Megasquirt EFI is an amazingly capable system that is 100% tuneable. It is, however a mis-understood system and many of it's detractors have either not actually used it themselves or have used a cobbled together system of mis-matched parts. After 8 year of working with Megasquirt and doing installs, I have found that buying a complete, well engineered system with a quality harness is key to success. Also having an expert tuner can't hurt either.

Some may know that I work closely with Mario Velotta from The Dub Shop for all my Megasquirt parts and kits as well as tuning help. Here's a very typical install of one of his kits. You don't need the buy the most expensive kits to get a great running car and Mario will not up-sell you things you don't need for your application.

This install was on a 914 2.0L that had factory D-jetronic. Normally we would keep it plenum based re-using much of the factory parts, but with the TB badly worn and this clients desire to clean-up the engine bay, so we went with 40mm ITBs with modern 32# injectors. Ignition is a crank triggered (36-1 wheel mounted behind the fan w/ a bracket and hall sensor) using a coil pack and 8mm plug wires. Exhaust sampling is with an Innovate LC2 All sensors are wired through custom made harnesses. These feed into a relay board. This relay board is not a piece that is 100% necessary to use, but I feel it simplifies and cleans-up the install by getting all fuses and relays used into one neat, clean compact footprint.

The install took about 2 days. This included careful removal of the old D-jet system and installation of all the components is the new system. We chose to mount this system in the fwd, right end of the rear trunk. Probably the most difficult part of the install was installing the hall sensor bracket with the engine in place. While totally doable, it was a tedious part of the job.

Mario came out to assist in the in-car tuning. The result of a 2-2.5 hour drive is smooth as silk driving from idle to red line, under light throttle or heavy. Acceleration is smooth. No bucking, burping or farting Here is a short video of the test-drive and an over view of the install.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9rcczRTG_M...e=youtube_gdata

Nice job Nate,, That was my Dads 76 .... dad 2.0, me2.4-6, mom 2.0, son 2.0, Now the current owner Craig..2.0 TB mega...

Great 914

Dammit! you're making me regret not going with MS
Awsome video, makes me anxious to get my own ITB and fuel injection setup completed.

Thanks. This car is an absolutely squeaky clean and well sorted car with a great history!! I think Craig will like the improvements in its drivability and performance. We also added a Tangerine Racing Evo IV.

Hey Nate! I was there yesterday for the final install and I must say this system plus the professional installation done convinces me that my current MegaSquirt will be most improved by you......thanks for letting me sit in!
I will be doing away with my current cobbled D-jet injectors and going for the TB plus cleaning up the wire nest that the previous owner made.
Unfortunately, I had to leave before the start up which at the time they were narrowing down to starting.

Thanks Nate and Mario for helping me find a solution to my bad running 914 plus meeting you guys.

Steve

Nice.


So...any interest in pursuing that? It would make a nice upsell and should improve tunability and drivability. - GA

It was great meeting you too. We fired it only 30 minutes after you left. . . Sorry you missed it.



It's not hard to keep all the factory plenum, TB, runners and air cleaner assembly. In this case the owner wanted ITBs due to the poor condition of the original TB. If the original hard parts are in good condition, you can save a fair amount of money that way for sure.

There's "up-selling" and there's informing someone on the advantages/disadvantages of both and giving the client what he asks for. This was the later. As far as tuneability and drivability goes, when you dial ITBs in, you get both.

Can you make a setup to work on a Porsche 6. We are looking for a bolt in kit to purchase. If available, we would buy in quantity.

i'm going to have to think about this…a set of dels and a set of webers to sell off would go a long way towards this package. i'll be in touch with some questions. hard to not like that dual throttle body sound.

Mario could easily put this type of kit together. Although I only have bought a few parts from him I can attest to his capabilities.

