Guest Soup80 Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 Do you get any significant HP or Toque gain from using a Megasquirt EFI? I have a stock N42 head with ported intake manifold with 60mm TB, Headers, MSD and a cold air intake. I was thinking on making megasquirt my next upgrade. Will it make a difference? Excuse me if this is a stupid question...I just heard about it....and I want to hear from people who use it first hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xander Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 I have been running Megasquirt for half a year now. and run approximately 6000 miles with it. Megasquirt does not give you more horsepower. That is not what the system is for. It lets you meter the amount of fuel going into the engine a lot more accurate. A lot better than carbs anyway. The only way you can get better top end performance over a carb is if the carb was not properly adjusted in the first place. The main advantage is a matter of accuracy and flexibility. You can adjust the megasquirt for top performance thru the whole rpm and MAP range and not just at full throttle. You just cant do that with a carb. And if you ever upgrade to a bigger engine or even a v8 you can keep the megasquirt and run it on there aswell. I am soo happy that I decided not to rebuilt my flattop Hitachi's and went with megasquirt instead. I now run about 165 hp and 170 lb/ft with a stock 260Z engine and an intake manifold of a 280z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 It can give you more HP if your current system is not doing a good enough job. The stock Bosch system is set to deliver the best mix of HP and economy/emissions. Best HP would be closer to 12:1 all the time. These gains are not going to be huge, however. What it WILL allow you to do is put larger injectors in and account for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xander Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 I have my system tuned for economy right now. But last week my O2 sensor was broken. This made the car run 5% to rich. This made a good performance increase. Funny that when something stops working the car starts running stronger. This made me think. I could make some sort of cutout switch for the 02 sensor. When it is working I get good miles/gallon and when cut out I get good power. hmmm.. Xander Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baddriver Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 I too have just recently come across the megasquirt page, and I have some questions. I think I can put the thing together, wire it up to the car and get it working, but the site says you set up the system based on calculations customized for your car, and I assume you have to fill in your own fuel maps, enrichment, etc. My question is, is it possible to do all this tuning accurately without a dyno, and about how much time did it take before you were confident that you had your system running correctly? I'm familiar with electronics, and compters don't scare me a bit, but I've got no experience tuning, and I wonder if I'd be able to do it. Did the site give you enough guidance, or were there problems along the way? thanks! Jeff E. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobythevan Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 I'm in the same boat as baddriver, I have no experience tuning engines. I figure I will buy a wideband oxygen sensor to help with tuning. Maybe an EGT sensor as well, but both sensors adds up to some bucks. But using a dyno a couple times also adds up. Buying the sensors I can use them to tune other cars so I think it is worth the money. I will begin tuning my megasquirt next month so we'll see. Since my engine is turbo it is more important to get the fuel setting s correct to avoid pre-detonation and ruining the engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zcarsmakemyheadhurt Posted December 20, 2003 Share Posted December 20, 2003 Is this thing fully programable? It seems like a system that gathers info and puts the math work on. I guess this is cool for normally asperated engines and I am sure alot better than stock EFI by far. But if your depending on a regular switched O2 and the laws of physics to keep a turbocharged engine safe....I dont know. Still cool maybe for a large injector car at low boost but I worry about people like me that put turbo cars together to make alot of power. I guess I will have to wait and see what Moby does, I wish him well. Alex C Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xander Posted December 20, 2003 Share Posted December 20, 2003 The O2 sensor is not used to keep the engine "save" as you said. It is just for tuning and cruising. Above a certain load the megasquirt goes openloop anyway. But that is not any different than any other aftermarket ECU. Or stock ecu for that matter. You don't depend on assumptions or laws of physics. You depend on the right tuning of the fuel map. And I know that the megasquirt doesn't have things like knocksensing but even if your ECU hase knocksensing you should never depend on a system like that to save your engine. I well tuned engine does not knock, so a knock sensor is only a backup safety system. It is only in the last couple of years that wideband O2 sensing is applied. This offcours helps a lot. Is this thing fully programable? Yes and no. You can fully program your fuel injection and spark timing (as moby has proven to us all) but no it has no knock sensor, traction control, anti turbo lag control, wide band O2 etc... maybe the best way to discribe megasquirt is to say that is a sort of hitech replacement carb. It has all the features of a carb like accelleration enrichment and end fuel curve adjustments. nothing more nothing less. am I making any sense???? anyway I talked to another guy here in Holland. His name is Frank and he is working on a NA and turbo 280zx at the moment and after he saw my megasquirt system he decided to try megasquirt on his NA engine too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zcarsmakemyheadhurt Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 Humm....I'll be watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.