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r_towle
Great news.
Can't believe the shifting did not piss Mike off enough to fix it.

Are you planning the turbo setup yet?
McMark
Take the car to get dyno tuned. I'm gonna keep saying it. poke.gif
VaccaRabite
Mike had been working with the shifter Friday, and had it most of the way fixed.
I think I got it re-aligned last night.

As soon as I can get the car to idle properly, I'll take it to tony to get it dyno tuned. I know he can do that.

Zach
VaccaRabite
Another note -
At one point there was a concern that the stock tach would probably not work with the microsquirt output.

I was intending to just replace the stock tack with a modern one. Scotty_b suggested just plugging the stock tack in to see if it worked, so I did. And it did. For whatever reason, it worked great with no bouncing as you ran up and down the rev range. We were comparing it with the tach output on my laptop, and it was perfectly accurate!

One of the things that it has me thinking though is to replace my smaller diameter steering wheel with a regular diameter one. It would be nice to actually see my gauges.

Zach
McMark
I think the late tachs work and the early ones don't. confused24.gif
76-914
B
QUOTE(Vacca Rabite @ Apr 21 2016, 10:53 AM) *

Another note -
At one point there was a concern that the stock tach would probably not work with the microsquirt output.

I was intending to just replace the stock tack with a modern one. Scotty_b suggested just plugging the stock tack in to see if it worked, so I did. And it did. For whatever reason, it worked great with no bouncing as you ran up and down the rev range. We were comparing it with the tach output on my laptop, and it was perfectly accurate!

One of the things that it has me thinking though is to replace my smaller diameter steering wheel with a regular diameter one. It would be nice to actually see my gauges.

Zach

agree.gif Do it. I RnR'd the one on Kugel with a factory steering wheel (curtousy of Slits, TYVM) and never regretted it. Especially when parallel parking.
VaccaRabite
Did some work on the car today, and yesterday. Took advantage of the break in the heat and the lack of kids this weekend.

I did nothing in the engine bay. However, I got the front trunk re-buttoned up. Added a molex connector to the wires that run to the fuel level sender.

I also spend several hours diagnosing shifter issues. There is only 2 stock parts left of my shifter (and one of those has been modified). So figuring out shifting issues is a bit more involved. I was getting R, 3, 5 and missing 1, 2, 4. I finally found my issue by climbing under the car and working the shifter at the console. Two bolts that hold the gate at the console were slightly too long and were hitting the ball cup. Once I clearnaced those a bit, I got the shifter adjusted quick. The shifter on my car is really precise now. I'm pleased.

I modded the cover to fit over the enhanced shifter console and put it back on.

With the car back on the ground I started doing work in the cabin. There is dubious wiring from my earlier iteration of the car. Since I am adding a center console, I needed to move gauges around. Since I made no notes (that I remember) the first time around, I spent part of the afternoon chasing wires to see where they go.

My goal right now is to get the cabin rewired where it needs it before finishing up the engine. Last thing I want is a wire short or a electrical fire.

Zach
BeemerSteve
Pictures please of your Megasquirt set up in the engine compartment.
mepstein
Sound like you're going to be driving soon. beerchug.gif
VaccaRabite
QUOTE(mepstein @ Sep 5 2016, 09:02 PM) *

Sound like you're going to be driving soon. beerchug.gif

I hope so.

The shifter issue surfaced the day before Hershey when several of us were working on the car. It moved under its own power in reverse, but was not able to get into first to move back.

It does feel like I'm working on the punch list now. There are still tuning issues that need to be addressed, and that I may need help with. But if I can take care of all the "other" stuff, then the tuning issues will be the last thing to keep the car from driving.

Zach
McMark
Do I dare say it...... hide.gif

Dyno tuning. ph34r.gif
VaccaRabite
QUOTE(McMark @ Sep 6 2016, 09:58 AM) *

Do I dare say it...... hide.gif

Dyno tuning. ph34r.gif

That's the plan, but I'd like to get the car at least idling without having to introduce a huge air leak. I've been talking with Tony at Translog about getting it on a dyno, but it needs to be closer before I do that.

Zach
VaccaRabite
So. My desire to eventually drive the car has overrun my desire to finish this build myself.

I'm sending the car to McMark to button up my EFI and get it dyno-tuned.

With any luck I'll be able to fly out and drive it home sometime this spring.

