Wow...first start is always a nail-biter with new injection--congrats!

A couple of things come to mind:
1. What are the A/F R's at idle? It doesn't take much air at all & I'm going to bet it's quite lean.
2. How much advance do you have in at 1000, 1500, 2000 RPM? I'm at 14, 15 & 21 at those speeds on my SDS system.
3. I'm assuming you're on MAP sensing for fueling--what vacuum reading are you seeing at idle? Do you have a "wild" cam in there?

This is gonna be fun....

This weekend, I had chance to spend a couple of hours tuning, but, no real progress to report. I played aroud with the ignition timing, VE generator, AFR table.

I think there is something really wrong somewhere. At 1200 RPM, with measured timing of 15 degrees (with respect to TDC fan marking), the engine has no torque to pull the car forward even slipping the clutch is 1st gear. If I bump the timing reference at trigger wheel 10 degrees, which raises RPM to 3000, there is then enough torque to pull car forward.

To answer wndsrfr 's questions.

1. I think it was around 12.5, but, I need to recheck
2. I set my advance like your SDS system with no variation WRT load
3. I think it was 120%, but, will need to check that also

The cam is a Jake Raby 9530. Not sure how wild it is and it did not come with a card. Jake told me, the 9530 cam nets .465 lift at the intake valve, and about .450 on the exhaust.

I will get more accurate info and I also need to figure out how to use the log feature of TunerStudio.

I am thinking, that I may need to give full advance by 2000 rpm for this to work!

Step 1: Make sure you are firing on all 4. No point in trying to tune anything if you have a clogged/bad injector or bad coil.

Step 2: Make sure the timing table you are starting with makes sense. Even better, post it here. I find it easiest to start with a table that ignores all vacuum advance/retard and then work from there. Just map out what a mechnical advance only dizzy would do, say idle starting at somewhere from 0-10 deg and progressing up to 27-28 deg around 3-3.2k, that should be a good place to start.
Step 2b:SANITY CHECK, in Tuner Studio, make sure ALL sensors are reporting expected values. IAT and CHT should show roughly ambient temp before starting, TPS should reflect throttle position

Step 3: Tune idle for max vacuum. Play with the fueling and take note of the changes it is having on manifold vaccum, and shoot for the higest vaccum you can get. This should help with your torque off idle.

Step 4: Auto tune is your friend here. Set up your target AFR table IGNORE EVERYTHING you have read in MS documents abount AFR target numbers, starting out all your AFR targets are going to be between 13.5-12.5:1. You can play with leaning these out later, but to start this is where you want to be. Once the targets are in place start up the car, let it warm up as much as it can, turn on autotune in TS and then tune the no load section of the table. Basically from idle slowly rev up the engine and hold it at different RPMs while autotune does its thing. If it is missfiring due to being to lean or rich you may need to tweak it manually as the O2 sensor wont know whats going on. Do this until you can hold the engine at any RPM in neutral and it runs smooth as butter, most likley somewhere in the mid 13:1 AFR range.

Step 5: From here do a sanity check on your fuel map. Looking at the cells that have already been tuned using auto tune, as load and RPM increase so should the fuel. If for some reason you see the fuel values in the higher load bins to be less then the ones you just tuned then you can pretty much assume they wont work well. If nothing stands out as being obviously wrong then move on to the next step of running autotune at light loads the same way you just did no load, and repeate the process. Autotune - sanity check - Autotune slightly more load - sanity check -etc

obviously there is going to be a lot more to getting it fully dialed in, but this should get you a good driveable base map to start from.

Post your current MSQ and/or some datalogs and we can see if anything is standing out as being off.

-James

James,

Step 1: I have checked that all cylinders are firing. However, when I pulled coil connections, there is more of a change when pulling 3 and 1 than 2 and 4. I will need to recheck this. I have a friend that has a compression checker that I need to invite over. I was thinking this may have something to do with injector pairing?

