Megasquirt Advice and discussion.

[jgrewe]

There are enough maps out there on the forums that you can have your car drivable with a MS within an hour of initial startup. Help is the MS forum away for anything, Ihad an issue once that took as much time as it took to hit the refresh button for an answer. When I first built one about 4 years ago I think I read for a month before I was comfortable enough to do it. This was before you could buy everything from one place and you had to order stuff from 3 different places.

Aaron Cake's write up is probably the best I've seen for a car specific set up. The only difference I went with is the Zeal daughter card for the extra VR circuit instead of building a circuit in the proto area.

With the MS there are probably 9 ways to do anything. Once you get a hardware setup you like you can stick with it(until MS3 comes out and you want to do a new install...lol)

[NoDOHC]

I have experience with all ECUs mentioned except for Microtech. They are all basically the same when it comes to the basics. Each has a fuel injection duration and ignition timing map that it references based on engine RPM and load (as measured by a MAP sensor, MAF sensor, AFM, or TPS). The available features or adjustments vary widely, but for your first system, simple is better.

Basically, aftermarket EFI is only as good as the time you spend learning about it and the time you spend tuning it.

Dyno tuning is necessary for peak power because the car is either speeding really bad or revving so fast that you can't even get an idea what the AFR is. Dyno tuning for driveabiliy is unnecessary and actually more difficult than tuning while driving.

If I were you, I would learn the Megasquirt with your turbo sitting safely on your bench in the garage. That way you will not hurt the engine when you make a mistake (which you will).

The driveability will be mostly the same with or without the turbo, and the vacuum map will be identical. Really all you will need to tune is the boosted part of the map when you install your turbo (after you are comfortable with the software and your wiring).

[TitaniumTT]

I've found in my experience that most FC owners don't have the knowledge or skills to fabricate parts themselves, nor do they have the bank accounts to absorb the shock of a high end ECU. Fortuneately for them, they seem to be younger and more in tune (no pun intended) with computers and programming and such. I am not one of those people. It's like foreign language for me, I'm just not that good at it. Just like some people can practice for days on end without a break behind a welding mask and still not be able to lay down a decent bead, I can't pick up on languages and the like. But withen an hour of owning my TIG was I laying down some nice beads. For me, it wasn't the hastle and the time to learn an MS. However, given an unlimited budget or not, I would still opt for the MoTeC though because of the software, both the V3 ECU software and the i2 Interpreter (datalogging) software, and the support offered by the company. Those three things are very VERY important to me.

Hell, I sent an email to to gent @ Motec that had been helping me along the way just giving him a final score from the dyno, and MENTIONED what I had in mind for the winter months. 3 hours later on a SATURDAY where detailed answers to the "questions" that I had mentioned.

Motecs support and software is better than all in my opinion, and those are important to me and worth the cost. Especially seeing as how there would be a tremendous learning curve for me with the MS. I do however think that there would be a market for people like yourself that could crank out an MS, install it and tune it, for less than the price of a full blown ECU or close to it.

[85rx-7gsl-se]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MICRO...item1c0617928f

Do it. Same people I got mine from. $1100 shipped is a great deal for a brand new Microtech. Took a few weeks to get but worth the wait. Best part on a Microtech is the base map is already set where the car will run and drive damn well unless really heavily modded.

[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.

[Max777]

Well, just like coilovers, I guess that this will have to be another one of those "wait until I got $$$$$$$$$$$$" mods.

[NoDOHC]

Originally Posted by RotaryProphet

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.

Well said. I think that once the ECU is installed in the car, reading crank signal and pulsing ignition coils and injectors correctly, any competent tuner can tune any ECU (Including Megasquirt) about as easily as another one. Most aftermarket ECUs will require some changes to the wiring and will require some effort to get connected to the engine and firing all the appropriate drivers at the appropriate times.

Unfortunately, I think that this will be a rather deep dive for Max. Soldering surface-mount components on a circuit board is not very similar to turning a bolt. However, a pre-built megasquirt is not that much different than any other ECU.