In my Megasquirt system I decided to use as much of the existing D-Jet system as possible both to reduce cost and because of the challenge. My engine is a 2056cc with a Webcam #86 camshaft which is slightly more aggressive than stock. The Megasquirt ECU controls both fuel injection and ignition. The D-Jet parts I reused are, starting from the top:
- Air filter box
- Throttle body
- Plenium
- Intake runners
- Fuel injectors
- Cylinder head temp sensor
- Fuel pressure regulator

Things I added:
- Crankshaft position sensor and wheel (The Dub Shop ~$140)
- Intake air temp sensor (GM part, ~$15)
- GM LS2 ignition coils, one per cyl. (eBay ~$60 total)
- Throttle position sensor (Bosch, used ~$20)
- FI fuel pump and filters located in front trunk (Walbro ~$150)
- Wideband O2 sensor and cockpit gauge (innovate ~$200)
- Megasquirt MS3X (DIY Autotune ~$490 as kit, $660 fully assembled)
- Wiring harness (DIY Autotune ~$80)
- Injector driver board (Jbperf ~$60 kit)

I made my own relay, fuse and terminal board that I also use to mount the Megasquirt enclosure. My cost for that was about $50. Finally I used Delphi Weather Pack connectors throughout including two 22 pin bulkhead connectors thru the back trunk. That lets me drop the engine by just unlocking a handful of connections. All told about $100 worth of connectors.

My cost into this part of the Megasquirt system is about $1,600. This includes some miscellaneous tools and automotive wiring that is not a one time expense. So, if I would sell the Webers, fuel pump and distributor that I took off my net for the Megasquirt system would be $700 - $800. And it was a fun project!

Contact Mario directly for a kit like that (www.thedubshop.net). I have no doubts that he could. I know he's done several Motec conversions for Porsches so doing one that is Megasquirt based should not be a problem for him.

thanks

That is one fine running 914 !

Very impressive, I was just talking to a colleague about what the ultimate set up would be for the type four. Exactly what you just did !

Nice !

Nice! now looking forward to finish my 71 1.7 Megasquirt that i acquired last year. A day after towing it from the previous owner and after a year of not running due to the rear passenger side suspension console damaged, I initially install a battery, put some fuel, checked all vacuum lines and gas line and also if there is a good oil. Then with just one start, the engine run and it just drop in a few seconds to an idle around 800 rpm.

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Man, that sounds nice. I have a friend building me an m10 with itbs/efi for my bmw 2002 right now. Given the trouble I've been having tuning the webers on my 6 conversion it got me thinking about putting a similar set-up in the 914, but I figured it would cost $$$ to do. Without bringing logic too much into it, is the dollar/power return worth the investment?

Dollar/power is probably not worth it if you are looking at just peak power since you can tune a set of carbs to be pretty perfect at one engine speed. If you are looking for overall drive-ability, both through the rev range and in different weather/altitude conditions, my opinion is the EFI is very much worth the investment. Your fuel economy would also likely greatly increase.

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Random thought, but the one thing I've always been curious about is the resale value of cars converted to aftermarket EFI systems. Does anyone know? As someone who has put a few different systems on different engines from scratch, buying someone's retrofitted car doesn't bother me. Is that true of the general public?

What do you think you are gaining over a properly functioning d-jet system with respect to HP or torque?

I am also curious about the resale value. To that end I am documenting all of my wiring - MS3 to terminal strips, connectors, color codes for wires and routing if appropriate. The next step in documentation will be all of the parts that I used and my tuning process.

As far as advantages over standard D-jet, it let me use more displacement and a more aggressive cam and eliminate the distributor.

I would not recommend the direction that I took, using as much of the existing system as possible, for most 914 owners. I sent the injectors off for refurbishing and flow testing. I needed to fabricate a mounting location for various components. And finally, since this was far from a "stock" configuration, patience is needed to tune the Megasquirt ECU. For me this was mostly fun but there were frustrating moments.

Great thread ! What are you referring in post 1 for modern 32# injectors ?

And, how applicable could this mod be for an L-Jet ?

One way injector flow is rated is pounds per hour (#) at a specified fuel pressure. Another way of rating is cc's per minute. The injectors in a 1.8 & 2.0 914 are rated at 30.5 pounds per hour / 320 cc per minute at 43.5 pounds of fuel pressure.

Megasquirt is equally suitable for L-jet as it is for D-jet. With L-jet you can eliminate the movable vane air flow sensor. There is one issue for those of us in CA, if you have a 1976 914 you are still required to have the car smog tested with the equipment it was sold with.