Step 2: I tried to do this, see photo, but my idle advance may be too high. All sensors read what I think they should including TPS.

Step 3: “Tune idle for max vacuum.” and “ Play with the fueling” . Those are new concepts for me. I need to keep this in mind. Thanks for pointing this out.

Step 4 and 5: Current AFR and VE tables attached. “IGNORE EVERYTHING you have read in MS documents” Wow, as I have said in my videos, I have often found it very difficult to get exactly the info I needed to get this Megasquirt project up and rolling. Everyone’s configuration is different and the info on the internet spans a long period of time where many things keep changing for many reasons. James, you have given me a lot to chew on here 

I could not attach is my current MSQ (not sure why as I have see some posted?). I can email it to you. Feel free to modify, comment or suggest anything. I also want to learn how to use the logger.

Thank you for your input,

Michel

WTF? Why do you have an rpm values that go from 700 to 1100 and back down to 400 and then jump to 2000 rpm?

No wonder the car does not idle. Your ECU is confused since you have two 700 rpm columns.

This needs to be fixed now. Start about 100 rpm below your expected idle speed and then make smooth even steps all the way to redline.

Tuning fuel for maximum vacuum at idle. This just means add or remove fuel (increase/decrease VE value) until your MAP value is at its lowest. On the cars I tune this usually means an AFR about 12.8 or so. Then you go back and change timing until the MAP value stablizes.

Starting the car is a milestone for sure. Now you just need to start the tuning process. Think of it as changing carb jets with your fingertips.

x2, getting the engine started the first time is one of the hardest parts, and yeah there is a lot of sorting out to do here with those tables. I am guessing this may be a result of trying to import other peoples tables from different code versions (lower resolution) into yours.


As for #1 I am guessing that you have cyl 1 and 3 wired on the same injection bank. If this is indeed the case then 2 things come to my mind as a potential source of that problem either A. Wiring issue or B. some versions of the MS code allow you to fuel each injector bank using different tables, if you had this enabled with different tables for each bank then the fueling differences would account for why one bank has more of an effect then the other.

#2 good chance that it is, a copy of your MSQ and some data logs would help, ill PM you my email address

#3, Yup as was stated by others, at idle try adjusting your fuel up or down to achieve the lowest manifold pressure (highest vacuum)

#4 Aside from the wacky RPM bins your AFR target numbers don't look to bad though for an NA motor you probably don't need to go any richer then 12.5:1 at full load. Should be good enough to get you driving with autotune anyways.


From what you have shown so far I would say the first thing you need to do is fix your RPM bins on all your tables. They should go from low to high and be no duplicate bins. Also you probably dont need the sort of resolution down low that having bins at 400, 500, 700 and 900 would provide. Honestly you could make it run well on 1/4 the resolution that table provides, but we will work with what you have.

I will have to get out my laptop and start searching for settings that might give you greef, its been a while since I have been in Tunerstudio and dont remember everything off the top of my head.

A couple things I might recommending changing on your timing table. First is that everything after 3100 where you hit max advance is just wasted resolution. You may want to move your 3100 bin further to the right and add some more resolution into the middle where it will actually make a difference. Second is that you probably are a little over advanced at idle. What can happen is that you get sort of a runaway condition where the over advanced condition speeds up the idle into the next bin, which has even higher advance and speeds it up even more. Increasing the resolution down in the lower ranges and lowering the advance in all bins below 1500 will probably help bring your idle speed down

The ECU looks at all surrounding blocks. Not just the one is is running in. It then uses an algorithm to extrapolate where to go next.

With your map RPM's all over the place, the ECU will never run correctly. You need to get the RPM's in chronological order before you do anything else.

with everything above.

My VE table is about 25-30 LOWER on almost all values. ie, my idle on the ve is around 22 @ 900rpms. I would recommend highlighting all cells and lowering them all by around 20-25 and then run autotune. As you are right now, you will be pig-rich everywhere which will make it run poorly.

