get the Squirt hooked up and functioning properly but he seems confident and is more knowledgable than me when it comes to DIY.
The unit is pretty cheap for what you get + all the options that you can get to personalize your set-up. all you gotta do is figure it out

I own a OBD-O B16A EF Hatch...that is going to be boosted very soon like.
was planning on running a afc "hack" for some time until i could save up for a standalone. im not exactly sure where im going with this....

Anyways.... I would like to hear some Honda/MegaSquirt owners thoughts and opinions about the Squirt. Ease of installation? Tunability? anything else?

Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Die-Laughing &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I own a OBD-O B16A EF Hatch...that is going to be boosted very soon like. was planning on running a afc "hack" for some time until i could save up for a standalone </TD></TR></TABLE>please man, save your engine and at least run like a TurboEdit basemap or something

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by onePOINTsix &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">please man, save your engine and at least run like a TurboEdit basemap or something </TD></TR></TABLE>

What about a MegaSquirt?

 

One of my good friends builds the boards and everything for people around here in AU. He runs it on his volvo along with his home built wideband. He has built them for many other volvo boys along with an early gen supra. I am sure he can answer ANYTHING you guys have to ask as he is probably the most knowledgable person about this ems that you may find. I will send him a link to this thread.

 

I know that most of the modified Volvo guys run MegaSquirt and have nothing but praise for the program.

 

my buddy has one on his e36 bmw. it moves.

 

Looks like good feedback from throughout the tuner community.

Just to enumerate the wide range of additional "bells and whistles" the MSnS Extra software brings to this unit, here is a webpage. Some stuff I didn't know about until just now!

http://megasquirt.sourceforge.net/extra/index.html

Boost limiting? Staging systems? Water Injection control? Wow.

 

my friend had an older version on his e30 bmw, and i wasnt very impressed with its tune-ability. since then newer versions have come out that are supposedly much more refined. i believe that lots of domestic guys run megasquirt and have success.

 

bump...let us learn more

 

I am going to be running it on my rx7 in a little bit. I am just now getting it setup. If you are running an all fuel setup, this is a good setup.

I don't believe this system is better than uberdata. It has many things going for it at the moment, but I don't think it is even as close to being as user friendly as uberdata. And if you didn't know, you have to wire the whole thing up yourself. It obviously isn't plug and play with anything. You have to use special sensors, which aren't hard to get. and you can reprogram it to accept just about anything.

You can run stagged injection on Megasquirt, it can come on with TPS, MAP, or RPM.

BUT you must be decent at doing things your self, this is a standalone where you will learn everything. Do not buy this or even attempt it if you are a beginner. Seriously. It is a lot to take in, just read up on the site if you are intereted. It has an FAQ section it will answer all of the newbie questions. That is the best answer most people can give you.

 

While I agree to an extent, it really isn't as difficult as you might believe, especially on Hondas where you can use plain MSnS Extra to control ignition.

Reason it is simpler for you is because you have a distributor. The MSnS Extra is already set up for use with a dizzy. You don't HAVE to build it yourself, you can buy the unit built, tested, and with software installed for $250 from Rs-autosport. Yes, you have to build the adapter harness youself, but this is no different than making the OBDII-OBDI conversion harnesses for Uberdata. (You might even get someone to wire it up for you, like perhaps one of the folks that make the aforementioned harnesses)

As for needing special sensors, this isn't true. The MS will use your OEM IAC solenoid, TPS, CTS, IAT, and knock sensor (with an extra card for the knock sensor) It won't use your MAP sensor because it has its own, it won't use your cam angle sensor because it is not sequential, etc.

I am in the process of building a adapter harness to make the MS a true bolt in for the Rio at the moment. Going is a bit tough because of my DIS ignition, but we are figuring it out.

 

To address some of the things I've seen in this thread:

1) You have to rewire everything, its not plug and play blah blah

This is true, however its not rocket science and it doesnt take very long to get the system hooked up and working. I ms'ed my other volvo ~3 weeks ago, it took me a lazy 4 hours to get the car running and idling from pulling it in on the stock fi
It then took us 5 hours this weekend to install it on my buddies wagon, and that included about 3 hours of research and testing to use most of the stock harness (if I had to, I could wire one on a car in an hour.. it wouldn't look factory, but it'd work fine). If you're splitting hairs about a couple wires you probably shouldnt be messing with forced induction in the first place.

