Ok...

I'm converting my basically stock 2.0L (stock cam, euro Ps and Cs) over to microsquirt. Microsquirt is a megasquirt-derived fuel injection computer that's robot-soldered and factory encased in a weatherproof enclosure. The I/O is implemented as a single, 35-position weatherproof connector. The whole thing is about the size of 2 decks of cards.

The system I'm installing was engineered and supplied 100% by McMark. My understanding is that he usually provides these systems for motors that he builds, but I talked him into providing one for me. Below, I will document the install details here for anyone else who talks McMark into selling them a system, or who attempts something similar someday.

DISCLAIMER: I won't provide model numbers, prices, or any other info like that in this thread -- please contact McMark directly for those types of details. All I can say is that you get what you pay for and this is a top-notch system that will work for the remaining life of the car.

The system provides the following components new:

• 4 new injectors
• 4 new ignition coils
• a MAP sensor
• a crank postion sensor (CPS)
• a crank position trigger wheel
• an oxygen sensor and brain
• a throttle position sensor
• a new custom wiring harness
• miscellaneous mounting brackets, blank-off plates, plugs, fuse blocks, etc.

The system repurposes the following items:

• intake air temp sensor
• cyl head temp sensor

the system eliminates or replaces the following stock items:

• MPS
• decel valve
• cold start valve
• AAR
• thermotime switch
• distributor
• main FI wiring harness
• fuel injectors
• a pile of vacuum hoses

This system has the following key advantages over the stock system:

• As we all know, the stock FI computer controls only fuel, and spark is controlled with mechanical and vacuum advance at the distributor. The MS computer controls both fuel and spark which allows me to optimize both power and fuel economy under all load conditions.
• This is a closed-loop system, meaning it adjusts fuel and spark in real-time based on the lambda/AFR in the exhaust.
• This system uses brand new, modern components with a brand new wiring harness.
• This system will scale up to larger motors easily -- just tune a new fuel map, same sensors, same wiring harness.
• I get to plug my laptop into my 40-year-old car, which I think is cool.

The high level install details are:

1. Drop engine
2. Remove all the old FI stuff
3. Install new FI stuff
4. Reinstall engine
5. rough tune on the street
6. fine tune on the dyno
7. drive it a lot

Of course, I am doing a bunch of "while i'm in there" stuff -- replacing motor mounts, engine bay seals, gaskets, fuel hose, cleaning things, etc. etc. etc.

OK, enough babbling, on to the install!

I started off by removing my motor. This was my first engine drop and I feel obligated to say "it wasn't as bad as I thought!"

Note that i used Racer Chris' engine plate which made this so easy a caveman could do it. I more or less followed McMark's procedure on this site, but had a few extra steps to contend with because of my aux oil cooler, cyl head temp sensor, amplifier and other items.

Here's the car with no motor in it:


Here's the motor removed, with all the stock fuel injection installed:


Here's the motor stripped of fuel injection and induction:


Here's the stock fuel injection wiring harness, computer, and components, ready to be retired. This stuff came off quickly and it felt good to be putting it out of service, like retiring a hall of fame pitcher that's past his prime or something.



Here's my car, patiently waiting for its smarter powerplant:


I'm correcting some items while I have the motor out, for example, I went to replace the throttle body gasket and couldn't....because when I took the TB off there was no gasket at all!! Lots of little things too, like missing fasteners in the engine tin and this flap missing from the impeller housing --> heater branch feed (that's Racer Chris' engine plate in the bottom of the pic):


Next I removed the fan shroud and installed the pickup wheel and pickup. I documented my fan shroud removal adventures in another recent thread.


Here are some closeup detail shots of the trigger wheel and pickup, which show the gap (about 1mm) and angle. McMark supplied the special bracket which positions the pickup at that location. Note that this is 100% bolt-on -- no fabrication required.










Note that before the fan shroud goes back on, you need to connect the magnetic pickup to the wiring harness. I used a dremel to make a notch in the engine tin around the passenger side J tube, put in a grommet and ran the sensor cable through that. The pickup wire runs along the same basic path as the oil temp sensor wire.

That's it for now, my goal is to have this on the road by the end of October...

More pics to come as I make more progress!

Jeez Rich,

How bout a little degreaser in there...

Not gonna say anything bout them galley plugs....


Very curious to how it's gonna work, especially with the butt dyno....



Joe

I know joe, a little embarassing...Believe it or not, that's after a single pass with simple green!

Deep cleaning is something I am saving for the rebuild. Just want to get this guy back on the road ASAP.

subscribed! I think McMark will get alot of orders for this, I'll be gettin' in the line, I know...