VE values are relative to a bunch of other settings and can vary quite a bit from one car to another depending on how they were setup. Unless it is known that every peice of hardware and setting is 100% identical, just copying someones VE table will not give good results.

I am loving all the feedback. Thank you everyone. James, you are correct, I copied some of the tables from others (with earlier versions of code )that were trying to help me along. I cut and pasted parts of two different files (text) the best way I could think of. To be honest, I had not noticed the rpm jump around that jpnovak pointed out. It is obvious now that that is a huge mistake. This is a learning process, and actually, everything about this project is just that. I lot of fun though

I spent a little time changing my .msq file. Please make any comment you wish. Will be starting the engine again (hopefully) tomorrow.

Here are my revised AFR, ADV, and VE tables.

Haven't had time to look over your MSQ yet (still at work) but your RPM bins looks much better now, though it looks like on your fuel table you leaned out the idle and overrun area quite a bit, you were in the 40's and you lowered them to the 20s. If you were running at 40 you might have a hard time getting it to start and idle now.

Like i said before, the VE table is going to be relative to a bunch of other settings as well as the hardware setup, so you need to do what works for your setup, no someone elses.

I didn't ask, and may have overlooked this but, you do have a wideband sensor setup on this car correct?

-James

Much better. You will find it much easier to adjust fuel VE values and see a difference now that you have a nice progression on the rpm axis.

I suggest that you start the car with the laptop running. Keep an eye on the AFR. (you do have a wideband O2 sensor connected, don't you.)

Don't be afraid to tune the fuel up and down and see what it does to the engine. Watch the AFR go down when you add fuel. Watch the AFR lean out when you take away fuel. Keep going until the engine stumbles then add fuel back to stabilize it. This is part of the learning process.

You will need to do this process for just about every point on the VE table. OK, not really, the AFR table will drive the VE Analyze Live just fine while you drive. However, the results are only as good as the target value. Each engine runs differently with variations in AFR.

Also, depending on where you are idleing you will probably need to drop the advance at 1200RPM down to around 10 or below as well. What is going to happen with your current setup is the MS will average the 900 and 1200 RPM value depending on what RPM it is as between those, so say you are idleing at 1000RPM it will have your timming around 12deg which may get you back into that runaway situation where the speed will increase and in turn cause the advance to increase.

If you set both the 900 and 1200 range to the same value then any speed between those 2 RPMs will be locked at whatever advance you set. This will help stabilize your idle quite a bit. I would probably drop both those columns down to 8deg at least.

Your target AFRs up top are pretty rich as well, I would set the max around 12.5

3700 rpm @ 85% load needs to be smoothed out. If you look at that on a 3D map, it's a big dip in your fuel there. If it runs better at the present setting, raise it slightly and lower the surrounding cells slightly. The ECU will try to average out the cells (automatically as it runs) and stumble on big peaks or dips.

I could not wait until tomorrow. I changed the advance to 10 degrees at 900 and 1200 and smoothed out the VE table. It started right up, but was a bit rough. I changed the injector pairing from 1-4, 2-3 to 1-3, 2-4 and idle got a lot smoother.

It got dark and looks like I ran out of gas again

I am starting to get a feel for it, but, the whole concept of VE and how it relates to fuel enrichment is not very clear to me. At idle (1000RPM), MAP was reading 80. and fuel load was 85%. I think VE was 65. Does this make sense?

I tought TS had a logger, but, could not find it.

As you start to tune, play with only one setting. That way you WILL KNOW if it makes a difference. If you start adjusting too many things, you will loose track of where the actual improvement came from.

