hoohaa

I want to use Ford EDIS for my ignition. I am a little confused by the megamanual in steps 50-52. Doesn't the EDIS use a VR trigger? Why does the MegaManual tell you to set it up like a hall/optical trigger? I'm not exactly sure what to do and what not to do in those steps. I basically did everything except the very last part of step 52 where it actually specifies to choose VR or Hall/optical jumper setups. I went with the VR jumper setup: "52. Select the tach input circuit with jumpers: For the VR sensor: Jumper VRIN to TACHSELECT on the bottom side of the PCB (near the DB37, opposite the heat sink.) Jumper TSEL to VROUT (Or VROUTINV if you want the VR input to be inverted) on the bottom side of the PCB, near the center." That's what I did. I am a little worried about steps 50 and 51 though. Am I supposed to set up both a Hall/optical circuit and a VR circuit to use EDIS? The Megamanual states: " In most cases, you should install both circuits, and make the selection between them with jumpers." That's great, but it really makes things like step 52 confusing when it tells you that you must choose one or the other. I'm using EDIS. What should I do/not do out of 50-52?

I've built the power supply and the serial communications block of the MSII now, I've got the processor installed, and it's time to start making decisions. I'm planning to control my VG30ET with the MSII using 440cc injectors and a Ford EDIS-6 ignition. Boost control could come in the future. I seem to remember hearing about 16x16 VE tables and what not, along with other improvements with the MSII, but I can't seem to track info down on MSII extra if it even exists, on the MSefi pages. Am I imagining this? If it's available, why should/should I not run MSII extra vs. the plain MSII code? What's available in MSII extra that's not in MSII code?

Oh ok, I was thinking it might be sooner than that. I just about completed the MegaStimulator. That was easy! This stuff is great fun.

I've got tools, you have lots more knowledge and experience megasquirting and turbocharging the VG30... Sounds like a good trade to me! When will you and your vehicle be in Dallas? The MSII arrived yesterday! I'm going to build the stimulator today and then tackle the MSII this weekend. Can't wait!

Very nice! Thanks for posting those screenshots up! Are you really going with 270cc injectors?

I checked my 94 pathfinder FSM for the CHTS values, but I could not find any mention of them. The engine electrical diagram shows a CHTS but it is not mentioned anywhere else. Sorry about that, maybe the 94 pathy VG30E doesn't use the CHTS.

I don't think I am registered on ricekiller, but I am on z31performance, and vgpowered. I believe we have chatted over there before. There's another guy with a VG30ET in a pathfinder, GrayZee I believe, but he's up in Ontario. Heck yeah I would love some help and I'm sure I will need it at some point in the future. I would also love to drop by and turn some wrenches with you and pick your brain if you could ever use some help. I've got a couple welders, drill press, access to a plasma cutter, 12 ton press, dry cut chopsaw, and other stuff. Let me get this straight, you previously had a MSnS extra controlled VG30ET, right? But now you are doing something different? Another VG30 in a Z31, but controlled with MSII, right? I am sure I will have questions for you... How far along are you on the MSII build? Mine is going to arrive today and I'm ready to start building for the most part. How did you like the T3/T04e? I read on your page that you hit 18psi on it and maxed your injectors out.

Just wanted to drop in and say "hey". Looks like we're in the same boat. I just placed my order for the MSII on Sunday, and it's going in my VG30ET. If you don't mind, I would love to hear all about your progress, and I'll definitely share mine. What are you planning to do for injectors? Turbo? What's your HP goal? EDIS or stock dizzy? I'm planning to run Ford CFI 450cc injectors on an early Z31 top feed rail, and probably a T3/T4 with a decent sized Chinese eBay intercooler. I'm planning to take a while to do a really meticulous job on the wiring harness and clean up the engine bay at the same time. BlozUp has published some info on MSI in a VG30 on www.blozup.com, but our setups will be significantly different since we're going MSII (I assume).

That is great that you had your wife in there working switches! I showed the picture to my wife and explained what you had your wife do. Just wanted to let her know how bad it could be.

The deed is done. I ordered a MSII DIY kit, the stimulator, an open element and closed element sensors for IAT and CLT, and pullup resistors. I can't wait to receive the kit and start building! My main question at this point is about a wideband. I have not been able to determine when the Precision Wideband Controller is supposed to become available. I would love to use that controller, but if it won't be available for a long long time I'm going to have to look into other options. I'm looking for a cheaper alternative to the LC1, which I will have to buy if I can't find another option. Anyone have info on this?

