Here is the link to my megasquirt web site. It has all of my files available for download as well as my thoughts on the project. I would be willing to help anyone else contemplating installing Megasquirt on their 914. Included is an offer to burn code onto blank chips

Here's the web site
Dave's 914 Megasquirt Conversion

Here is my email address

davehunt914@hotmail.com

Dave

Very nice! Thanks for sharing all your hard-earned knowledge.

Wow... Great work, Dave. I haven't ever considered doing such a change mostly because I didn't know how.

I think this is an excellent resource!

-Rusty

You didn't know how to dive, but that didn't stop you. You don't know how to fly a chopper, but you're not letting that stop you either.
Jump in. You'll figure it out. Life's greatest rewards come from doing things you don't know how to do. (but you knew that already. I can tell.)

-Ben M.

Hey Dave,

go ahead, and add it to the "links thread" that Lawrence just started

cheers,

Jeroen

I stand corrected, Ben... thank you for the perspective.


P.S. I won't be flying anytime soon, unless I decide to take lessons on my own. My school date was cancelled because of an impending deployment. The war started (and ended) far earlier than anyone anticipated, so I didn't deploy.

I was told several weeks ago, that by the time that they reschedule me, I'll be too old to go to flight school. I already needed a waiver for age, and this pushes me back another year. That has really let the wind out of my sails, so life at work has been both stressful and discouraging.

But I have a job, and many do not. I have a warm, soft bed to sleep in, and many sleep in sand or dirt. I drive my Porsche to work, rather than walk or riding in the back of a dusty truck. I need to count the blessings I do have. Still, it's a sore spot.

Could a Type 1 be retrofitted to this system?

Megasquirt can pretty much run on any gas powered piston or rotary engine.

There are already a few VW bugs running the MS unit on them...the wildest install I'd say would be the 600+(?) cubic inch Hemi motor running a MS box on it.

What Mueller said. You could put it on a weed trimmer if you really wanted to.

Digital programable engine managment is so awsome for this very reason - you can tune it to work well with almost anything. The ECU I'm using on my type-IV has also been used on everything from a Dodge Viper V-10 to a single-cyl Suzuki 2-stroke dirt bike.

-Ben M.

Stupid question,...What is the cost of the MS? I would like to get away from D-Jet, but don't have a idea how to do so. Carbs are out of the question.

Steve it is on the web site. It will cost more than you think because of Dirk wright disease.

Dave

I'm getting the SDS system for my teen so I should be able to offer a bit of a comparison between the DIY Megasquirt and the commercial SDS system very soon.

One of my biggest concerns about the MS was the time from beginning to end of the project, as time is one thing I don't have much of right now. Dave's info sure will save a lot of head scratching, but how long do you think it would take the average Joe to build/install/program the MS?

As for the SDS price, with the group buy's (it's over) 20% discount, my system cost me $1600 Canadian, so thats (I guess) about $1150 USD.
I also got the crank-fire programable ignition option (MS doesn't) so if you took the ignition out of the equation, my system woud have cost about $850 USD. This includes the TPS, MPS, wiring and a fuel pump relay.

Don't get me wrong, I think what Dave has done here is great and I hope others follow in his footsteps.
I may be still in the market next year for a MS system for my VW Squareback. If I have the time.

here comes that first big drop on the rollercoaster. dwd, might as well clean the firewall up before intalling the box. then it all goes crazy. not btdt, am there, still doing as opposed to done that.

kevin

You got that car running yet?
Geoff

engine spins, carbs on after the wife goes to work. a little gas, and we'll know today. update tonight.

kevin

Based on my own PEFI project experience, I'll venture to guess that the assembly time of the megasquirt would be a drop in the bucket compared to all the time you will dump into getting a good working crank sensor and TPS fabricated and fitted. Oh, and don't forget, you'll be building a wiring harness. All of these things are very doable, but I REALLY REALLY underestimated the time it would take.

Hunt is spot-on with the Dirk Wrights Disease (DWD) comment. Your project will run off on you if you aren't carefull. Last month I dropped the engine to do a clutch TO bearing change and look what happened: hydro clutch conversion, clutch (everything from fork pivot to main seal), shift bushings, pedal box rebuild, full engine scrub-down, repaint tin, new throttlebody, re-plumbed fuel lines, fabricated new crankfire setup (sucessful this time I think) ... Day before yesterday I came-to. I looked down at the intake runners I was painting and said "That's it. No more. I'm putting it back together." Hopefully I can fire it off tonight. Right after I build a bridge circuit for the idle solenoid.... Crap it's happening again. (sigh)

-Ben M.

I built my MS box in just a few hours...I then spent a few more hours hunting down new N4401 diodes since I installed mine backwards and fried them

What I liked about building, testing and installing the MS was that I learned a bunch of stuff that I more than likely would not have been exposed to. Sure I am not an EE now, but I feel a lot more comfortable working and trouble shooting electrical components.....

You learn nothing if the install and operation goes smoothly.

For me, the hardest part of my MS install was building the wiring harness.