Zach
saigon71
It'll be good to see your car on the road again Zach.
struckn
That's great news Zach glad you're getting it done. smile.gif

However, my only concern is your plan to drive it back home from Grand Rapids to York Pa. You might want to ease your way back into it once McMark is done and have him tell you if he thinks the car is solid enough to make the long trip home.

Just saying if it were me I'd get it shipped home, probably be less expensive then flying back out to Grand Rapids to pick it up and drive it home.

Doug
76-914
QUOTE(Vacca Rabite @ Feb 6 2017, 07:57 PM) *

So. My desire to eventually drive the car has overrun my desire to finish this build myself.

I'm sending the car to McMark to button up my EFI and get it dyno-tuned.

With any luck I'll be able to fly out and drive it home sometime this spring.

Zach

That was a smart move. Tell him to throw a small Turbo on it while he's in there. beerchug.gif
VaccaRabite
Car is at Marks shop, and there has been progress.
Last Friday, my helper steered the car while I pushed it out of the garage and got it down the drive way.
IPB Image

So very dusty!
IPB Image

But also really nice to see it out in the sun again.
IPB Image

Up on the flatbed ready for its big trip to McMark.
IPB Image

Mark started having some of the same issues I was having with the spark signal and getting random misses. So he took out the plug I put in to the crank fire wires.
IPB Image

Seeing as how I doubt I'll be removing the wire harness again, I told him it was okay to delete the plug and make it a permanent join.

But that didn't fix the weak spark signal.

mark said he went so far as to build a test rig that only hooked up to the VR sensor and it still had issues when on the car, but worked fine when off the car. They tested all the EFI stuff, and it made no change. Pulled the battery, no change.
Pulled the starter....

And got a solid strong signal!

So, somehow my hi-torque starter has been interfering with my ignition signal. A stock starter worked just fine.

Mark was so excited he started texting me this afternoon as soon as he had figured it out.

This actually may be the answer to why I was always getting random misses with the Mallory as well. No one could explain it, but I would get constant misfires from the spark feed cutting out randomly. I worked around the problem at the time by putting in a HUGE coil and just pumping more energy into each pulse. There would still be misses, but the spark that went through went through with a lot more power.

I don't know that I EVER would have thought to pull the starter and test it with another starter.

Crazy stuff.

Zach
crash914
I need help with this one. How is a starter affecting running? Bad connection to the power connection at the starter?
VaccaRabite
QUOTE(crash914 @ Feb 23 2017, 09:28 PM) *

I need help with this one. How is a starter affecting running? Bad connection to the power connection at the starter?

No idea. I can't make heads or tails of it. In theory the starter isn't getting power when its not starting the engine.

But something about it was wonky.

Zach
shag
QUOTE(Vacca Rabite @ Feb 23 2017, 10:31 PM) *

QUOTE(crash914 @ Feb 23 2017, 09:28 PM) *

I need help with this one. How is a starter affecting running? Bad connection to the power connection at the starter?

No idea. I can't make heads or tails of it. In theory the starter isn't getting power when its not starting the engine.

But something about it was wonky.

Zach

shag
I certainly hope that this works out for you, I have been watching you rebuild and get this car running for a long time.
Shag
timothy_nd28
My hat is off to Mark for finding that, what a great find. Still confused to why, but still a great find. smile.gif
McMark
That was one of the craziest troubleshooting sessions I've had. I tried everything and was pulling my hair out because nothing was working. Sometimes when all the obvious stuff isn't the problem you have to try the crazy stuff. All in all, I tried the following:

1 Removed the connector Zach added.
2 Tried a spare VR sensor.
3 Tried a whole new wire to the Vr sensor.
4 Tried a spare ECU.
5 Tried a dedicated, VR-only wiring setup.
6 Pulled the VR only setup and tested it with a trigger wheel on my lathe.
7 Tried the VR only setup back on the car, but with the ECU powered by a separate battery (isolating the ECU).
8 Tried the VR-only setup with separate battery and by turning the engine by hand. (This is where things started Working)
9 Swapped in a spare starter and left the Ford booster solenoid and factory wiring disconnected and used a starter button. Things still worked.
10 Reconnected the solenoid and factory wiring back the way it was but with the spare starter, everything still worked.

Whew! Next week I'll actually put a tune in the ECU for the first time and see if it runs. boldblue.gif
McMark
Oh yeah, I also tried adding extra ground cables in case engine grounding was the issue. It wasn't.
falcor75
Wow thats one crazy issue. Wierd that that the starter can affect the VR sensor when its not even energized...