As an example, the D-jet 2.0 injector with a flow rate of 30.5#, in a 4 cylinder engine, with fuel pressure of 32#, at an 80% duty cycle would support up to 165 horsepower.

I think I might have had the very 1st Megasquirted* 914 and it was a 1.8 that I removed the L-Jet from. BradR commented it was one of the smoothest idling 914 motors he had seen.

*I was in one of the 1st group buys of the MS1 bare boards way, way back!

I agree that installing EFI will not necessarily give you an increase in HP/Torque but it's alot easier to optimize your fuel and timing via a laptop than with jets, venturies and distributor springs. It's also a lot more precise.

D-jet is a good system when everything is working correctly. But it's electro-mechanical and it's the mechanical side that usually fails. Also it's not tuneable. Yes, you can tweak it here and there to support a larger, hungrier motor, but not that much larger and not that much hungrier and your cam selection is very limited.

With MS (and other digital systems like it), every single RPM & load condition is tuneable. With MS2 for example, the fuel tables are a 12X12 (loadXRPM) grid (MS3 has 16X16) with each cell being individually tuneable. Spark control is the same.

So what that enables you to do is to precisely tune for virtually any load/RPM condition for any engine of any displacement with any cam or head combo. That is something D-jet users can only dream about since the D-jet ECU is not very tuneable.. Many blame this on the MAP sensor, but in reality it's the ECU that can't adapt to the load requirements that the MAP is sending it. MS can!!

With MS3, you can run fully sequential injection which allows you to really smooth out a radical cam at idle. It gives you the ability to individually tune each cylinder independently.. This gives you the ability to have a radical cam the idles like a stock cam'd motor @ 900-950 rpms. Again, that's a D-jet tuners dream.

IMHO, D/L-jet is great, *When it works*. Once it doesn't you can easily spend a lot of time/money finding the parts you need to fix it, but in the end, you're installing another 30+ year old part. . . With MS, I don't need to hoard parts; I don't worry about it. A key part of a reliable MS system is a clean/orderly install that's done right. Many are cobbled and look hacked-in so only the original installer can figure it out. These are typically the MS cars you read about giving the owners lots of problems.

As for resale,. . . A stock 2.0L car with 100% complete and working D-jet will likely sell for slightly more to a collector but not necessarily to a owner that's a driver. But if you have a clean, neat and tidy install of an MS system and hand the original D-jet to the next owner, I can't ever see getting less especially if the next owner plans to actually drive the car. That brings us back to the real reason to convert away from stock: DRIVEABILITY plain and simple.

Build a new, big motor later?? No problem. It's a re-tune of the ECU. Add a turbo?? No problem, it's a re-tune and enable boost control and a controller. Need launch control?? Enable it on the drop-down menu.

IMHO, D-jet, carbs and distributors are all compromises. MS is a no compromises and expandable system.

Very well said and thank you for giving such a detailed response. An additional question is that many people who supported MS are now promoting SDS because of its user friendly interface. What say you?

Huh. I haven't met anyone like that, are these people active any place other than the SDS forums? I sure don't know everyone, of course, but I know a lot of people who've switched to MS from other systems, no one who's pulled a MS system for SDS.

I think Nate actually answered your question. SDS is just that, simple. If it works for you, and you have no need for any other capabilities and never will then fine, not a problem, use it. In counterpoint MS will be there with all the capabilities you need, no matter how you or your motor evolve. More capabilities inevitably means more variables, so more complexity. You can't get away from that, but it's more complicated because it does more. Other side of that coin, be sure SDS will do everything you need, now and in the future, before you commit to it.

Personally speaking, I don't know anyone who has gone from MS to SDS. I do know several who had SDS systems that constantly had to fiddle with the enrichment knob as they drove and tired of this on drives and converted to MS. Admittedly, I have not even looked at an SDS system in a few years since discovering MS for myself. So with that, I'm not familiar with their later products. I have found Tuner Studio (the interface I and most use with MS) to be very user friendly.