Follow the manual's list of things to tweek in order. Save a new file every time your done. Put a date or description of the tweek that worked. I used to save mine like this...
2-6-13 good idle-timing tweek rev1 2pm
I would save 4 or 5 files per day sometimes... I could then go back to a good file when I fuched one up and start over.

humm... I would think MAP should be a lot lower then 80, though the cam may have a lot to do with that. I just looked up the 9530 and jake states on his site that it is not compatable with ANY injection, stock or aftermarket. I also saw another ports where he recomends not using the 9530 on a 2270. Im not sure what affect this is going to have when tunning, might just make it more fun.

When you get to starting it up again check the AFR at idle try and get it adjusted down to around 12.8 (i have a feeling you are lean) Also maybe double check the actual timing with a timming light again. Let us know the MAP reading once this is done. I would hope to see the MAP reading down to at least 50 if not in the 30s.

Worst case i think if the cam doesent produce good vaccum is that you could switch over to alpha-n fueling. lets not jump there just yet though.

Interesting. I spoke to Jake personally on a couple of occasion and he was very helpful. We also exchanged emails. He sold me that cam knowing the displacement, stroke, bore, and compression I wanted to achieve (8.3 on all cylinders). I also purchased pistons and other parts from him. It ran ok with carbs except for sluggish mid range. I was hoping FI would correct for this. Hope it does.
In fact, I purchased one of his early customs grinds back in 2005 that had very similar specs to the 9530. I ran this in a 2270 high compression engine. That engine did not idle well, but, over 3k it pulled like crazy to redline and more. Too bad I used poor re-built heads and dropped a seat, but that is another story

What I have is what I have. We will make the best of it for now.

Engine would not start today. Needed to charge battery. I will let you know about MAP reading at idle once I get going again.

Alpha-n? Who runs in this mode?

I have read posts on other forums with people using the 9530 with FI just fine, so i am not sure why jake says on his store that it is not FI compatable. Honestly it does not concern me to much as I am pretty sure that if an engine runs, it can be made to run with Megasquirt one way or another, given all the options that are available.

Alpha-N is for use in situations where there is low manifold vaccum, usually ITBs or extreme cams. A guy I work with run Alpha-N on his GTI rally car with ITBs. It does not use the MAP value to calculate fuel but rather throttle position and RPM. I am sure only Jake knows the full specs of the 9530, but from what I am reading it does not seem that extreme, so there may be somthing else out of place here.

Where are you pulling your MAP signal from? When was the last time you did a valve adjustment?

As with everythign Megasquirt related, tons of reading involved. This just touches on it http://www.extraefi.co.uk/MAP_Alpha_N.htm

Yes, today was a Big Day I drove it around the block . It was limping, but, it had enough torque to do it....no stalling either. Yeh me

After a well deserved

I made the realization, that I am truly NOT certain about my measured ignition timing. I have been reading that using a dial type timing light may induce timing errors when used with wasted spark system. (double advance issue). This needs to be sorted, and a number of other small details need to be addressed before I move on further, such as oil breather system, a more elegant throttle hookup, fuel pump re-wiring, and oh yes, vehicle registration and a few other things.

There is still a lot to sort out, tune, understand but I do feel confident that I will get there.

80on your MAP at idle seems real high.

i have the 9550 cam with MSII running a 36-1 trigger wheel and wasted spark (ford ignition) and the MAP is around 56ish at idle.

The map you get at idle is greatly affected by cam overlap.

If you are running rich at idle it will give you a higher map also.

Mt 1.7 seems to like about 13-1 fuel ratio at idle (and kinda all around).

Sunday, I had some time to do some tuning. I was able to identify without a doubt that the "0" marking on the fan was indeed TDC. I even put a wooden stick down the #1 plug hole and rotated the engine to make sure piston was at its highest at that point.

