Gauging interest for PnP Megasquirt solution, MS anyone? Options

[charliew]

I work on everything I drive, from a ramjet blazer, 91 tb 350 suburban, 86 and 88 v6 fieros and vw and subaru projects. I will eventually learn ms because of the necessity of needing a common ecu that I will know how to customize for the different applications I have. My son programs his sti subaru and I have bought the stuff to reprogram my ramjet.

I say go for it. I will be wanting to try ms in the future just for my own knowledge base to see if it is viable for my more simple projects. I will have a good running 75 with all it's fi stuff still working to play with and this sounds interesting.

[pbanders]

Jeff, Your tone is a bit acrid, and unapreciated, please tame it down. Were supposed to be friends here. James is doing market reserch, that is all, and I might add, he is doing so with class, and restraint. You're experiences are valid, and, needed in order to come up with a widely accepted solution. James has had posititive experiences with MS, and only wants to share. The worst case scenario here for you is that you sell more product, not so bad for you is it? Why don't you jump on the band wagon here, there is no reason this could'nt be a huge benifit for the whole comunity.

IMO, Jeff's tone is just fine, he didn't insult anyone and he brought up many legitimate systems engineering issues.

[jhadler]

Maybe I missed something in the descriptions in this thread. How would a MS system be implemented as a PnP? Unless the system is going to mimic CIS, you need something to signal the ECU where the crank position is. Are you intending on having this system still rely on the FI points? That would be sad, after getting away from the rest of the antiquated old hardware. A crank trigger is the way to go, but adding a crank trigger is anything but PnP.

-Josh2

[charliew]

I think the end user could decide what engine harness he wants to use. I am very capable of making my own. Only if I determine someone can build a better one for within 100.00 bucks of what it will cost me in connectors would I want to get it done by someone else. I'm sure there are guys that will always want a pnp setup but I kinda like doing as much as I can on my on. I'm retired and my job description is planning supervisor and thats what I do most every day. A crank trigger has always been in the plan for me as thats the most efficient way I know about. I am very familiar with the suby sensors and the gm stuff that I have but if a better solution comes thats simplier to use, thats ok to.

[roadster fan]

I think Jeff brings up some valid points. I think using the term plug n play is probably a stretch, but for the advanced DIY'er it could feel like PnP. I think marketing the system with a base fuel map for 1.7 and 2.0 cars would sell a few kits as that would get the beginner MS user close to a working setup.

In fact you would probably be better off in my opinion selling your expertise in the base setups for stock engine configs and leave the hardware to the end user. Make recommendations, or show what worked for you hardware wise, then sell the mini-MS boards and base setup. I would be more inclined to go MS if I had a good basis to start from to reduce the risk of destroying my motor but like the idea of tinkering with programmable EFI.

I would think anyone using an original harness would be foolish to attempt to adapt it to MS. Jeff has seen more harnesses than most of us, and the few I have seen were thrashed. In fact I am amazed my 1.7 harness still works, gonna have to address that this year (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

I think the discussion is productive as a solution for djet cars is inevitable in my humble opinion as parts continue to become scarce and pricey.

Just my .02

Jim

[BiG bOgGs]

How about this. James sets up one system that he thinks represents the basic system he is thinking of selling to the basic 914 diy'er, along with the proper harness. Sends it to one of us who presently has a running D-jet. We install and run it for a day or so, log any data for him and report how our seat of the pants dyno liked the performance of the system, and then send it on to the next guy on the list to do the same thing with. No need to remove our system, just unplug what needs to be, and plug in his harness. Then when we are done with the trial unplug his system and plug our systems back in. We could get a lot of info for him to refine his setup, and we could get a lot of input from 914er's interested in these systems.

[charliew]

A base map is just that. It won't be as good as it should be. It may not run as good as stock. It might run better but probably not in my opinion but I'll let James speak to that.