>I built my MS box in just a few hours...I then spent a few more hours >hunting down new N4401 diodes since I installed mine backwards and fried >them

My low point came while troubleshooting my crankfire and I accidentally swapped leads and fried a Bosch 008 series variable-dwell ignition amp.

>What I liked about building, testing and installing the MS was that I learned >a bunch of stuff that I more than likely would not have been exposed to.

This is EXACTLY how I felt about my PEFI project. Even though I didn't have to build my board I still had to study and learn a lot to get it working. (Had to build transisorzied circuits to make crank signal and ignition work correctly for example). It was totally new to me and really racked my brain at times, but it was very rewarding in the end.

>You learn nothing if the install and operation goes smoothly.
Luckily I don't think that's likely to happen to anyone. he he. Well, at least not the first time. I look forward to my next PEFI install because I can list dozens of mistakes I plan to avoid (although I'm sure I'll discover new ones).

>For me, the hardest part of my MS install was building the wiring harness.

Amen. You start out thinking "Oh, I just have to wire up a couple of sensors. Piece of cake.", but you soon find it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
If Bowlsby (sp? sorry Jeff) starts selling a plug-n-play MS harness you could shave probably 80% of the time off of a MS conversion project by buying one.

-Ben M.

The crank trigger mounting is the big "unknown" in my set-up.
Ben what was your solution?

As far as the DWD, I don't plan to do much with this 1.8 engine, just stick on the FI and hopefully shove it back in. I will save the DWD for the 2.0 (maybe 2.3L) that I’m slowly gathering together parts for. The SDS comes with a wiring harness, I don't know if I will have to modify it much.
I will have a lot of answers soon, I should have my system sometime next week.

Unfortunately, I have 3 customers’ engines that have to be built before I can start on my install. Hopefully this won't slow me down too much.

Ben

I'm really interested in your crank mount tigger wheel. Can you supply any details?


As to my and your comment about DWD, I was referring to repairs or changes that HAD to be done to install my Megasquirt. Cracks in old fuel lines, bent pintel on one injector, etc. Is there a term for the things you want to do.? How about TOD disease(temptation of the Devil) or WAD disease (Want a Divorce). Now that I can fuel a ticked out engine, I want to build one. What about brakes, suspension, etc. Talk about a dangerous bug. I never considered these temptations before I started down this path.

Mark

How do you plan to tune this system. I used a wide band O2 sensor on the road to get close then finallized it with a chassis dyno. Lots of fun, and it works well but that was about $400 for parts and dyno time.

Dave

Oh boy. I opened my mouth about the crank sensor. I guess it's put up or shut up, eh? Ok, here's the deal...

When I initially installed the PEFI my cranks sensor setup didn't work out so I bagged it and put a Crane optical sensor in a locked distributor. Works great.

What I'm trying to do now: I re-evaluated my original crank trigger design and made some improvements (I hope). I will test it tonight/tomorrow to see if it works. If it doesn't I'll fall back to using the Crane sensor in the dizzy.

Description:
I have mounted small round magnets (the type you can buy from SDS) in the lip of the cooling fan pulley. I did this by drilling holes in the lip and mounting the magnets in epoxy. Centered directly at the botom of the fan shroud I have mounted a dual hall sensor. It sticks up thorugh a notch cut in the cooling tin and hovers over the lip of the cooling fan pulley.

Some of you may have seen pictures of this setup I posted in '91 or '92. I've refined it a little but it's mostly the same. I believe that the problem I was having with this setup before was actually an unrelated problem I solved after abandoning the crank trigger setup. So I'm going to give it another go.

-Ben M.

Ben, so you’re back to the fan! I thought that it wobbled at high RPM or something?
The fan sure would be the easiest mounting spot for my trigger, the SDS sensor (housing) is quite wide.

Dave, I have a lambda (narrow band?) Haltech AF-30 air/fuel ratio meter, very similar to the unit that SDS sells. I've heard some of the debate between this type of unit and the wide band type. I do have a lot of VW aircooled (beetle) experience tuning carbs with it, my plugs always look perfect and I have never burnt (leaned out) up an engine using it. So I guess I'll just give it a go and see what happens.
One thing that the SDS system has is a rich/lean fine adjustment knob I'll see how much play is in this function.

As for dyno time we'll see. If it runs good I doubt if I would dyno this engine, it's a 1.8 and I wouldn't even care if I smoked it. When I build the big T4 (DWD big time) it will see some dyno time for sure.

The SDS sales hype says that "the SDS is the easiest EFI system to program on the market, period!"

Well, I will be putting that claim to the test very shortly.

Well one thing to SDS’s word, I just checked my email, they are shipping the first two orders today!

I only sent in the group buy order on Monday and they received the order yesterday afternoon.
I realize that they have most stuff on the shelf, but that is still pretty fast in my book.

P.S. I'm drooling like Homer J. Simpson!
Mmmmm.... fuel injection...

Yeah, back to the fan. I think what I interpreted as fan wobble was interference on the signal wire. After switching to the optical sensor in the dizzy I had simmilar symtoms that I was able to cure by shielding the leads. I'm going to wire it up so I can just unplug the optical sensor and plug in the crank sensor. If it doesn't work I'll just swap the plug back and life goes on.

-Ben M.