Well done Mark!
crash914
since I have a hi torque starter also, I will be watching.

Unless there is some current leakage through the starter, I just can't see how it would affect the signals...???

Glad its working!
McMark
Possibly EMI.
struckn
piratenanner.gif

Wow Zach, this is great news and amazing that in such a short period of time it sounds like McMark has gotten to the root of your problems and is closing in quickly to getting your car back on the road. Perfect weather coming for a ride (if it doesn't snow Sunday).
Are you still thinking of Driving it back? driving.gif

Doug
76-914
QUOTE(McMark @ Feb 24 2017, 05:52 AM) *

Possibly EMI.

Great Amazing find, Mark. That is just insane! I'd have committed Harry Karry long before finding the problem. Curious; not even the presence of millivolts at the starter?
See Zach; that was a smart move. How many mechanics would have pursued that mystery with Mark's tenacity? Dedication, commitment and the desire for excellence come to mind. beerchug.gif
Spoke
Great find but really weird.

So put in a different starter and the VR sensor works fine? What is the VR sensor? Is that a power supply for the Megasquirt?

Everyone like to believe in PFM (pure funking magic) wrt electricity and electronics because one cannot see what is happening in an electric circuit until it starts working or the smoke is let out of something.

Since it seems the actual root cause has not been determined besides putting in a different starter, I'll take a guess that with the original starter in the circuit, there is some sort of instability causing oscillation wrt the impedance of the starter and the characteristic impedance of the power rails. Not all dc power supplies are stable over all load conditions.

Did anyone use an oscilloscope to check voltages at the VR sensor or the starter? If so, what did the voltage look like? I don't trust voltmeters to give a accurate dc reading since voltmeters generally average the voltage spikes and oscillations it sees. An oscope shows the actual voltage.

I say this about using an oscope after an experience trying to figure out why a new chip we were developing at Lucent wasn't working. Power was a stable 3.3Vdc as read on our voltmeter. We put the oscope on the 3.3V and found it was 3.3Vdc with 2VPP ripple on top of it. Voltmeter said Ok but oscope revealed we were fucked.
ConeDodger
QUOTE(76-914 @ Feb 24 2017, 12:48 PM) *

QUOTE(McMark @ Feb 24 2017, 05:52 AM) *

Possibly EMI.

Great Amazing find, Mark. That is just insane! I'd have committed Harry Karry long before finding the problem. Curious; not even the presence of millivolts at the starter?
See Zach; that was a smart move. How many mechanics would have pursued that mystery with Mark's tenacity? Dedication, commitment and the desire for excellence come to mind. beerchug.gif


Mark has a big brain. evilgrin.gif

He told me that once when I asked him how he figured out some obscure thing on my car...
jd74914
QUOTE(Spoke @ Feb 24 2017, 06:58 PM) *

So put in a different starter and the VR sensor works fine? What is the VR sensor? Is that a power supply for the Megasquirt?

Variable reluctance sensor for engine position. smile.gif

Glad you got the problem corrected. smile.gif

QUOTE(Spoke @ Feb 24 2017, 06:58 PM) *

Since it seems the actual root cause has not been determined besides putting in a different starter, I'll take a guess that with the original starter in the circuit, there is some sort of instability causing oscillation wrt the impedance of the starter and the characteristic impedance of the power rails. Not all dc power supplies are stable over all load conditions.

I'm curious as to the root cause as well.

In general the MS DC-DC converter is of a pretty poor (not robust) design, as is the Microsquirt VR sensor hardware input filtering/processing. I literally could not get Microsquirt to reliably pick up a noisy VR crank sensor (worked fine on a number of other ECU's). The solution for the Microsquirt unit was to use a JBPerf conditioning board to pre-process the VR sensor and produce a square-wave output for the ECU.

http://jbperf.com/dual_VR/v2_1.html

VR sensors are passive to unless there is some EMI I wouldn't expect a lot of noise created by some voltage instability, but it would be interesting to see how the Microsquirt hardware reacts.

It would be interesting to have seen what the VR sensor was outputting via oscilloscope. Bet the signal was noisy.
sixnotfour
Son's smile says , my first car is almost ready for me driving.gif
VaccaRabite
Sitting at work daydreaming about driving my car this spring.
Its been a long long LONG time since I have done that.
I'm excited.