[JamesM]

I think Jeff brings up some valid points. I think using the term plug n play is probably a stretch, but for the advanced DIY'er it could feel like PnP. I think marketing the system with a base fuel map for 1.7 and 2.0 cars would sell a few kits as that would get the beginner MS user close to a working setup.

In fact you would probably be better off in my opinion selling your expertise in the base setups for stock engine configs and leave the hardware to the end user. Make recommendations, or show what worked for you hardware wise, then sell the mini-MS boards and base setup. I would be more inclined to go MS if I had a good basis to start from to reduce the risk of destroying my motor but like the idea of tinkering with programmable EFI.

I would think anyone using an original harness would be foolish to attempt to adapt it to MS. Jeff has seen more harnesses than most of us, and the few I have seen were thrashed. In fact I am amazed my 1.7 harness still works, gonna have to address that this year (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

I think the discussion is productive as a solution for djet cars is inevitable in my humble opinion as parts continue to become scarce and pricey.

Just my .02

Jim

Perhaps "Bolt-on" would be a better term to use then plug n play. As with any aftermarket part it most likely will require tuning to get it at its best, but the same goes for carbs or any other FI setup. Nothing is perfect out of the box. The goal is to have it running and driving decently out of the box with minimal install effort and no fabrication.

Im not sure how i would feel about selling my expertise. I am fine with selling my time, but i have always been a big believer in free information so anything i know on the subject i will gladly share with the community, provided it does not eat up to much of time.

My initial idea behind this was not one of turning it into a business, but more of providing what i saw as a useful solution and covering the cost of the parts and my time involved in doing it. I had spare boards from a personal project that i did not want to go to waste. Interest in this has been way more then i expected though, my supply of "extra" boards wouldn't even cover half of the people that have already spoke up, and this poll has only been up for 2 days. That being said I might have to look at a more serious production/business venture. Though various liability and support issues have been brought up that warrant strong consideration. Either way though I plan on it being an open project with information shared freely.

[JamesM]

Maybe I missed something in the descriptions in this thread. How would a MS system be implemented as a PnP? Unless the system is going to mimic CIS, you need something to signal the ECU where the crank position is. Are you intending on having this system still rely on the FI points? That would be sad, after getting away from the rest of the antiquated old hardware. A crank trigger is the way to go, but adding a crank trigger is anything but PnP.

-Josh2

the ECU gets its signal from the coil in most fuel only setups

[JamesM]

How about this. James sets up one system that he thinks represents the basic system he is thinking of selling to the basic 914 diy'er, along with the proper harness. Sends it to one of us who presently has a running D-jet. We install and run it for a day or so, log any data for him and report how our seat of the pants dyno liked the performance of the system, and then send it on to the next guy on the list to do the same thing with. No need to remove our system, just unplug what needs to be, and plug in his harness. Then when we are done with the trial unplug his system and plug our systems back in. We could get a lot of info for him to refine his setup, and we could get a lot of input from 914er's interested in these systems.

I was thinking along similar lines of selecting one or more people to be involved with testing at some point. I think there would have to be some sort of deposit involved or possibly selling the system at discount in order to ensure that my hardware does not decide to disappear on me. That would be a bit off in the future though due to that fact that i want to thoroughly test this new board design before i hand it off to anyone else. Where as my standard MS 2.2 board has been kicking butt for over 3 years now, this is not a standard 2.2 board and i am not ready to sign off on it just yet.

I would like to hear from people interested in working with me on testing though.

[JamesM]

A base map is just that. It won't be as good as it should be. It may not run as good as stock. It might run better but probably not in my opinion but I'll let James speak to that.

Well, I can tell you that the map I have on my car runs better then the d-jet did for sure. My d-jet was not perfect though and the map that is on my car was made for my car so hardly qualifies as base in that case.
I did however use it as a base when we installed a system in rsrguy's car. Despite the fact that neither one of our motors was exactly stock and in completely different ways, once the wiring was sorted (the PO really jacked this car up wiring wise) it fired right up, drove around the block, and was running a lot better then the progressive carb we pulled off of it.