I just wanted to drop in and introduce myself. I have been lurking in these forums for a LONG time now, soaking up all the info I can on Nissan MS applications I can. There is a whole lot of good MS info here. It's amazing how many forum members there are here with such extensive MegaSquirt experience. Thank you all for advancing MegaSquirt development and use by sharing your knowledge and experience. Your comments have been invaluable to me. My name is Bryan and I'm rebuilding a VG30 right now in my garage in Dallas Texas that I'm going to MegaSquirt. The VG is going into a Pathfinder and there will be a turbo thrown into the mix. I'm tentatively planning on using a Pathfinder manifold, TPS, and distributor, an early Z31 top feed fuel rail with 450cc Ford CFI injectors, the stock pathy bottom end freshened up with new Nissan bearings, homebuilt mild steel turbo manifolds with 1/2" flanges feeding either a T3 .60 AR or a T3/T4 turbo or something else that will work well and spool up fast. I currently have an automatic transmission in the pathfinder but I'm planning to swap it out for a Z31 T5 5 speed. I haven't yet decided on an intercooler, knock sensor, wideband, or exhaust system. I'll do the best I can on my small budget. I'm debating an EDIS setup. I will probably hit the junkyard the next time they have a half price weekend and snatch up an EDIS-6 setup and CFI injectors at the same time. I'm having a hard time resisting. The time has come to order the MegaSquirt. On BlozUp's recommendation I am going for the MSII. I'm going to take my time building the MS and I'm also planning to do a really good job building a wiring harness at the same time. I want to do it right and therefore avoid doing it more than once, so I'm planning to go all out with weatherpack connectors, a decent labeling system, soldered connections all around, lots of heat shrink and good shielding all around. I'm planning to buy from DIYautotune simply because Matt Cramer has contributed so much to my knowledge (though he doesn't even realize) over the last year as I have researched and researched on forums and through google searches on whatever MS topic. I am working with a tight budget and a drive to do as much as I possibly can in my own garage. I see this as an opportunity to further my learning into the areas of electronics and fuel injection and engine control theory. Let's not leave out the satisfaction of driving a turbocharged Nissan when the project is finished as another motivating factor So THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to this forum over the years!

Don't have an answer to your question but I do want to hear more about your setup! Pming you.

Sweet. Thank you very much. This is exactly what I have been waiting for. This will save me a load of time. I see a couple places that sell stainless steel exhaust studs, but with the .50" thick flange I think I will need longer studs. Do you know of a place that sells longer studs? Thanks

Have you heard back from your buddy yet? I am ready to start building, so if he can have them made that would save me a lot of time. Let me know. Thanks bro.

Just as an update for those that were following this story, I did get an email back from Grippo. This is what he wrote: Ouch. At least now I know it wasn't an accident. I'm still not sure why this topic hit such a nerve over there. Enough of that. I wanted to comment on this post: Think about the way a lightning rod works. It is designed to provide the quickest path to ground so that the lightning hits the rod rather than electronics in the home. There are significant differences between EMP and lightning, but the protection is similar. The goal is to provide a shield with a very quick path to ground. A "plain old metal box" works well as a shield because it completely surrounds the electronic device, it can be isolated from the device, and it is very easy to ground. Also cheap to build. Possibly more important even than the box built around the MS is the shielding around the MS wiring harness. To me this is the biggest challenge. I am not going to come up with anything that would even remotely interest the govt. or military. They are already so far beyond what I'm trying to do it's ridiculous.

Some of the MS licensed dealers also sell braided shielding that is supposed to work well. You could check that out if you needed some. I would imagine there are other sources such as electronics supply sites etc.

As far as testing is concerned, I don't plan to actually submit the MS to EMP in any strength, but I was wondering if I might be able to make an educated guess at the protection level based on the MS's susceptibility to RFI or EMI. Maybe there is a correlation between EMP strength and RFI/EMI strength. If this is the case I should be able to see how well the system shields the MS circuitry from interference, and then decide from there which components need better or more shielding. I know this might not work, simply because there is such a large difference in the power of an EMP compared to the kinds of interference I could create and measure. It's worth considering though. If nothing else it would tell me if the shielding would not work. While I couldn't guarantee that the shielding would protect me from EMP, if the MS is found to be susceptible to lower power RFI or EFI, we could presume that a significant EMP would toast it. What do you guys think of that as a realistic testing method?