Knowing this, I got the engine started, but could not get it to idle at 1000 RPM unless timing was set to +5 degrees as observed at the fan. It did idle nicely with this timing. With a bit of throttle input, the engine speed increased nicely to the maximun ignition advance set to 33 degrees, at which point I could see the 28 timing mark on the fan. I don't know how to explain this

I am really starting to think, this cam was not the best choice for my engine

I am not sure I follow exactly what you are saying, Is the issue that what you are actually seeing on the fan is not matching what MS is showing? If so there should be an adjustment for that though I would have to look it up as i run a different code version and trigger with my setup. If 5deg advance at idle is what you are actually seeing then you should be ok there. I have mine at 8deg but only because that is as low as I can set it with my particular trigger setup.

James,

I wish I had a good idle at 5 degrees of advance. I guess I should have said, I need to set 5 degrees of retard to achieve a good idle. Maybe, I AM retarded, but that is what I am observing

If you set 5 ATDC timing in TunerStudio (or Megatune), What does the timing read with a timing light? These numbers should match. If not, you need to change the trigger offset value in the software until they match. Do this first before changing advance values in the table.

Also, What does your AFR read? I don't think you have answered the question if you have a wideband sensor. It is very possible that your engine mixture is off and this is why you need such advanced timing.

I have a wideband O2 sensor from AEM. At idle, AFR is about 12.5, MAP is 85.

The timing can be adjusted with both trigger offset and advanced in TS ignition advance table. I have been around and around with these. It can get a little confusing especially looking through a mirror at fan markings. Bottom line is, at the fan, I need 5 degrees ATDC to achieve idle when looking at the fan markings.

I know it does not make sense. I will be a few days before I can play some more.

You need to be absolutely sure that the timing you are setting in megasquirt matches the timming you are actually seeing with your timing light. When you get the time to work on it again here is what I would do.

1.Make sure your fan has all the timming marks so you can see them with a timming light. Just to eliminate variables here you dont want to use an adjustable advance timming light so we will need all the marks.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/9.../914_timing.pdf

2. Under the ignition settings there should be an option for "Fixed Advanced", enable this (rather then use table) and set the fixed advance to 7.5 deg. If your car wont start with this setting then you can start it using the table and switched to fixed advanced with it running.

3. Every ignition event *should* occur now at 7.5 deg advance regardless of engine RPM or load. Confirm this with the timming light, you should see the 7.5 deg mark, if not then something is set incorrectly with your ignition setup and this needs to be resolved before anything else can be done. Most likely this will be the trigger angle that needs to be adjusted. Adjust until you are actually seeing the engine fire at the fixed 7.5. This confirms that the advance that MS is sending is the advance you are actually getting. Once this is has been confirmed change the fixed advance setting back to use table.

4. As an extra check that things are advancing properly I will set all bins on the ignition table 3000RPM and above to 27deg advance then check the timming while holding the engine RPMs over 3000, you should see the 27deg mark with the timming light.

This is all just another sanity check but should confirm that what you are seeing on the timming table in MS is what you are actually getting. VERY important to do before trying to tune, otherwise you are just chasing your tail.

James, Excellent description of the process to baseline the timing output.

I am surprised that you do not have better than 85kPa at idle. Even with ITBs and a bigger cam on my 911 I could see better vacuum numbers than this.

If you put your had over the throttle do you actually feel vacuum? I suspect you might have an air leak. I use my compressor to put about 10psi through the vacuum port that the MS unit is connected to. Then listen for air leaks. You may have to tape off the throttle body to seal that end while you listen for leaks. Any common plenum should give you more of a vacuum at idle - even with narrow cam lobe ceters on a hot cam.

You may try the MS Extra code in ITB mode to transition the switch from speed-density to alpha-n at low rpm.

I had a bit of a breakthrough last night. I swapped my injector plugs around "just to see" and this resulted in a much smoother running engine. It was dark and I am not sure who is on who, but it ran better, no doubt. Also, it was idling (1000 rpm)at TDC instead on 5 ATDC! VE analyse was working too


James,your description of timing in excellent. Thanks. I printed the timing label and cut it out and compared it with the markings on my fan. It all matches. I even calculated the distance between fan blades to 7.3 degrees! My friend has a timing light with wasted spark setting that I need to borrow to confirm my timing.

