Megasquirt Advice and discussion.

[RotaryProphet]

If you know what you're doing, the Megasquirt is fantastic. Cost to feature ratio is unparalleled, and I've put a hundred thousand miles on my DD while it's been Megasquirt powered. To top it off, it has OEM drivability, never surging or bogging, and you can reach in through the window on the coldest day of the year, turn the key for a half second, and it's running. The hardware does what the hardware does, it's up to you to tune it, though.

As for tuning, there are a few ways to go about it. The easiest is to take it to someone who specializes in it. I'm near Cincinnati, and I have an engine dyno cell setup pretty much just for doing Megasquirt installs that I build and wire, but I'd be more than happy to help you out for pretty cheap; I try to cut forum members price breaks where I can.

Secondly, with a wideband you can run a datalog while driving (assuming you've roughed out the tune to where you can drive it), then import that into excel or openoffice, and go back through and look at the recorded AF ratios at given RPM and MAP points, then do the math to figure out what the cell -should- be at to get your desired AF ratio. It's far from perfect, but I've tuned cars that way that ended up working very well, and without an engine dyno, it's one of the only ways to really tune the regular city driving areas of the map.

The last method would be to recruit a friend to drive around while you sit in the passenger seat with a laptop, and adjust as you see fit. Before I had my dyno, I used a combination of logging and shotgun tuning to get a reasonably good tune, but it is time consuming.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by RotaryProphet

If you know what you're doing, the Megasquirt is fantastic. Cost to feature ratio is unparalleled, and I've put a hundred thousand miles on my DD while it's been Megasquirt powered. To top it off, it has OEM drivability, never surging or bogging, and you can reach in through the window on the coldest day of the year, turn the key for a half second, and it's running. The hardware does what the hardware does, it's up to you to tune it, though.

You seem to imply that only MS can do this...

The fact of the matter is that almost any competent aftermarket EMS can do this, and it's not limited to MS.
My Haltech E8 has no problem doing any of the above that you have mentioned unless one of it's sensors dies - I recently had a TPS (*#%& GM sensors) fail on me.
Anyone that has driven my car also comments how "OEM" it feels and drives.

Bottom line...the EMS if only as effective as the tune or how competent the tuner is.
Given the best EMS like a MoTeC in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing, and it's...useless.


-Ted

[RotaryProphet]

Originally Posted by RETed

You seem to imply that only MS can do this...

The fact of the matter is that almost any competent aftermarket EMS can do this, and it's not limited to MS.
My Haltech E8 has no problem doing any of the above that you have mentioned unless one of it's sensors dies - I recently had a TPS (*#%& GM sensors) fail on me.
Anyone that has driven my car also comments how "OEM" it feels and drives.

Bottom line...the EMS if only as effective as the tune or how competent the tuner is.
Given the best EMS like a MoTeC in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing, and it's...useless.


-Ted

Actually, that's more or less exactly what I was trying to say. That the MS is directly on par with any other EMS system I've seen as far as in-use functionality.

It's just, every once in a while, you have to build a circuit to do some goofy thing you want to do; and even that isn't a big deal if you're handy with a soldering iron, and know what you're doing.

The Megasquirt is the option for people who really really know what they're doing, or want to learn. The upside is, it's damned cheap, and works just as well. The downside is, it's more work, at least the first time.

I'm actually curious about how poor a reception the MS gets in a lot of car circles; even those who are thoroughly DIY with their engines are terrified at the thought of doing the same to their ECU.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by RotaryProphet

I'm actually curious about how poor a reception the MS gets in a lot of car circles; even those who are thoroughly DIY with their engines are terrified at the thought of doing the same to their ECU.

No warranty.
No service.
No tech support, unless you count on other enthusiasts who are trying to do the same thing, and you're counting on them to know more than you do.

Was that a serious question?


-Ted

[RotaryProphet]

Originally Posted by RETed

No warranty.
No service.
No tech support, unless you count on other enthusiasts who are trying to do the same thing, and you're counting on them to know more than you do.

Was that a serious question?


-Ted

Do you have warranty and tech support on the motor you build, or the turbo you port the wastegate on?

I suppose there are different levels; people who build things, and people who buy and install things. You seem to be implying you're the latter; and that's fine. But if that's the case, you expect to pay more for that luxury. There are those of us out there who prefer to save the money, and do it ourselves. And given the fact that I can crank out a few Megasquirt ECUs for less than the price of most anything else out there, and that once built, nothing is ever likely to go bad (speaking as an embedded systems programmer on similar industrial solid state electronics), I'm not too concerned about a warranty, and as I have Google, I'm not to worried about tech support.

There are plenty of people out there who, even given the circumstances and available tools & materials, would never fabricate a part for their car. The Megasquirt is not for those people.

