ToplessZ Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 I was wondering what you guys think about running a megasquirt on a tpi system or better yet the lt1 intake conversion found on http://www.lt1intake.com would eleminate the need for custom chip burning be cost effective and give all the advantages of a tunable stand alone efi. Thoughts opinions and ideas would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToplessZ Posted October 29, 2003 Author Share Posted October 29, 2003 Doh!!! I just posted this in the wrong forum I was searching for megasquirt info and forgot I was in the 6 cyl forum. If someone could move this to the chevy forum that would be great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aaron Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 My buddy and I have been considering doing a Megasquirt on a FI 5.0L Ford truck engine he has. He is thinking about putting it in his 60's pickup to make it a daily driver. He has the complete engine, part of the harness, but no computer, so we though the MS computer would be a nice alternative, and he can use the MSD ignition that he likes so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Perry Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 It sounds like a nice system and I would like to build one. Can you tune on the fly? my opinion is if you are doing this to avoid learning to burn chips it will be MUCH easier and cheaper to build a burner than a megasquirt. you don't have to pay someone else to burn chips. thirdgen.org has some instructions and you can find info on building EEPROM burners on the net if you don't put any car words in the search. If you can tune on the fly then that would be a nice advantage that would reduce time to get it tuned right. It takes a while if you have to burn chips for every change. in the end though you end up leaving it alone and either one will function well but the Gm factory unit will be much less work and money.. just my 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToplessZ Posted October 29, 2003 Author Share Posted October 29, 2003 Probably not necessarily easier than burning chips. But you can build a megasquirt for under 200 dollars and you have full laptop programability. Id still be willing to put my money on it as being more flexible than just burning new chips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Megasquirt has bootstrap code to reprogram the chip over the serial port. You don't need a Wilmette programmer unless you screw it up. Also, you can change variables on the fly and they will be saved permenantly on the next restart (or you can change them for temporary testing and they won't be saved.) Megasquirt is the best thing ever. Now I just have to build my harness and hook it up and stop talking smack about it before it's even running on my car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Perry Posted October 30, 2003 Share Posted October 30, 2003 When I was doing FSAE for school we had Haltech and Electromotive Tec II. It was VERY convenient to strap a laptop in the car and tune while testing in a big parking lot. Burning chips is less convenient but... you don't have to buy a fancy expensive burner to burn chips. a burner can be built for very few dollars (in the neighborhood of $20 if I remember right) and you can find the software for free. A burner would be a MUCH smaller project to put together yourself. I think either way you're gonna have to learn to troubleshoot/assemble electronic stuff so if cost is a bigger issue than convenience the burner might be a good place to start and learn some things. But also I think the factory ECM is pretty convenient because you don't have to rewire anything, you know it will work without massive troubleshooting (no specific experience with megasquirt, but I've put together quite a few complex electronic projects and you WILL be troubleshooting it at some point), and you can build a burner in a few hours to try out. Perry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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