JP, I have been wondering about air leaks also. I will try your suggestion Thanks. OMG, alpha N again I will try that too to see.

It is amazing how much fuel I am using tuning this thing!

Stay away from Alpha-N for now, that should be the absolute last resort. From what I have read about your cam, and the fact that you are running from a common plenum I dont think you will need to go there.

You will be suprised how much timing and fuel changes can affect your idle vaccum, I was.

Well, I have been fighting a few issues before going on my first 5 mile drive. One of them, was a huge vacuum leak. I found a piece of wire lodged between the head and intake manifold. This caused the gasket to break and the result was a high pitched whistling sound when reving. I also added clamps to the boots connecting the intake runners to the plenum. I use a stetoscope to detect these leaks. I am also building a smoke machine to play with.

Now with a few less vacumm leaks I ran the car about 5 miles. The engine is surprising strong. Staying below 2500 Rpm, the engine pulls smoothly and nicely. When stopping, the engine almost dies, drops to 700 rpm and the climbs back up to 1000 before settling, so I need to work on the idle. I would love to see how folks are setting up their WUE etc.

After 2500 rpm, the there are a few hits as it climbs to 4000, but it kept pulling really hard to almost 5K. Wow, I can't wait to get this thing dialed in.

There is still so much to learn too. Wish I had gone to COP instead of CNP using ford coils and Type 4 ignition wires. The wires are not up to the task of shielding such a high voltage ( I have suffered at least 3 shocks )

So you guys are spending hundreds and hundreds of hours and who knows how much money and you end up with batch firing and stock sized intake runners?

No.

But what's your point, really?

.

Glad to hear you found the vacuum leak. did this help your MAP reading at low rpm? I suspect so.

The car should be easy to tune now.

If the car wants to die during off-throttle coast-down you need to check the decel fuel cut limit. raise the rpm limit a few hundred. You can also add timing to the lowest bins in the table at idle.

Don't forget that the stock MAP and rpm values rarely match each engine. Adjust these to match the lowest MAP reading in the second or third row. Then scale the rpm for your idle and redline. Then start tuning the engine. No sense in having rpm values to 7000 if you redline at 5500. Also, stop the MAP readings at 100kPa or close to this. No need to go higher unless you are running boost.

btw, if you are getting shocked then you might have a ground issue. Check the ground from coil to ground and plugs as well. You should not get shocked. It also could be that the wires are not seated properly at the plugs.

Seriously, what is your point?

Troll much? Not sure this even justifies a response but:

1. Nothing wrong with batch firing. Seqnential injection has little if any advantage as under load you are still firing on closed valves with either setup. Also MS can be setup to do sequential injection but again, no point in spending the time to do it.

2. Changing intake runner size? Why? Going with larger intake runners is not some magic bullet to net more power. It may shift the power band some and it could also decrease power. Also, again, he is not locked with these with MS but chose to use them.

3. I think i spent about 100 bucks converting my car to MS.

4. Seeing as how all the parts used are pretty much bolt on, even going the hard way like i did and solder my own board you are looking at maybe 20-40 hours.

I am not sure what you think the point of a custom fuel injection is, but the main advantage here is tuneability and replacement of NLA parts, not magically making your car go faster by ignoring the laws of physics.



Now that i have laid out the facts, back to the original point of your troll post (being a troll post) As to not dissapoint, here is a response for that too:

1. How is that "Tornado Air Intake" working out for you? Pulling some big numbers?

2. You are an @$$hat.

Good day Sir!

Great progress. I have enjoyed following this thread.

I think a lot of people have thought about putting MS on their 914.

Now your thread even has haters and drama!

John

All in good fun!

JP. I like your your idea of re-scaling my MAP table. I will do that for sure.