I have successfully tuned engines with megasquirt ECUs and even built one, yet I chose a Haltech ECU for my RX7. It is not that megasquirt is bad, only that it is more labor and time intensive (and I didn't have much time to spare). At the same time. If given nothing but time and a limited budget, I would highly recommend a megasquirt ECU to anyone with the following qualifications:
Has some soldering experience
Has basic electronic knowledge
Has decent troubleshooting skills
Has a reasonable amount of time to complete the project
Has a limited budget
Does not really want to do anything other than simple engine control (no IAC, wastegate or launch control)

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by NoDOHC

Well said. I think that once the ECU is installed in the car, reading crank signal and pulsing ignition coils and injectors correctly, any competent tuner can tune any ECU (Including Megasquirt) about as easily as another one. Most aftermarket ECUs will require some changes to the wiring and will require some effort to get connected to the engine and firing all the appropriate drivers at the appropriate times.

That I will disagree with. Now, I haven't toyed with the MS software extensively but I will say that there is no way that is as easy to tune as some of the other softwares out there. There are certain functions and "add-ons" if you will to other ECU softwares that make thing SOOOOO much easier. Since I know the MoTeC V3 the best, I'll give a few examples.
Once I have my L table filled out correctly I can hold the engine at a certain cell in the fuel map (that is incorrectly input), press a single button on the keyboard, and the ECU will automatically change the input number to what is calculated to give the correct L. By doing this at a few different sites, you can manually interpolate the numbers and VERY quickly come up with a base map. Make a few pulls and make a few adjustments from there. VERY easy.
The MoTeC can also correctly and internally calculate the difference in needed pw to accomodate for different sized prim/sec injectors. Once you setup a few parameters including the 3d map for sec fueling, there is no other adjustments to make for the sec injectors, it's all internal. On the datalogs you can watch the primary injectors duty cycle increase to a certain point, start to fall off as the secondaries come on, they meet at a certain pw determined by sizing differences and then they both head off togeter. by inputting a percent number you can enrich or enlean the map AT THE POINT when the secondaries come on and control how much, how little, and for how long it is either enriched or enleaned.
Injector timing
The PID functions for idle/boost control are VERY easy to work with and HIGHLY adjustable. Much more than the Haltechs/microtechs
OMP control or DBW is pretty damn easy to accomplish
Troubleshooting is ridiculously easy with some of the screen displays that are available.
And one of my favorites is the datalogging. The datalogs that I have seen from the Haltech are all in a basic MS Excel format. Not very easy on the eyes and if you want to see it in graph form, it takes a few minutes to "arrange it" With the V3 and the i2, after a dyno run I press CTRL+F8 to get the logged data and give it a name, and press enter. Alt+Tab moves me to the i2 software. CTRL+a closes the previous log, CRTL+o opens all the log files, Home then enter brings up the latest log. I have up to a meg, there is an internal option that allows up to 3 megs of logging. The Pro Analysis option is just silly. Graph overlays, advanced math functions, syncronized video..... just crazy stuff that allows much easier tuning of the entire vehicle.
So I don't agree with the statement that the MS, Haltech, or microtech are about as easy to tune as the others, or as user friendly. Can they do it? Well, they can do most things, but in the end, in Perfect Competition - which this almost is, at the end of the day they're all ECU's, you get what you pay for. MoTeC is >$4k for a box, and MS is 10% of that. They both can run a basic engine almost as well as another when tuned by a competent person. However, you get what you pay for in competition so I don't agree with saying that all ecu's are equal.

[RotaryProphet]