I winder how big we can go with the stock plenum, tb and intake runners

I think Mark told me 2270, which is the size I'm targeting for my eventual rebuild.

McFuelInjection is going to really catch on... Are you going to go with my distributor replacement idea? Or are you going to stay stealth and have your distributor in place?

Sean isn't talking about displacement. He is wondering how big the air delivery to the displacement can be. I would guess it will depend on the sensors you choose to run your system on. Vacuum signal becomes undependable with big cams and overlap. Get too big with the runners and velocity may become an issue.

Ya, same old issue, maybe a flow bench is in order.

This is very cool!

my question was aimed at displacement. max rpm would be a factor. I was thinking about a 95mm x 80mm and keep the rpm below 6000.
wouldnt a MAF (instead of MAP) overcome the vacuum signature issue?

many pardons...

The vacuum signal issue is two fold. I know you know this Sean but for others reading the thread the problem is getting rid of pulsations caused by the 4 different intake runners by using a common plenum and the low vacuum caused by performance cams. I think you're right Sean, a MAF would be an answer but I can't use one with SDS and I don't know if you can with Mega and Microsquirt.

With SDS the common solution is to operate with TPS or throttle position sensor as your fuel control. This is no better than carbs when it comes to altitude as you have to retune for altitude changes.

Sorry for the hijack. Your Microsquirt system will work. Mark has used it before...

Porsche used a vacuum plenum to get a usable vacuum signature

each throttle body is vac tapped to the plenum. this vac sig is used to modulate fuel pressure regulators under load
no MAFs in teh 80s yet
you can use a MAF and 2 air temps to calc density. solves altitude issue. (theoretical speculation since I have not done this config yet)

car porn hijack...
my next 914 engine

Distributor is out, never to be installed again (if all goes according to plan). Mark is making one of these plugs for me now... should have it installed next week.

Marks set up is super-clean. no dizzy, no vac lines webbing everywhere. I cant wait to see it

I'll be watching.

I must agree I expected cleaner....lol
We joke in fun Rich...


Rich

I ran into problems trying to use MAP, the vacuum was not steady enough to tune the VE table. I had to pass a Two Speed Idle test for inspection. I then try to use TPS instead, this also failed inspection test. The TPS/VE table did not know the difference between no-load and load. I then went to MAF using a Ford MAF sensor,
the car now passes inspection as the MAF measures the air flow which is difference
between load and no-load. The engine also runs great now it idles at 600 RPM's and is smooth as silk.

All these changes were made on a stock 1.7 ltr engine using Megasquirt running MS1-extra software.

Click to view attachment

....ok if this works well....I'm headed North to McMark's.

Made some more progress tonight.

Not MS install related directly, but while the engine is out I decided to install an oil pressure sender. I sourced the stainless hose from a paintball shop per Rich Towle's suggestion -- it had the right threads, right length, and was cheap (1/8" NPT). The tee and clamp i got from mcmaster, along with a bunch of fasteners.

VDO makes a unit that contains both a pressure sender and pressure switch, but the switch in that unit is set to trigger @ 7psi. The stock switch is set to trigger @ 2psi, so I wanted to retain the stock unit. 7psi is about what the oil pressure is at idle, and seeing the oil pressure light flicker at idle would just make me constantly nervous.

The stainless hose is nice because it provides a solid connection to ground for both the switch and the sender.

Installing that hose in the block was super easy with the fan shroud off. With the fan shroud on, it's probably still possible, but quite difficult to access -- even my flex head box wrench wouldn't fit through the engine tin. A crow's foot might do it.



Here are my new gauges. My center console will contain (from bottom to top) a new voltmeter, oil temp, oil pressure, cyl head temp, and AFR. The AFR gauge is still in transit.





Most of the wiring harness is installed. I'm still waiting for some fasteners from McMaster to attach the ignition coils, should be here tomorrow. i'm using the port on the DS fuel rail that used to feed the cold start valve to feed a fuel pressure gauge.

I also bought Racer Chris' fuel hose kit with the flat clamps and installed them.


Here are the custom brackets McMark made to mount the ignition coils. They mount to the stock intake manifold studs using coupling nuts. Pretty slick!



I also replaced the motor mounts and installed the engine bar, fan shroud, impeller, belt and heat parts.



That's it for now, I'll pick it up again over the weekend.

Nice work. This is cool!

Going in the mail tomorrow...

Can't wait!

Mark -- i found this link talking about how to wire up the innovate G5 gauge, looks straightforward

Some progress this weekend.