2) the learning curve is insanely steep, your car wont run (ok gross overstatement, but you get the idea ).

Read. God gave you two eyes and a brain for a reason. The fuel tuning guide on http://www.megasquirt.info is *very* comprehensive and details how one goes about tuning the fuel map from start to finish. There are quite a few different windows and settings, and at a glance, yes, its very intimidating. When I switched to ms&s-e, I got lost in the new menus for about 15 minutes.. mostly playing around tho, it took me a mere 5 minutes with no base map to have my car idling smoothly in the driveway, and with the wideband we had the fuel nailed down roughly in about 30 minutes. It helps to have an educated passenger to man the laptop, doing the tuning and driving yourself is not recomended for obvious reasons
The rally style launch control however... its pimp. (wouldn't recomend it on a sensitive car tho, it builds boost faster than you could imagine)

3) The "outdated" processor...

hahaha, thats funny.. One cannot extrapolate how new or old a chip is based on the firmware that runs on it. Limited? maybe, depends on what you're looking to do. slow? maybe compared to your desktop computer, but automotive ecus are generally small single package ics with slow clock speeds because such chips in this day and age use very little power, generate very little heat, and as such are extremely reliable. Extra power means nothing if the code isnt there for it or the code for it is horribly written.

4) its not reliable..

This is entirely up to you and how well you wire it in and the kind of shape your car's electrical system is in to begin with... I've repaired a couple of "blown" megasquirts (one at the dragstrip for a guy whose car broke down 7 hours away, 1/2 way to a regional turbobricks meet), i would say 85% of failures are due to inadequate grounding, not just related to the megasquirt itself, but at the battery, the engine, etc. The other common parts to blow up are the injector transistors, this is whats known as the "flyback failure", it generally happens to those using low imp injectors without resistor packs (and improper pwm settings).

5) It doesnt stack up to the stock system.

This is true and untrue. On a stock car you would probably be hard pressed to tune it to run as good as or better in all situations over the stock ecu (certainly you can tune full throttle better), and for stock situations you won't ever hear me recomend it. I've got it on my stock (well, hollow cat and now the ms) 1990 740gl. in complete factory trim it was unbearably slow, and should I ever be graced with a check engine light, you could divide performance cleanly in half (it wouldnt spin tires with the open diff in the rain powerbrakeing, attempted sliding, what have you... a truely sad moment for me). The maddening part about it was the lack of a reason (pulled the code "o2". next time "crank angle". the time after that "air temp"). chucked it in favor of the obvious, I've gotten the fuel back to where it was on its best day before (~18 or so, theres another easy 5-6mpgs in there, need to get my wideband back on it). And my ignition timing doesnt magically disappear when the planets fall out of alignment.

on my 87 turbo car (well the last time it ran, its in pieces for much bigger and better things) we were able to take the car down to a 14.0@97 with the stock turbo, stock ic (it sucks), stock everything on the front half of the engine, it was a high compression motor, the cam was horribly shimmed (it didnt like to idle below 1200, we checked the lash after i had the motor out and found out it was holding a couple of the exhaust valves open and was loose on a couple intake valves).
Dynoed out 192whp and 292whtq at 14-15psi in that trim, with the orriginal version of ms&s, and ran quite well (well enough to retire a couple transmissions, i got fed up replacing them and decided to go completely nuts with the car. thusly it sits halfway done hahaha).

my best friend runs it on his full weight volvo station wagon, He trapped 103 with a 60 trim t3, 3inch exhaust, stock intercooler, poor ignition, and a fairly mild cam. with an npr, msd, and a much wilder camshaft the car's attitude changed radically.
The same car with the same motor, same cam, same ic setup, stock ecus and an rrfpr ran a best of a 14.1 at 100 without the megasquirt, got terrible fuel economy and he had to constantly tweak the fpr. when we switched it to megasquirt he picked up mpg's all over the place (25-26 or so up from 14-15), throttle response and off boost performance were much better, and on boost was obviously better. No dyno numbers yet (it's breaking transmissions left and right as well... damn weak volvo transmissions)

My buddies supra ran a 13.8-13.7 @ 7psi (6m-gte with an safc-2, one map, no tps input, you were either all in or way off, there was no inbetween), we had a few growing pains getting his car running (ignition related, the module on his car wasn't compatible), dynoed it the day after we got it cranked on ms and made 250/250 at 7psi, he returned to the track a week later and ran a 13.9@100 and soem change, but the car was actually driveable.

