Just checking if anyone has tried a megasquirt 3 on a Honda. i realize it has traction control among a host of other cool features and configuration possibilities, and for $650-$700 it would be a deal. I would love to get some real world data/feedback on the systems capabilities and reliability for making and controlling the power these Honda engines are accustomed to making.

 

i have just finished putting together and making a custom harness for my MS1, i will let you know how it works out.

 

Check out some of the Msefi forums, surely there are at least a few honda users on there.

 

If it can make max power on a TT V10 Viper, I'm sure it will give you what you want for any Honda engine. Besides if you put it together yourself it's only $500 for a complete stand alone. That in the end, does more than any of the Honda specific EMS of that price range..... Oh wait, there aren't any in that price range anymore.........

MSIII FTW!

A little bit of patience and research is key!

 

Stick with Hondata or Neptune, IMO...

 

Any reasoning, or pure opinion?

 

jiggacivic, there is nothing wrong with the ms3. I have dealt with it on a couple of cars and it's becoming the system of choice for a lot of users. I will tell you though, it's a lot more involved that the hondata s300 or neptune rtp. I say involved because as with all truly stand alones, everything has to be configured from scratch. There are numerous outputs and inputs that can be triggered a myriad of ways. If that is not enough there are expansion boards and such. The support is great and developers open to suggestions. (the only thing that I have not gotten them to do is use inches mercury and psi on the fuel ve and ign tables, they still use kpa exclusively. The software is top notch and very responsive to manipulation.

The only drawback, which might not be a drawback is that because of the configurability, it takes someone with more than basic knowledge of the efi settings. eg dwell control, injector dead times and so on. I mean I'm not a noob and sometimes the numerous options really surprise me. Then again we must remember that some of the options are for other cars than Hondas specifically and this system controls alot of cars. Also because it was largely developed with alot of ge sensors, I find to get get the best /accurate readings/idle control, other non oem sensors sometimes need to be added. I'll try to explain what I mean here. From driving around and staring at my tunerview I know the temperature ranges my car hits daily when I drive. Although ect sensors just display a temperature range so you can monitor your ect. The ms3 uses thermistor tables and allows you to config your ect sensor to work with their coded calibrations. Sometimes you notice the car is running a higher temperature than usual, but if you switch your oem ect sensor (Honda/Mitsubishi) to a ge ect and select the pre configured calibration from the software, you realise that the car is running regular teperatures and not high like you previously thought. (Hope I explained that well!)

Hardware is solid with a new fast processor, which is flawless in executing software controls. Has all the datalogging and more than Neptune/s300.

Having said that the Neptune/s300 are times more plug and play/user friendly than the ms3 for a Honda application. Set up time for Neptune/s300 is almost nil and cars can be up and running very well in almost no time at all.

In conclusion, I tune ms3 rides and I like it a lot. I swear that I have gone from direct fire to coil on plug set ups in like 30 mins with just a few software changes and car works flawlessly. It's a great system what can I say. On my personal car (civic ek hatchback bseries turbo) I still run the Neptune RTP because:-
(1)it's made for Hondas so plug and play
(2) the check engine light still works so you can diagnose some problems in a flash that you would not realise with the ms. The ms3 has no check engine diagnostics.
(3)Can use the tunerview with Neptune to see data and problems in real time without laptop. You wouldn't believe the amount of times that you noticed stuff and say "oh, that's not right!"
Ms3 has a megaviewer but it has not progressed to the level of the tuner view.
(4)Uses largely oem sensors!

Just my 02 cents, Megasquirt 3 is great, but for honda I'd use Neptune RTP/Hondata

 

i am very familiar with megaqsuirt and all its features(have actually setup a couple on toyotas), i also have all the other honda based EMS's(Ectune,Neptune,Hondata) for my car. the thing with megasquirt is that i have never seen or heard of any 4 cylinder using it that's making upwards of 700hp or into the 9sec bracket. also i notice it has the capability of traction control, which for the price, comparing to the other EMS's is a good deal.

 

I've tuned/tune a lot of different applications on megasquirt, from turbo miatas, turbo m3s to ls1 motors.

Do me a favor, stick with hondata or aem. Hondata s300 you can get them used for 300-500 all day and aem gen 1 as well. Megasquirt works, but making the tune perfect is much harder and time consuming. And i dont care what anyone says, i've seen megasquirt change a/f ratios on the dyno by almost 1 af without touching anything. checked logs and iats, coolant, voltage ect ect where all the same ohh yah and glitting as well. For some setups tho, i would deff run megasquirt because its a lot better then not using it.

Hondata is much more user friendly for those that want to make small changes themself.