To put it in a little better perspective, my motor is a 2.0 with hydro lifters, stock 2.0 intake, and euro race headers. His motor is a 2.0 with unknown internals, stock 2.0 exhaust, and for the intake we hacked up a 2.0 bus FI manifold to fit his heads, and used 1.7 injectors. The ONLY thing i changed map wise was to scale the reqFule value for the smaller injectors. Totally drivable from the second it fired. It was running a little rich though i attribute that to either the flow difference caused by the different intake/exhaust, or me not scaling the injector flow rates perfectly. Either way, it led me to be pretty confident that a map from one stock 2L would be perfectly drivable on another stock 2L because that case would be even closer then what i had already done.

...and yes, i do have both a stock 2.0 and 1.7. I will use those rather then my autox car for building the base maps.

[JamesM]

Thought I would through in a quick update on the MS/d-jet project. Due to the fact that I work 70 hour weeks and the added issue of all the random snow/sleet/hail/rain storms we have had here lately, I have not been able to test with the car as much as I would like. The latest board setup I made is working though, the install was pretty simple (MUCH cleaner then my install using the standard MS/Relay) and it fired right up with no fuss. The weather seems to be clearing up now so hopefully I will get some time with it out on the road. I have an autox in a couple weeks so that should be the first real world test of the new board. I have a temp probe setup to monitor the environment inside the ECU casing so I can get some idea where we are at temperature wise with the ECU mounted in the engine compartment.

With the idea of producing these things for other people now in my head I have been focusing my thoughts a lot more on simplifying the build process for both myself and anyone who might be installing it. One of the issues I was looking at is the time and effort required for me to build one of these. While I do prefer the install using the minims board rather then the standard megasquirt board, there are still some tedious assembly steps that I would like to simplify, the biggest one being soldering all the jumper wires directly to the ECU connector. This is an annoying task to say the least, and while I have been happy with the result of my work thus far, I would be a lot happier knowing the connector was soldered directly to a PCB rather then jumper wires. This line of thought has led me down the path of designing a simple PCB to mount the connector to and then jumpering from one board to the other in order to facilitate a cleaner/stronger install. For the moment this is going to increase my time and money involved in this project however in a production environment I think something along these lines is the way to go. My other thought along these lines involve integrating the d-jet connector into the actual PCB for the ECU and enlarging the PCB at the same time in order to mount the same way as the d-jet PCB did. This would greatly increase the speed of the build as I would basically be just swapping one PBC for another without a bunch of custom wiring. This however takes me out of the realm of just getting rid of my spare boards and more into a full production situation, so even though I would like to do it I am pushing it to the back burner for now. Plus I have not found any PCB design software that I like enough to take the time to do this yet.

Another exciting (at least I think it is) development. I have the sort of brain that does not like to shut down at night, so 3am comes around, lying in bed, and all of a sudden it hits me to see if I can modify a megasquirt board to send switched power to the injectors similar to the way that d-jet does rather then switched ground which is how MS normally works, thereby eliminating the need to add the return wires to the ECU with the wiring harness. The hardest part of the install right now from an end user point of view is determining which 2 of the 3 ground connections are the ones you need to use, this should eliminate that, as well as the extra wires all together. I may have just been delirious from it being 3am but I went and looked at one of the boards and I think it will be a pretty easy mod. I am not sure why I, or anyone else, never thought to do this before.

I am going to build another board tomorrow with that and a couple other mods I have thought up and see if it works out.



As much fun as this is I wish my brain would shut off once in a while; maybe I could get some sleep at night. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yellowsleep[1].gif)

[JamesM]

A couple other smaller issues i need to investigate , that maybe someone has some input on.

1. With the new board setup i am pulling all the power for the megasquirt through the stock harness, while this does make everything look nice an clean it has had the strange side effect of keeping power to the MS system for about 5 seconds after the key is shut off. not a deal breaker at this point but it is high on my priority list to sort out as it is annoying. I am not sure if this is due to a sticky main relay on the stock relay board, or perhaps something else. I have not had time to investigate this yet but maybe someone out there has some ideas?