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

That I will disagree with. Now, I haven't toyed with the MS software extensively but I will say that there is no way that is as easy to tune as some of the other softwares out there. There are certain functions and "add-ons" if you will to other ECU softwares that make thing SOOOOO much easier. Since I know the MoTeC V3 the best, I'll give a few examples.
Once I have my L table filled out correctly I can hold the engine at a certain cell in the fuel map (that is incorrectly input), press a single button on the keyboard, and the ECU will automatically change the input number to what is calculated to give the correct L. By doing this at a few different sites, you can manually interpolate the numbers and VERY quickly come up with a base map. Make a few pulls and make a few adjustments from there. VERY easy.
The MoTeC can also correctly and internally calculate the difference in needed pw to accomodate for different sized prim/sec injectors. Once you setup a few parameters including the 3d map for sec fueling, there is no other adjustments to make for the sec injectors, it's all internal. On the datalogs you can watch the primary injectors duty cycle increase to a certain point, start to fall off as the secondaries come on, they meet at a certain pw determined by sizing differences and then they both head off togeter. by inputting a percent number you can enrich or enlean the map AT THE POINT when the secondaries come on and control how much, how little, and for how long it is either enriched or enleaned.
Injector timing
The PID functions for idle/boost control are VERY easy to work with and HIGHLY adjustable. Much more than the Haltechs/microtechs
OMP control or DBW is pretty damn easy to accomplish
Troubleshooting is ridiculously easy with some of the screen displays that are available.
And one of my favorites is the datalogging. The datalogs that I have seen from the Haltech are all in a basic MS Excel format. Not very easy on the eyes and if you want to see it in graph form, it takes a few minutes to "arrange it" With the V3 and the i2, after a dyno run I press CTRL+F8 to get the logged data and give it a name, and press enter. Alt+Tab moves me to the i2 software. CTRL+a closes the previous log, CRTL+o opens all the log files, Home then enter brings up the latest log. I have up to a meg, there is an internal option that allows up to 3 megs of logging. The Pro Analysis option is just silly. Graph overlays, advanced math functions, syncronized video..... just crazy stuff that allows much easier tuning of the entire vehicle.
So I don't agree with the statement that the MS, Haltech, or microtech are about as easy to tune as the others, or as user friendly. Can they do it? Well, they can do most things, but in the end, in Perfect Competition - which this almost is, at the end of the day they're all ECU's, you get what you pay for. MoTeC is >$4k for a box, and MS is 10% of that. They both can run a basic engine almost as well as another when tuned by a competent person. However, you get what you pay for in competition so I don't agree with saying that all ecu's are equal.

I'll agree, there's some stuff there that the MS doesn't do; OMP control, for instance. I'm not saying it's impossible with the MS (one of the bonuses of a DIY setup is you can pretty much -do- anything, with enough effort). But some of the other stuff is pretty easy on the MS. The base table it generates, given your RPM limits, expected torque, number of cylinders/injectors, peak HP and TQ RPM points, max boost, etc... it's always been a good enough map for me to drive on.

From there, to get a pretty good road tune, just punch in your desired AF ratios (assuming you have a wideband hooked up), turn on auto-tune, and drive around; it'll read the AF from the wideband, look up the desired AF ratio, and recalculate the VE table based on it.

The MS, at least the Extra code also does secondary injector staging properly, bringing the secondary injectors online at a given % pulsewidth on the primaries.

Also, the logging works very similarly to the haltech, exporting in an excel spreadsheet; but there are seperate programs designed just to open the MS log files and give you a much nicer interface; personally, I dump all of mine into a database so I can run a series of scripts across the data looking for specific triggers.

In reality, just use what you like; if you can afford it, and you're happy with it, go for it. As nice as it is, I can't justify spending that kind of money on an EMS to accomplish what I can do almost as easily for much much less. Actually, I sell a megasquirt installed and fully tuned for less than the cost of the MoTeC box. And for curious parties, yes, I warranty and service it.

For those same people who couldn't install an EMS to begin with, having one professional installed and tuned for ~$2000-$2600 is very attractive; and those are the same people who don't need to learn the software, because they never intend to touch it.

[TitaniumTT]

Originally Posted by RotaryProphet

I'll agree, there's some stuff there that the MS doesn't do; OMP control, for instance. I'm not saying it's impossible with the MS (one of the bonuses of a DIY setup is you can pretty much -do- anything, with enough effort). But some of the other stuff is pretty easy on the MS. The base table it generates, given your RPM limits, expected torque, number of cylinders/injectors, peak HP and TQ RPM points, max boost, etc... it's always been a good enough map for me to drive on.

From there, to get a pretty good road tune, just punch in your desired AF ratios (assuming you have a wideband hooked up), turn on auto-tune, and drive around; it'll read the AF from the wideband, look up the desired AF ratio, and recalculate the VE table based on it.

The MS, at least the Extra code also does secondary injector staging properly, bringing the secondary injectors online at a given % pulsewidth on the primaries.

Also, the logging works very similarly to the haltech, exporting in an excel spreadsheet; but there are seperate programs designed just to open the MS log files and give you a much nicer interface; personally, I dump all of mine into a database so I can run a series of scripts across the data looking for specific triggers.

In reality, just use what you like; if you can afford it, and you're happy with it, go for it. As nice as it is, I can't justify spending that kind of money on an EMS to accomplish what I can do almost as easily for much much less. Actually, I sell a megasquirt installed and fully tuned for less than the cost of the MoTeC box. And for curious parties, yes, I warranty and service it.