I got the ignition coils mounted and the rest of the wiring harness installed. Here's what the ignition coils look like installed on Mark's custom brackets:


Here's a closeup of the coil install, notice where the ground pickup is -- right on the bracket:



Here's the wiring harness all dressed in. I also replaced all the engine tin and fan shroud screws (and in many cases, installed screws that were missing altogether) with stainless socket head cap screws. That blue paper towel in the distributor cavity will soon be replaced with a sweet OC plug!


I also mounted the MAP sensor and O2 sensor brain the factory location for the MPS. Per Mark's suggestion, to mount the O2 brain, I reformed a stainless P clamp to the profile of the O2 brain and lined the inside of the clamp with gasket material. My other idea was to get another air cleaner mount and attach it to the passenger side intake runners, and then mount the O2 brain to that. I like this better.


I noticed a small hole in the back of the MAP sensor. I thought this might have been the sensor's atmosphere reference (why else would there be a hole in the housing?), so I drilled a hole in the bracket to provide access -- check out the second hole from the right:


I'm also modifying the ash tray to become an iphone mount. Made some progress on that today also:



I also got the interior disassembled to prepare for the gauge install, and designed my new gauge panel face. The small hole is for a toggle switch that turns my audio amplifier on and off:


That's it for now. Tomorrow I'm stopping by youdoit electronics on my way home to get what I need to make up my new gauge wiring harness.

Sean, that is nice. What is it though?

Very nice! You will enjoy it.

Rich, is the top as viewed or is the panel upside down? That 1/2" border isn't enough to clear the top bracket/brace.

What AFR gauge did you buy...and where are you going to mount it?

Thanks for this....and cool little distributor block off Mark.

It may be tough to see in the pic, but that is a 1.5" border around the top.

Don't forget that gasket/grommet for the oil pressure hose where it goes through the tin...

I think it's 021.119.957 oil pressure boot. I found it at busdepot.com but NLA on pelican.

Found it

Thanks Jim!!

Third page.
Slacker


Rich

Ha.

I did do some work this week, I had to build my own wiring harness for the new gauge cluster. I have a buddy making up the face out of 1/8" stainless...a long story, he owed me a favor and that's what he had.

I also installed the new temp sender. Let's hope that weird combo of seals in the taco plate holds oil!

New harnesses are on the way from Jeff Bowlsby for my alternator and ignition. With Mark's new FI harness, I could't put the 40 y/o tired ones back in the car in good conscience.

Will post some pics tonight

Progress!
Got the interior pulled apart to get the new wires run for the gauges and iphone integration.



I mocked up the gauge panel in cardboard to build the wiring harness while the panel is being fabbed at the metal shop. I test-fit the gauges with the amplifier installed in the center console -- it just fit! I'd rather be lucky than smart...





phew!!



I installed a new grounding point, then ran the new wires for the oil pressure gauge, AFR gauge, and serial communications to the microsquirt. Then the center console went back in.







I also replaced my ignition harness and alternator harness with Bowlsby ones, plus i replaced my starter-to-battery cable with a new one. I had the 4 gauge cable lying around and the old one looked crusty.

old and new ignition harness


old and new alternator harness


new starter cable


new cabling attached to the starter


When I took the alternator off to install the harness, I noticed my boot was a shadow of its former self . Fortunately Mark Heard had one in good shape to send me


That's it for now -- getting close to done!

Looks like you already had to mod the base plate on your console to fit the Rennshifter?

Yep, I had to make it a little bit larger.

Just thought of something, check the coil ground, as installed, by using an ohm meter between the showing portion of the ring connector and the case. Just to be on the safe side.

I will do tomorrow and report back

Just saw this question

I got the innovate g5 gauge -- $70 with shipping via amazon. I liked this gauge because it matches the style of the VDO gauges. I'm mounting it in my center console, you can see it mocked up in cardboard in the thread above.

Looking good Rich. I had the same staggered 3/2 set up but went to a staggered 2/3 when I found the steering wheel blocked my view of the upper left gage when staggered 3/2. I don't know what it will be for you but sit in the seat and check it out. Measure twice cut once.

Mark
The grounding ring terminals of all four ignition coils ring out to the case. I chose the multi-prong ground spade terminal on the engine block as my grounding test point on the case.

I'm assuming 'ring out' indicates zero resistance.

In which case, AWESOME!

yep

Just thought I'd post a quick update...

All the work I had planned (and I a bunch I didn't have planned) is done and the engine is going back in on saturday. I'll be posting pics after the engine is back in. If all goes well I should be able to fire my 2.0 version 2.0 engine this weekend!

sweet....

Rich

that's a good price. what did you pay for the LC-1 wide band controller?

Sean,
I didn't purchase this separately, it was buried in McMark's FI package cost.

This looks like a great set up......keep us posted.