2. The throttle position sensor setup. I have been thinking a lot about this as it is probably the biggest area I would like to find a development of some sort. Right now the options are
A. Eliminate it all together, which would allow a stock look but i do not like mainly due to losing the flood clear feature but also due to losing throttle position in datalogs.
B. Chop up a d-jet TPS to make an adaptor. While this enables everything to work the way it is supposed to i am not to happy with it because it involves sourcing a d-jet TPS, destroying a d-jet TPS, and on 2L motors does not look stock due to the fact that i have not found a decent TPS that fits completely inside the old one. Not really an issue on 1.7s as it is hidden under the throttle body. Also it is another PITA tedious thing to construct. It works fine, but i have a feeling a better soultion is out there. Looking for input here as well.

[JamesM]

A few pics up for fun....


This is the box currently in my test car. The extra wires are to run things like my wideband 02 and ignition control. When stuffed behind the battery it looks stock. I have not got around to blasting and painting the exterior yet.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i48.photobucket.com-5834-1272926992.1.jpg)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i48.photobucket.com-5834-1272926993.2.jpg)

3/32 jack used for programing. I wired it up to use the cable from the LC-1 wideband, its a nice, small, hidden connector. next to that is the MAP port, and then all the wires to run the "extra" stuff i have on my car.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i48.photobucket.com-5834-1272926993.3.jpg)

compairson of the MS2.2 system i pulled out to my new system that went in. I never intended the origianl system to say in as long as it did as it was pretty much hacked together for testing purposes. Still works great though.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i48.photobucket.com-5834-1272926994.4.jpg)

[BiG bOgGs]

I have nothing of importance to add to help your problem solving. I just wanted to add my encouragement.

I am ready to start negotiations with "she who must be obeyed" as soon as you have something ready to go.

[ThinAir]

I'm late to this thread, but finding it very interesting. My vote in the poll was "I'm interested" and "price is no object" because it wouldn't let me skip the price question.

I'm running a stock 2.0L engine with stock FI. Although upgrading to a Jeff Bowlsby harness has given me a system that is very reliable, it's really only a matter of time before there some component that goes out which cannot be obtained or replaced for any price. So yes I'm interested in a system made of modern components that I could install by simply unplugging what I'm got, then plug in the new system and have a running car that was ready to be optimized. I don't care if that's call "bolt-on" or "PnP".

I don't care if it reuses my existing harness (although it would be nice). What I care about is that gives me a way to easily remove what I consider to be the 914's Achilles heal - an aging FI system. So everyone involved in contributing ideas gets my support!

[Markl]

Looks great, James. I'm putting a MS3 system together right now - I'd stop and put one of yours together instead. I haven't found a TPS yet, so no help on that. I'd be willing to modify the existing one - it's not going to last forever anyway.

[JamesM]

Bosch 0 280 122 001 might work for you.

Its used on a whole bunch of different cars. It has the correct shaft shape and can be mounted on the plate from the stock TPS at about a 45 deg angle if you space it out about half an inch.

Thats what i have been using for the last 3 years anyways. I would like to find a cleaner looking soultion though.

Looks great, James. I'm putting a MS3 system together right now - I'd stop and put one of yours together instead. I haven't found a TPS yet, so no help on that. I'd be willing to modify the existing one - it's not going to last forever anyway.

[type47]

I have a schedule to have an engine running within 3 months and would love a modern digital FI system. Would one of yours be ready for me? I'm willing to be a Guinea Pig for your R & D ... at my expense.

[the head]

if the price comes in at that $250 or so range I am definitely interested as it makes swapping nuked junkyard type 4s into my new lemons rig a breeze, and I have enough in my budget at this time to snap this up ahhh the joys of cheap cars with expensive parts inside would this eliminate the MPS as well?