Zach
mepstein
QUOTE(Vacca Rabite @ Feb 27 2017, 02:31 PM) *

Sitting at work daydreaming about driving my car this spring.
Its been a long long LONG time since I have done that.
I'm excited.

Zach

smilie_pokal.gif
McMark
Turns out, as is so often the case, that there were two issues contributing to the same problem. After I posted above that I thought I had the whole thing solved, I came back the next day and the signal was wacky again. I didn't touch or change anything, it just didn't work anymore. After a bit more testing I found that the VR signal wires weren't being shielded correctly from EMI. So I added a jumper wire from the shielding to batt. neg. and everything cleared right up. Pulled the jumper, problem came back. AHA! I left everything alone and tested it a couple more times each day for a few days. Each time was the same, with the stock starter I could cause or fix the problem by connecting/disconnecting the VR shield jumper.

Today I installed the hi-torque starter since I thought I had proved that wasn't the problem and lo and behold, the VR sensor signal with the hi-torque starter was garbage no matter what I did. So I feel vindicated since the starter did turn out to be a problem. Either this hi-torque is degrading somehow, or they all throw out a LOT more EMI than a stock starter. Once I installed the new rebuilt starter I ordered, everything went back to working depending on the VR shield jumper.

I couldn't have solved this issue without finding both contributing factors. Now I'll replace the VR sensor wire completely and improve the grounding setup of the shielding. This improvement will reflect in all future versions of my MicroSquirt setup as well.

Tomorrow I need to solve the 70psi fuel issue as well, and then...finally...I can try starting the car. ohmy.gif
crash914
Great news! I think that the MS only uses the VR sensor for a couple of revs anyway? I think I saw a video of it being removed after starting. I can believe that the starter is very noisy, just when you need to get a stable VR signal.

Glad you figured it out!
Spoke
Good news.
sixnotfour
The Son is smiling.....
McMark
QUOTE(crash914 @ Mar 5 2017, 07:07 PM) *

Great news! I think that the MS only uses the VR sensor for a couple of revs anyway? I think I saw a video of it being removed after starting. I can believe that the starter is very noisy, just when you need to get a stable VR signal.

Glad you figured it out!

My setup only has crank trigger, so without it there is no RPM or TDC info for the ECU. Without those it has no idea when to fire injectors and definitely no idea when to fire the coils. So for this setup, a good clean signal is vital.

Thats the reason I spent so much time dealing with this before I've even tried to start the car. Without a good clean VR signal nothing can happen and if the starter is mucking with the VR signal then it's plausible that the coils or any other EMI source could have an effect as well. And those problems would be transient and almost impossible to chase down later. So we spend the time now and solve the problem because to solve it later is triple the work. wink.gif
aircooledtechguy
Have you guys considered switching out the VR sensor for a hall sensor of the same size? The hall sensors are not effected by EMI like the VRs are. I dumped my VR a few years ago because of intermittent EMI issues that would induce a random miss.

May be at least worth looking into going forward. Glad you got a handle on it.
McMark
It's something to keep in mind. But I haven't had any issues with this setup on my car, and now that Zach's is sorted we'll see how it goes. Nothing is ever ruled out completely. wink.gif
McMark
driving.gif
ConeDodger
QUOTE(McMark @ Apr 3 2017, 11:40 AM) *

driving.gif


Road test! w00t.gif
crash914
No sound? confused24.gif
McMark
QUOTE(crash914 @ Apr 3 2017, 12:36 PM) *

No sound? confused24.gif

It's a picture. confused24.gif

Fine, here's your sound. beerchug.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs9qq_sfeAI
Mike D.
So... It takes 6 years for a megasquirt conversion...? poke.gif

JK... shades.gif
I've only been thinking about it for 6 years. Can't pull the trigger...
ejm
QUOTE(Mike D. @ Apr 3 2017, 01:04 PM) *

So... It takes 6 years for a megasquirt conversion...? poke.gif

Has it been that long since we saw Zach's car at Hershey? biggrin.gif
VaccaRabite
Mark said my 2056 dynoed 130 HP and 140 TQ at the wheels.
I'm pretty pleased at that. Looking forward to getting the dyno chart.

Really looking forward to driving my car.

Zach
r_towle
QUOTE(Vacca Rabite @ Apr 3 2017, 09:24 PM) *

Mark said my 2056 dynoed 130 HP and 140 TQ at the wheels.
I'm pretty pleased at that. Looking forward to getting the dyno chart.

Really looking forward to driving my car.

Zach

Well holy shit.
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