About to get megasquirt and have a few questions

[BluDestiny]

Hey everyone,

 

I've never dealt with MS or anything like it so it's going to be a huge step for me, anyway I want to know if implementing megasquirt will allow me to get rid of my MAF.

Also will I be able to use my MSD 6AL with it?

 

This is going on my NA 81 280zx, but I soon plan to turbo my NA motor. The motor is completely stock right now

[primer&rust]

If I were you i would avoid Megasquirt. I tried it and it was just a huge waste of money that didn't work. At the very least if you buy an assembled unit from someone make sure you have everything ready to go on the car as the warranty for your assemble unit can pass quickly than you are left paying a repair bill for a computer that does not get fix properly and you are out more money. If I were to do it again I would have saved the money for a name brand unit like Electromotive Tec instead of the Radio Shack version (Megasquirt) that is plagued with problems.

[cockerstar]

primer&rust,

 

Did you assemble the unit yourself, or buy one put together already?

What kind of problems were you having?

 

Many people here have megasquirt working very well, but you have to understand that you'll be starting from scratch. Literally, you have to build the entire system from the ground up, including your tune.

Lots of time and effort involved!

[Noddle]

MS II was my first real project that I built, and yes there was a big learning curve involved in the building and wiring of my system, and a lot of reading on forums

But for me it worked out fine, the use of the stimulator helped me in understanding how it all fitted together, besides the testing of the hardware,

If I was going to do another fuel injected car, I would do MS II again.

 

If this is you primary transport to work, then I probably would not do it, since it took me a couple of weeks to build, install, figure out what I was doing, and tune it, to be drivable.

 

Nigel

Edited September 13, 2010 by Noddle

[BluDestiny]

no it isn't, I have a backup and plan to keep the car garages for about a month. Noodle, with the MS setup do you run a MAF and some type of ignition box? what is your setup like.

 

The plan is to be minimalistic, less stuff in the engine bay, only what needs to be there for the car to run.

[Noddle]

no it isn't, I have a backup and plan to keep the car garages for about a month. Noddle, with the MS setup do you run a MAF and some type of ignition box? what is your setup like. The plan is to be minimalistic, less stuff in the engine bay, only what needs to be there for the car to run.

 

I was using the distributor, and taking the RPM signal from the coil, later I moved to EDIS.

 

I don't use MAF, I use throttle position and MAP

 

you can see what I done here

 

noddle.110mb.com

 

Nigel

Edited September 13, 2010 by Noddle

[tech9]

Megasquirt is like any other open source type project, it has many "testers" and developers.

 

I took me about a year to get my megasquirt all working perfectly with all of the extras I wanted working on it.

Anyone can get a simple MSII install done within a few days, assuming you build it correctly.

 

The biggest problem I had was noise caused by my coil on plug, which is very hard to determine where the problem lies without a really good scope.

Finally got it running smooth, and its by far the most fun project i've tackled yet.

 

If you want something easy, or don't want to make custom parts, stick with a distributor.

 

I'm glad there is a huge userbase of megasquirt or I would have never figured out all my problems.

msextra.com has tons of help, as well as msefi.com

 

Also, getting rid of the maf was awesome, map+tps is by far more responsive and also more efficient in my car.

[letitsnow]

I run my MS1 with only MAP, CLT, MAT, and RPM. I have a wideband hooked up, but I don't allow any correction based on it. I don't use TPS or MAF. Right now my car runs excellent, most of the time, every now and then it will decide(for no reason at all) to reset when you nail the throttle. Also, occasionally it feels like it has slight miss at full power. At this point, I'm idly looking for good deals on z31 ecm/nistune stuff, I've gotten mine to run well enough that I don't feel the need to go to that setup, but if it presented itself at a good enough price I would go for it.IMO, the MS has some faults and poor design choices on the v3.0 board that make it finicky for some people and it needs to be revised, I'm unsure if the v3.57 took care of these.

 

There will be a TON of tweaking and searching for answers and soldering. I've built 2 and troubleshot 1.

[Derek]

I bought an assembled 3.57 Megasquirt unit from DIY auteotune. I'm running it with EDIS ignition. It runs great and it's never let me down. I daily drive my Z. I paid careful attention to proper shielding and grounding techniques and I think that has made a big difference. I also sprung for magnecor ignition wires.

Unless you have lots of experience building circuits or lots of experience tuning then I wouldn't try and bite off both. If you can't get it running right you'll always be wondering. "Did I solder the resister good enough"

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Derek

[Matt Cramer]

Hey everyone,

 

I've never dealt with MS or anything like it so it's going to be a huge step for me, anyway I want to know if implementing megasquirt will allow me to get rid of my MAF.

 

Yes - very few MegaSquirt users make use of the MAF; at most, it may be left in place to meet some racing sanctioning body's rules. The flapper type air flow meters pose a pretty huge restriction.

 

Also will I be able to use my MSD 6AL with it?

 

Yes - you can either have the distributor controlling the spark advance and feed the MegaSquirt the tach signal off the 6AL, or have the MegaSquirt control the spark and tell the 6AL when to fire. The first approach is easier if you're just getting started out, but you'll probably want spark control by the time you go turbo.

[BluDestiny]

Thanks guys.