As I have said, there are still more vacuum leaks, but at least I got rid of the big ones. Unfortunately, my MAP value at idle is still only about 70. I am not too happy about that from what I know so far. Maybe the camshaft is causing this?



Sure, this project has cost me about $1000, but with me, the journey is a HUGE part of the fun! At the end of the day, I have learned quite a bit, and this may open doors for more MS projects (ie MS moded VW Corrado comes to mind). I need to follow through with this one though and then the plan is to document all my settings, wiring, and what I would have done different ( I can think of a thing or two already ).

You forgot to say that it is a stand alone , fully programmable engine management batch firing system

I dare you tell me what is a better solution ?

After a rather long hiatus, I will attempt to get my 914 Megasquirt project running again. In March of 2013, I removed the MS harness because my idle valve was not working (it was mis-wired), then I found out that I had to move from the home I had been in for over 17 years.
I had a lot of fixin to get the house ready for sale, and the new house had plenty of stuff that needed attention too. Now that things have settled down, I am diving back in to the 914.
I made some changes, went from using the ford CNP to LS2 coils, and cleaned up the wiring. I hope to have the car at least started by the new year. I am slow but steady.
Here is a link to latest youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=honxgcZVcjo...eature=youtu.be

Didn't read the whole thread, but did see the bit about swapping injector plugs. Most people wire their injectors in opposing pairs (#1 and #3, #2 and #4) but this isn't ideal. You want to pair them in the firing order. Our firing order is 1-4-3-2. So #1 and #4 should be paired and #3 and #2 should be paired.

Hi Mark,

I did noticed the 1+3 and 2+4 injector pairing on a few of the threads also. I had 1+4 paired on INJ2 and 2+3 paired together on INJ1. So, I swapped them so that INJ1 has 1+4 and INJ2 has the 2+3 pair.

Thank you

I think the effect on a batch fire injector out of order would be negligible. We are talking about milliseconds of injector time 700-6000 times per minute.

If it were direct fire, the effect would be substantial.

As I have said in the past, I am slow but steady. Had a chance to install the new harnesses and both the "new" LS2 driver board and relay board (with tach adapter in place of one of the relays).

Once I got it hooked up, changed the oil and gas, filters etc. it started right up. Amazing!!

I tuned it up a bit around the block several times and went to visit a friend - about 5 miles away. It runs great to about 3500rpm (with tons of torque, can even start in 2nd gear from stop, but then has a hard time reving past that point with low power. Lots of tuning to do yet.

I was almost at friends house when the engine reved up and then RPM dropped to idle barely keeping engine running. I discovered that the MAP sensor tubing got chopped in fan as I did not secure it to anything. I fixed it temporarily with outer insulation of a coax cable and tape. I think it was still leaking but it got me home. So, total trip was 10 miles.

Next phase of project is learning more about tuning, VE table, advance curves that work best, etc. Wish I knew someone in the area with a lot of Megasquirt experience.

Here are a few photos of harness and relay and ignition boards

I didn't read the whole thread.....

Are you running the LS coils in wasted spark mode or Sequential?


As far as timing and VE tuning it's trial and error.

I have found that bringing in timing quickly has worked well.

My VE tables are about 43(approx. 13:1 AFR) at idle and in the 60's in normal driving area.

VE is in the 70's under harder accel.

As far as AE enrichment, it's dependent on how you drive.

Tooni, thanks for info. LS coils are presently connected in wasted spark mode, but, connections for sequential are there except for a couple of jumpers and cam sensor signal needed.

I feel the LS coil conversion reduced the noise at the MSU significantly. Now, my USB connection never drops

Wish I would have gone that way from the beginning

I was just reading some of the thread....James suggested to set the "base" timing to 7.5*.

If you are using a 36-1 TW and set it up, on the engine, as per the Mega manual, 7.5* is wrong.

The default is 10* BTDC. This could be why your MAP is so high. I have the 9550 can and my map at idle is 45ish KPa.

My advance at idle is about 13.5*