Matt Cramer

You need to use Basic Trigger, and the Trigger Angle / Offset needs to be adjusted so the spark timing you see with a timing light matches what you see in the tuning software. (The correct number will depend on how the distributor has been adjusted.) Toothed Wheel is only used when you have a missing tooth type wheel, or two separate trigger wheels working together. Basic Trigger is what you use for six equally spaced pulses.

MS3 has another feature to help with injectors like the Bosch Motorsports 150 / 160 lb/hr ones. They don't have a very linear response at low pulse widths. MS3 has an "injector small pulse widths" table you can enable to compensate for this.

Several reasons. Obviously, part of it is money. A unit sold through a counterfeiter instead of one built by Bowling & Grippo or licensed from them is money B&G and their authorized distributors won't get. And these counterfeiters I'm talking about are commercial operations, not somebody who's made a couple one-offs in his basement for personal use. Second reason is they put a drain on support that is financed by the above sales. There have been quite a few times people bought a counterfeit ECU and came to me for support, or posted on the MegaSquirt forums trying to get help they couldn't get from the original seller (which are paid for out of the Bowling & Grippo budget). Third reason is quality. There have been several very poorly done MegaSquirt ripoffs - one that comes to mind is the now defunct Fuel Injection Pro, who built a lot of ECUs for the Starion / Conquest community. Whoever laid out their board had no idea how to size PCB traces. I've personally seen two of their ECUs (and been emailed pictures of several more) with the exact same burned point on the injector control trace because it is way too thin to carry serious amounts of current. Poorly made knock offs can give a correctly designed original a bad reputation if people don't realize they are fakes.

There are a couple details about the copyright notice that they're hammering out and then they will release the MS3 source code. The MS3 daughter card schematics are being kept under wraps, but the MS3X schematics have been released a couple months ago. We have had a bit of trouble with several European counterfeiting operations, and while that isn't a guaranteed way to stop them from making knock-offs, it may make it difficult enough they'd have an equally easy time copying something more expensive.

I'm convinced there is some sort of external wiring problem here - that is usually the case if the MS will get RPM on the Stim but not on the car. You might want to try going back to triggering off the coil, with the MS set up exactly the same way on the Stim as on the car and the input through the optoisolator.

We checked both. The raw signal from the sensor just went crazy at high RPM - we may have to get him to bring back this car if we decide to test out an "ultimate" VR conditioner on the grounds that if it can handle this crank trigger, it can handle anything.

There are several different instructions with different values for the zener diode. We have opted to use 22 volts in our kits.

To get RPM with a standard Stim, you have to turn off the wheel decoder - user either Basic Trigger or Fuel Only for testing. Is this one close enough? http://ms3efi.com/

Could you please post the whole MSQ?

IIRC, you should be able to take a stereo plug and jumper the middle section to the tip for a homemade terminator plug.

I believe Moby is referring to the relay board - the MS itself only has switched power, but the relay board has an always-on connection.

You can open the MSQ that you tried to load to the ECU with NotePad and see what version it's for.

This guy keeps a database of stations that sell it: http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp

Just checking - you didn't load an MSQ from a different firmware version by any chance, did you? That can scramble the firmware sometimes.

Yes, you'll need a few mods - see this link in the MS1/Extra manual: http://www.msextra.com/doc/ms1extra/MS_Extra_Hardware_Manual.htm#launchC

Thanks, glad to hear it was helpful to you!

It's a 0 to 5 volt square wave.

That is not a combination I'd recommend - I am not sure 7 or 8 pin HEI modules are at all compatible with the optical trigger. It would make more sense to use an ignition module from an Optispark equipped LT1 if you have an urge to add GM parts. (The Optispark was a Nissan ignition grafted onto a smallblock Chevy.)

What firmware are you running?

First, set your trigger angle to 10 degrees if it is not somewhere near there already. If it's more like 90 degrees (which would be normal for a stock L28ET '82-'83 distributor), it won't start. Some brands of modules apparently don't like having the VREF connected until the engine is running. Try connecting the VREF after the engine is started and see what happens.

The VB921s had a pretty high failure rate. You may need to replace it.

Is it using a VB921 or a BIP373 for spark output?

Do you have any data logs of the problem you could post?

Are you getting the MegaSquirt's tach signal from the MSD box's tach output?

2 volts should be more like 80 kPa than 40. I'd check to be sure this is getting all the way to the processor and that you haven't somehow accidentally set it for a 115 kPa sensor in the Configurator.