Well this isn't specifically about nuclear EMP's, it's more about shielding from any source of EMP or strong EMI/RFI. I will respond anyways, I just hope we can keep it on topic. If we get off track in talking about nuke EMP maybe I will start a new thread in general chat to keep this thread on topic. That being said, I do think a discussion of one of the possible sources of EMP will allow us to better understand what we could shield from. I don't know what type of EMP air burst would be the most likely, but the higher the air burst, the more widespread the EMP, and the lower the potential radiation dose. IIRC an air burst at 300 miles altitude would create an EMP which would effect the entire contiguous United States from coast to coast. At that altitude the effects of fallout would be much less severe than a ground burst or even a lower altitude air burst. Of course, if an EMP attack were to occur, would it be more likely to come from a low tech organization with a nuke or EMP bomb delivered by a cruise missile or something like that, or would it come from a country with an ICMB that would be capable of a 300 mile air burst, or maybe it would be the result of an accident? I don't know. I do know that the types of protection and shielding are similar either way. In the event of a high altitude air burst, the EMP would be very widespread, but it would also be less powerful than a low altitude burst, assuming the same size warhead. I think that being able to shield the MS from a high altitude EMP from a lower yield device might be very possible. Something localized, whether some sort of a RFI gun or a low alt. burst or some other source of strong EMI or RFI would probably be tougher, if not impossible for me. Either way, it's still an interesting topic to discuss (well, for me at least) even if I can't be 100% certain that I am shielded from everything possible. One of my questions is whether or not to tie the shielding into MS's grounds as you would for low power RFI shielding. What do you guys think? I would be a little worried about doing that, maybe it would be better to leave the heavy shielding isolated from the MS as much as possible. Maybe even two layers of shielding would be good, one of them being the normal type of low power RFI shielding tied into the MS grounds, and then heavy shielding tied into the sheet metal box but left isolated from MS. Again, let's keep this on topic. This thread is not about disaster prep, it's about shielding the MS. If we need to let's start a thread in general about disaster prep to keep this thread clean.

That is funny. I laughed when I read that. To me the project is the fun part and since I am planning a MS install anyways, what better time than now to do some heavy duty shielding? If I am not able to shield the electronics I am not going to lose sleep, so shielding the garage is out of the question. haha, I did laugh at that though.

The only other thread I have started in this section was about me getting banned from MSEFI. That was locked "because (it was) not a megasquirt topic".

I just find the topic interesting, that's all. I am not out to "convert" anyone. A "success" in my mind would be designing a good shielding system, one that should work in the event of EMP.

I am posting this because it is a topic that interests me very much. I understand that some folks feel it is not worth discussing, but I hope they will have enough respect to allow those that do have an interest in the topic to discuss it. I have always had an interest in protecting stuff from EMP. One of the negatives to owning a newer car for me is the delicate computer that controls the engine versus a simple carb/points ignition of the older cars. Adding the MS has lots of gained benefits, but the susceptibility to EMP is a drawback for me. I am trying to explore the possibility of protecting the MS and as much of the related wiring and sensors as possible from EMP. A couple of notes: EMP can be caused by a variety of devices, including, but not limited to, nuclear weapons. A very strong EMP would probably fry everything no matter how well I tried to protect it. I don't even know that it would be possible to protect the MS from a relatively small EMP. I might find that it's just too difficult to do. At this point I am just tossing ideas around. My plans so far are to build a sheet metal box that will house the MS and to use some sort of conduit to shield the wiring harness as it leaves the protected box. In my opinion the most difficult aspect will be shielding the wiring harness, since the various wires will act as antennas and pick up damaging charges regardless of how well protected the MS is. I know that some of the more sensitive wires in the harness can be easily shielded from RFI by simply running a shield along the wire and then grounding the shield to one of the MS grounds. One of the things I wonder about is whether it would be a good idea to tie the EMP shielding to MS's grounds or whether to leave it separate. Let's say I did tie the shielding to MS's grounds; what could possibly happen? Another question I have is how to terminate the shields on the wiring harness. Should the shielding terminate to the engine block in the case of, say, a knock sensor, or should it be floating, only attached to the box? Flexible steel conduit seems to me like the best option for shielding. The stuff is cheap, flexible, thick, and comes with connectors that would allow me to easily attach it to the MS box. I have seen zippered shielding though, and it's supposed to be pretty good. That might be something to look into as well, it would certainly be easier to use. An example of the zippered stuff can be found here: http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/24222 This is an example of the flexible conduit I'm talking about: http://www.easternwire.com/flex-home.html Again, I know some folks don't see this as an appropriate topic for discussion. I simply ask that you show the same respect to me that you would hope for if and when you have a more off-the-wall question for the forums. Discussion of movie science will probably come up and that's fine, just realize it is probably meant jokingly.

I like the way you think.

Thank you, I really appreciate that.

I read up on that. Those regulations about "receiving interference" don't mean you are not allowed to do anything to stop the interference, such as shielding; rather, they mean that the FCC won't do jack about interference you are receiving on an unregistered device (such as the MS). I wonder what would happen if I just asked about heavy shielding against excessively strong RFI and EMI under a different name.