Hey guys,

Just wanted to see if any of you have experience with the Megasquirt ECU kit? I have found that the Edelbrock ECU programming and functionaltiy are just not there. For the price to get setup to tune the edelbrock, I can buy the Megasquirt parts. Question is have any of you ever been through this process, and how hard is it to assemble. The guys at the megaquirt forum act like it is a piece of cake, but they are all techy wizards it seems.

Here is a link for those who are unfamiliar with the product and are interested.

http://www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html

Thanks,

Chris

Are you an electronics engineer Turbo? If you aren't then this could be a big waste of your time when you consider it is a build it yourself kit, it's not much different than building a Healthkit amp or computer. I like the concept and being somewhat electronics savvy I might try something like this myself but...holy cow man there are a lot of pitfalls if you have no experience!

If you have made your own boards and burned your own chips before then I would say go for it but it sounds to me like a "beta" kit. If it is so great then why don't they sell completed RTR versions?

I think this quote says it all;



The configurator code is not stable?

See ya later, let me know when you guys have a product ready for distribution.

__________________
Outlawed tunes from outlawed pipes

Yeah, I hear you chuck. I am by no means an electronics engineer. Talking to the guys who have built the units themselves, they swear it is not very difficult. Also, there are guys selling the assembled kits for $200 and about $350 for the relay card and simulator board with it. I am willing to learn, but I think the curve might be too steep.

As for the code, I am curious where you found that particular quote. I have been reading about this thing for the last couple of days, and have not found any question about the codes stability. Of course, there are also alot of different spin offs from the orignal unit from what I gather.

As for chip burning, this is one of the great things about this thing is that it does not require chip burning. It is programmed via laptop interface, unless I have really missed something. Of course I am green at this, so I am still trying to figure out all the acronyms to be honest.

After doing some research on the ECU I have right now, it is full of errors apparently and it is a RTR unit with a bolt on kit from Edelbrock.

The one thing that concerns me is that the add on kit to control spark is definately in the beta phase even if the main board is not. I would definately want this so I could control spark based on MAP.

Thanks for the input,

Chris

I have been following the Mega-Squirt project for some time.The purpose is to create an engine controller that can be built and installed by a do it yourselfer.This is not a "bolt and go" unit.You would have to be prepared to understand how it works, to set it up to work properly.

I have looked at the assembly schematics and I do feel that the actual assembly would be fairly simple and strait-forward.

If you are handy with a soldering iron and are willing to learn alot of technical in and outs, then you may have good success with this unit.

I have fairly good knowledge of fuel injection systems and computer programming.I have also been working with circuit boards since my early teens.I still don't feel that this will be an easy project in it's entirety.

I intend to experiment with this unit on a parts car that I have.The engine in the car still runs.At least this way I can toy around with this and keep my drivers on the road.Once I become experienced with this,then I will attempt it on a driver.

I think this would be a great unit to be familiar with.
Cost and the satisfaction of the DIY aspect,makes this a great project.

Dennis

check out the faq's.....

spooki just bought a T-2 for his truck...... damn him .....
hurry and figure this out so we can have you down for a weekend

Thanks for the info Dennis. The truck this is going in is an experiment in itself. I have built the entire turbo setup, which I was told would not work and I could not do. Suppose I may as well try the ECU.

After talking to some more guys last night, apparently any problems have been sorted out in the latest software versions. Also, seems if updates come out they can b downloaded with the PC interface. It was also pointed out to me that the reason there have been errors found and corrected is because of the fact that it is a completely open system with lots of techies digging through it constantly.

The only concern I have now is with the megaspark setup. I have not found much information on it, but it appears to work with the megasuirt for MAP timing control. This is a must for me.


Larry,

I think I am going to be years figuring this thing out the way it feels right now. What exacly is the t-2 for. Must be a little bugger.


Chris

Have you looked into these guys systems?

http://www.fuelairspark.com/

I've been hearing about their systems for a while now and they are supposed to be really good. And they do have tech support that is supposed to be really good.

Also since you are in Texas some of the Below companies might be able to help a little bit. Specially with the final dyno tuning & stuff.

http://www.arlingtonmotorsports.com/

MTI In Houston is really good with Fuel Injection too. I'm having trouble finding their web site right now.

I know that both of the above places do really good with Mustang & LT1 & LS1 custom tuning & building so maybe they will have the skills to help you with what you need.

Hey Chris, you have a brand new engine and induction setup, do you want to drive it or spend all your time trying to get it to run? I would get it running first with alternative carburation and ignition and then focus later on a new setup. I ran into a similar situation with a Ford Mustang that we modified and then tried to get the factory fuel injection to work with the new heads, cam and other mods, it worked...kinda. Driveability was terrible some days and others it worked fine. In the end we trashed the setup and went with a Holley and picked up a lot of power and now it runs the same from day to day. It was educational but a total waste of my time and when I look back at those who said they had it running great with little to no modification I realized these were people who were satisfied with less than perfection or just didn't know what they were talking about.

You might be surprised how many people will tell you to go ahead with a dead end project because they are still walking down the dead end road themselves. The old adage of only doing one thing at a time really applies here. I'm not saying don't do it, just have a backup when it doesn't go as planned. A draw through carb setup on your truck wouldn't be too hard to fabricate and would allow you to get the thing broken in and give you a comparison baseline so you know how it should run and whether the new setup was an improvement. There are all kinds of aftermarket ignitions that you run too.

There is nothing worse than being the worlds expert on a new system that you can't get working right.