On a completely separate note, DIYAutoTune has released a kit designed to mount a Megasquirt into a stock S4 or S5 ECU case, and use the stock wiring harness... pretty much a PnP setup. I haven't played with one yet (mostly, I like replacing the stock harness with my own, much smaller and neater one), but it seems like there might be a market for these pre-built.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by RotaryProphet

Do you have warranty and tech support on the motor you build, or the turbo you port the wastegate on?

WTF does that have anything to do with aftermarket EMS and support of them?

BTW, I stand by 100% behind all my paid builds and any other work I do.
Since you mention it, I back all my work with a LIFETIME WARRANTY (yes, until I die) - any defect or failure due to my work will be taken care of by me at no cost to the customer.

I suppose there are different levels; people who build things, and people who buy and install things. You seem to be implying you're the latter; and that's fine. But if that's the case, you expect to pay more for that luxury. There are those of us out there who prefer to save the money, and do it ourselves. And given the fact that I can crank out a few Megasquirt ECUs for less than the price of most anything else out there, and that once built, nothing is ever likely to go bad (speaking as an embedded systems programmer on similar industrial solid state electronics), I'm not too concerned about a warranty, and as I have Google, I'm not to worried about tech support.

You seem to have a pretty twisted view on how things work in the real world in terms of economics.
People PAY for (tech and service) support.
People PAY for warranties and guarantees - think INSURANCE.
Warranty / guarantee / insurance is a bazillion dollar industry.
Tech and service support isn't too far behind - think Best Buy's Geek Squad or Sears home repair.
Hey, YOU were the one that was asking why your MS isn't doing so well...remember?

There are plenty of people out there who, even given the circumstances and available tools & materials, would never fabricate a part for their car. The Megasquirt is not for those people.

Sure, and you're talking about a teeny tiny minority.
I can count on one hand the number of you MS experts for RX-7's...
Care you guess how many RX-7's run AEM / Autronic / Electromotive / Haltech / Microtech / MoTeC / Wolf / (insert YOUR favorite aftermarket EMS here)...?
(Don't read too much into how I listed those brands, cause I tried to list them in alphabetical order - that's all.)


-Ted

[RotaryProphet]

Originally Posted by RETed

WTF does that have anything to do with aftermarket EMS and support of them?

BTW, I stand by 100% behind all my paid builds and any other work I do.
Since you mention it, I back all my work with a LIFETIME WARRANTY (yes, until I die) - any defect or failure due to my work will be taken care of by me at no cost to the customer.


You seem to have a pretty twisted view on how things work in the real world in terms of economics.
People PAY for (tech and service) support.
People PAY for warranties and guarantees - think INSURANCE.
Warranty / guarantee / insurance is a bazillion dollar industry.
Tech and service support isn't too far behind - think Best Buy's Geek Squad or Sears home repair.
Hey, YOU were the one that was asking why your MS isn't doing so well...remember?



Sure, and you're talking about a teeny tiny minority.
I can count on one hand the number of you MS experts for RX-7's...
Care you guess how many RX-7's run AEM / Autronic / Electromotive / Haltech / Microtech / MoTeC / Wolf / (insert YOUR favorite aftermarket EMS here)...?
(Don't read too much into how I listed those brands, cause I tried to list them in alphabetical order - that's all.)


-Ted

Clearly, you're not getting the point I'm making. I'm saying (quite clearly, I thought), that the same people who will build an engine with no second thoughts would never think of building their own EMS, and for a very DIY hobby, I thought that that was somewhat strange.

You seem almost personally offended by the concept of a DIY EMS. WTF does economics have to do with it? Yes, people pay for those things. Hell, I work in field service for a national provider of cash registers... and ATM machines. Field service/warranty work is the biggest chunk of their profit. What I'm saying is, it seems less likely (assuming you know what you're doing, obviously the MS isn't for people who don't) that your EMS is going to blow up and need a warranty repair than your engine, and many many people build their own engines.

Originally Posted by Phoenix7

The way I see it: If you have the know-how (electrical basics) and the patience then you can learn/build the MS system to so what you need it to do.

If you're compromising for the MS because of money then I think you should wait longer and save more for a system you'll be happy with and won't want/need to upgrade later.

We should have a Beginners Guide To ECU Tuning thread....i know I'd benefit from it greatly.

I would agree with that; if you have the know-how, you can save a lot of money with the MS. Even buying one pre-built is almost dirt cheap... $425 or so for a new generation one with a wiring harness (you have to wire the harness in, but still, that's very little labor in comparison). But if you're going to be tuning it yourself, and you don't know what you're doing, you need to be using a brand with customer service to help you out when you get stuck.

The people who give the MS a bad rep are generally people who got it because of the low price point, and have no idea what to do to get it running. Any competent tuner should be able to sit down with the controls, familiarize themselves with how things work, and be tuning in a reasonably short time-frame; the features are all there, it's just the button names that change, really.