I could rattle on a couple more stories, but there's a whole section of the forum dedicated to it (www.msefi.com). Havent seen a whole lot of hondas on there.

If you're leary about having to build it yourself I do build them and test them, the count on how many i've done so far is 50-60, so far none of em have come up bad, the kits cost ~$150 (www.glensgarage.com), I charge 90 plus shipping to build it, test it, and configure it for what you're doing (hardware/firmware wise), and 30 for a pigtail harness (5-6 feet of color coded auto grade wire attached to the connector for the megasquirt, takes about 2 hours off the prep time for the average install).

 

^^^ I ordered my kit from Glen's Garage about a month ago and its still not here

 

He's back logged (not making excuses for him, rather providing insight) from a deluge of orders right before xmas (and he started a new job).

his kits are worth the wait tho, and he won't run off with your money

 

I am just stating that this isn't for a person that takes their cars to get everything done by someone else. Too many things happenening, you could never address your own car.

Also don't believe in buying them premade. That is dumb and against pretty much the whole setup. Maybe if you already put one together, but its very easy to do if you have some soldering skills. It is part of the learning process. Actually putting the thing together. I know the Msnsextra has ignition control 12X12 maps too. It is a great tool for those that spend the time to research. I was just stating that people that are lazy will not be in for a good surprise if they just go out and buy one.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 93turbo16 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I am going to be running it on my rx7 in a little bit. I am just now getting it setup. If you are running an all fuel setup, this is a good setup.

I don't believe this system is better than uberdata. It has many things going for it at the moment, but I don't think it is even as close to being as user friendly as uberdata. And if you didn't know, you have to wire the whole thing up yourself. It obviously isn't plug and play with anything. You have to use special sensors, which aren't hard to get. and you can reprogram it to accept just about anything
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Guess you missed that.

I know you can use stock sensors, I am just saying for those who don't want the hassel with the program. The best thing to do is read up. I can't wait to actually get this thing going. Its too damn cold to do it right now though. Glens kits are very nice, the come pre-labeled and everything. You can put it together in a couple hours.

 

Actually I have decided to build it myself. I was just worried about the hardware changes in MSnSe, but these are a lot simpler than I first thought.

I will have 3 components when all is said and done: The main MS board, a secondary board with the hardware for the knock sensor input and boost control, and an ignition "box". The ignition box will just be a DSM 4g63 "power transistor": The ignition module used on post '90 DSM 4-cylinder cars with DIS.

Anyway... I spent a few hours putting together a wiring schematic for a MS-to-OEM adapter harness, and it should be plug and play. The ignition controller is part of the harness so I don't even need to splice into my coilpack wires. (unlike the MSD DIS-2, which I uninstalled yesterday, along with the hack)

It did take a bit of research to figure out how to use MS with some of my sensors and peripherals... The 3-wire piezo knock sensor was particularly challenging.

Now I am ordering the parts and getting ready to build. I have the MegaTune software up and running, and really all that this project hinges on is how well the MS is able to work with my 48-1 crank trigger and optical sensor. (Most use the Ford EDIS or DSM/Neon 420a crank triggers and VR sensors)

Oh, I need to get a boost control solenoid out of a Maserati biturbo, too.

Which brings me to tuning. Fuel should be easy. With my WBO2 I just set desired AFR in a 12x12 table and it self tunes. For spark, though, I have to hand-tune it, and I have never done that before. Does anyone have any links to Uberdata ignition tables that I might use as a baseline? I would prefer a map for a stock-cammed 1.6 running about 10 PSI. Thanks!

 

I could send you my base file. d16z6 running 10psi with uberdata.

That is great that you got this all worked out. I can't wait to actually get mine finished. The fuel tuning with megatune shouldn't be too hard at all. It will be in boost though, just because it is just guessing at what your pulse widths should be. Good luck man. Keep us posted. I will do the same with my setup.