For those same people who couldn't install an EMS to begin with, having one professional installed and tuned for ~$2000-$2600 is very attractive; and those are the same people who don't need to learn the software, because they never intend to touch it.

Ya know, that's a VERY good point to make. If somone just wants to pick a car up completed and never touch the software, than by all means, it really doesn't matter what the hell is controling it as long as it works. For those people that are planning on playing around with the software it makes total sense to get a software package that you yourself can easily use. The V3 is like second nature to me now. The only problem I have is finding certain things because there is just so damn much of it. IE-running through the logs we found out that she went a little rich when the secondaries came on. Great, lets lean out the 2ndary enrichment. Great, where the hell is it?

I have no doubt that I would be able to build and install an MS. However, that's just insert pin A into slot B and add a dab of solder and then build a wiring harness. I have no problems with that. The be concern for me personally, would be any type of code writing. That I would fail at miserably.

To each thier own though. Like you said though, for the cost of the unit installed and tuned, as long as it's completed and the owner never needs to touch the software, who cares what's under there.

[NoDOHC]

Wow! The Motec has come a long way.

I worked with one about 10 years ago and it was very comparable to my modern Haltech (that was before widebands were common). I guess I should have expected that they would come as far as the Haltech (although that DOS software is still awesome).

Point conceded - not all ECUs are created equal. Even my e8 has many more features than the old e6x (like autotune, desired lambda maps, VE charts, etc.). However, it was all these cool features that enabled me to trade my e6x for it, because extra features and functionality often makes an ECU harder to configure (Obviously not so with Motec).

Actually, a decent tune can be achieved using a megasquirt V2 in about 45 minutes of street driving. Autotune can take it from there. What is important is the coolant correction and air temperature correction (you should be careful where the IAT sensor is located).

Either way, I will still argue that the overwhelming majority of the effort in installing an aftermarket ECU is the wiring and initial software setup. The rest is cake.

[Max777]

/\ Well, I just got an RTEK 1.7 ecu, so I guess I wont be needing a Megasquirt for some time! Good thing is, I can always sell my stock ecu as well as the rtek (each easily $120) throw in a bit of money, and get an MS setup no problem!

[rotaryracer]

MS Systems don't have enough support in the midwest. I've worked with Haltech and MSD w/carb set ups. Some of my friends that drive spec miata's and can't find help that can tune their cars. Rich condition/higher rpms.

[Shadow24v]

Some interesting and valid points in this thread.

I would like to put in my .02 on MS though.

i started with MS as a raw green n00b. Never touched an EMS in my life. I built it from scratch and eventually got it to run. some of the main hurdles i had was no one had MS'ed the v6 i was working with so it was all trial and error to figure out what works. Now, I have launch control/flatshift set up, Knock sensing about to go in, and a decent tune in preparation for supercharging the v6. (which wasn't that hard really, used the clutch switch and it works like a charm) Which, BTW, gets nearly 30mpg highway and mid-high 20s mixed, runs 14.712@93mph in the 1/4 for now and is my DD

That said, I am probably going to go with the MS PnP offered by DIYAutotune for a couple reasons.Mainly COST. i don't make that much and am doing a lot myself and budget oriented where i can. Familiarity is a bonus too. However i will say that there are others that probably have more features, support and what have you, but not everyone can throw $1000-$5000 in for an EMS system.

Again, as stated, to each their own, But i'd say that if someone takes a little time MS is not that big of a hurdle if you RTFM x 20 and take your time. The forums are a big help even if no one has done your motor as 90% of the issues i ran into were easily solves as irrespective to engine specific things. Usually the "Ughnown" is scary because it looks and sounds worse than it really is

[Max777]

wait, so while an RX7 PnP megasquirt is around $450, NOT INCLUDING A WIDEBAND...

and it costs roughly the same ($500) to build the entire system yourself, including a wideband setup, how is this affordable to go with a PNP?

And then you also retain the factory wiring, and all the 20yo sensors as well... which can break and make the car run bad...

Stock you got:

MAP
MAF
Variable resistor
injector resistor
coolant
intake
emissions wiring
etc

Custom install, you got a few new sensors, like the GM coolant and airflow, and a built in MAP sensor in the Megasquirt itself (kinda dumb but I can live with it) fresh wiring, no problems.