__________________
Outlawed tunes from outlawed pipes

Yeah, Chuck I am probably already over my head with this project. I actually already have it running, and could drive it without boost right now, which means keeping it under about 3500-4000. Since a precision tuned race vehicle is the goal, I resolved a long time ago to build a fuel injection setup for it. It would take a 1200 CFM dominator to feed this thing in draw through, along with a complete fuel and timing system revamp. Even then I am faced with a tuning nightmare since I have no way to trend anything to help me out. This alone will by me about any controller on the market. I really believe EFI tuning is the future of hotrodding almost in its entirety. I also believe there is a monitary value tied to the knowledge it brings. That is another conversation.

I am an engineer for a building automation company so tons of sensors, controllers and software tuning dont scare me even a little bit. Everyday I fight those guys who are trying to hang on to the carburetors and mechanical distributors(analogy here, bear with me) running the Air Handling equipment in the buildings we are under contract to bring into the 21st century. Becauae they dont understand what we do they are not interested even though we can offer them technology and perfomance they have never had.

The reason I bring this up is just to say, FI is where I am going one way or another. If I can learn on something that is cheap and effective, I will give it a shot. The money to get a Megasquirt is about 15% of a similiarly capable controller that is a RTR application. BUT, I also dont want a piece of junk that will eat my lunch because of bad design along with my inexperience.

I finally figured out the ignition setup as well. It is just a megaquirt board with different firmware. This way you can datalog all the ingition behavior along side the fuel, 02,rpm, map,mat. Trending is essential to tuning, and a stand alone ignition box would just make for a uncontrollable, unmonitorable variable.

I would like it if you did some more reading on the setup if it interest you, and let me know what you think after researching it. I have probably read 20-30 hours of data sheets, user feedback, and FAQ's in the last week. There are several email list out there of thousands of users of the product. That is a huge help in itself compared to RTR systems who give you one guy on the end of a phone line who may or may not have ever used the product they are coaching you on.

Thanks,

Chris

Sounds like you have a firm handle on the project and I don't doubt you have the ability, all you have to do is look at your truck to see that. Your right about the cost being very attractive and the idea of making it yourself sure would bring a lot of satisfaction not to mention be a showpiece unto itself.

I would spend some dollars on some dyno time before you hit the street/strip with it so that you have some sound readings to go by and a safe place to test where you don't have to rely on your seat of your pants. We realized with the Mustang that we were going to have to reinvent the wheel back in the early 90's if we were going to get it to work, I look now and there are all kinds of people offering tuning services and custom chips for the stock system. Obviously we weren't the only ones trying, but to do all that work for just one car just wasn't feasible. The best part of working with electronics is if it doesn't work it only costs your time and a handfull of resistors and diodes to do over again. I have often thought that a DOS or Linux based PC MB controller can't be that hard to do, can you imagine the features you could design in with a 2Ghz+ Athlon processor ripping out the code through a Firewire connection! Optical sensors for flue gas control has been around for years and I often think this is the future for engine control. Can you say mixture control at rpm with each combustion cycle controlled by high duty cycle injectors using piezoelectrics? Maybe one day.

If you ever need anything Chris from an electronics standpoint shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do to help, the only perk I have at the hospital is the extensive array of electronic test equipment and really cool toys to play with, I'm no expert by any means but I work closely with guys who are. We can do surface mount rework and all kinds of custom chip work too, just today I was playing with a $250K spectrum analyzer to investigate cell phone effects on medical devices. I learn something new everyday.

I'll have better look at the system so we can discuss this at length, looks like I'll learn something new tonight too!

__________________
Outlawed tunes from outlawed pipes

Chris, I read down to the point that the ECU only controls the fuel: no control of the ignition. To me that is like giving a man with no legs one leg and telling him to run!!! Also, taking the tach signal from the distributor to determine fuel injection timing is like measuring with a micrometer and cutting with an axe !! In this case, the super high speed ECU is the micrometer.

Trees

Ah yes, you should have read further.......

The system will also work with crank trigger or Halleffect sensor. This means with some help from some techies, I sould be able to use the billet Mallory designed for the Pro Flo system. And, since the controller is universal it can also be used to conrol and trend ingnition events based on MAP and RPM. This product is listed as the megaspark on the site. The down side is you have to build two controllers to accomplish this. But, at arond $120 for the parts, that is no more than an aftermarket boost retard module to add on to an existing spark amp like the MSD. It comes with the distict advantage that when built for timing control, you can add other misc. sensors for trending and use the relay outputs to control something like cooling fans or boost controller. Of course to to this I will have to learn to use the assembly code. This is way over my head at this point, but I keep finding more and more people out there doing this and very willing to share any info and help where they can. There is a controller being developed right now called the megasquirtnspark that will do it all, but there are only a few technical wizards using it right now.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the controller does batch firing of the injectors which fires four injectors at a time. At first I though this was a step back. Apparently the only real advantage to sequential firing is with fuel economy, and that is very small. The Pro Flo also does batch firing, but it does only fire two at a time a opposed to four.


Later,

Chris

Chuck,

Working in the controlls industry, I am baffled at why there are not better EMS systems out there. And, I think if your pockets are deep enough, they are. Ever heard of Kenny Dutweiler? He builds custom high HP electronic controlled turbo engines amoung other things. He built the 2200 HP turbo small block chevy in Bob Riegers 6 second 57 Chevy. I read somewhere that there were $10,000 in electronics on the car. There really would have to be to keep cylinder pressure in check on a engine seeing that much boost. I also heard the engine ran to seasons without anything other than freshening. That is a long time in a competition race car. It is a testament to the ease of turbos on an engine and how perfectly it must be tuned to never see an ounce of detonation which would grenade the engine in a second.

I am really just getting into this deal, but I hope to learn some of the things is takes to do things like individual cylinder monitoring. I may never get there, but I know I will not if I just use boxed products.

Chris