This system brings the 914 into the modern world. I have spoken to a Bus owner who mentioned his emissions with the MS system was dramatically better than stock.

Regarding value of our 914's: If your car is a a 4-cylinder that has been through a restore then the value has already been killed. The two primary value for collectors are related to:

1. Rarity of the car (914/6's....although I think the LE's get an unfair shake)
2. Originality (original parts, paints, etc....) An original car with low miles is worth more to the collector.


In the end, it is your car though. I'm doing with mine what I please. I'll be going the MS with ITB's route because I am tired of dinking with a 40 year old D-jet system.

I scan a lot of threads and wasn't even aware of a SDS forum. I have read Raby say he is a proponent of SDS. I'm very interested in building a large displacement engine and unsure of an induction system. These types of threads are very helpful. Nate, when I get to that stage maybe we can collaborate together on a MS system?

The forums I mentioned are on the SDS website, so they're very SDS-centric.

It's true that Megasquirt can be too complex for some occasional hobbyists, in the same way that rust repair or an engine rebuild can be too much. It's the same old "no pain, no gain," and you need to evaluate that yourself, if you're up to the challenge. That's why people like Nate and Mario are so good to know, they make that hurdle manageable.

I have a set CB fuel injection throttle bodies that I was today trying to figure out what to do with as megasquirt seemed to complicated. Now think I might keep them if can get more information on the megasquirt system that you used.

To me, this is what MS represents. Modern world control on classic cars. This is exactly why I converted my own car in '08. When you hop in your late model daily driver, you don't have to fill your trunk with tools and spares do you?? You shouldn't have to carry points, caps, rotors, fuel pumps, MPSs, injectors, switches and relays the way most do when driving to WCR or any destination out of town.



Absolutely!



Don't sell 'em; use them!! Do your homework and ask question of those who have done it. Don't be afraid to try something new. That's how we learn.

MS has many versions with an unbelievable amount of capabilities. It's easy to get caught-up in the latest and the greatest. In reality MS2 V3 with wasted spark is all most folks will ever need to have a smooth driving car. With my own car I'm running MS3X w/ full sequential injection and spark w/ LS2 coils and I probably didn't need it. For me it was an investment in learning and tuning. But I'm also running a pretty radical cam and it's smooth as glass at 900 rpms with no lumping along or high idle.

Oops! I didn't take a photo of it out of the car. I only have this one of the O2 bung/sensor I added just after the 2 exit pipes merge into one. We got a really pretty good sniff from there.

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What's the ballpark "all in" cost of doing something like this? $5k? More? Less?
And what's the complexity of install? Is it necessary to pull the engine?

It really depends if you are able to install and tune yourself or if you will be using a shop to perform the install and tune for you. This particular package was about 3k. Since the car already had EFI it didn't need all my normal parts. If you where to add in 4 days of labor, 5K would be pretty accurate.

That would include the initial tuning plus a few days in the shop to adjust cold starts, hot restarts, etc,. The stuff you only have limited time to adjust each day once the car has been run for any period of time. That's why it's the hardest and often left as-is. Also, those can't be addressed properly until the main ignition and fuel maps have been tuned.

The install is like putting in dual carbs, you just have some extra wiring to do. But with the harness I provide that isn't a big deal IMO and as close to Plug and Play as possible. As Nate stated it all can be done with the engine in the car. But the crank trigger wheel will be more difficult to install.

Very interesting! I'm going to have to do a lot more reading on this. My old 1.7, although it had Djet, was the first FI car I'd had in a long time, and I think it spoiled me. I'm running DRLA 40's right now, and I think I'm really getting tired of the fiddling.

One of the few things I truly love about carbs though is the sound. And from the video it sounds like you still have that roar with the ITB's.

The crank trigger was a bit of a challenge to install with the engine in place but was totally doable from below with the fwd tins removed.

You definitely got the sound!

Awesome. I have about 600 miles on my MS system and love it. It starts up so easily, no fuel smells. Only complaint is a noisy fuel pump. I needed to raise idle spped to about 1050rpm to mask the fuel pump noise.

Do you have photos of fuel pump installation?

Normally, if there was an old 3-port pump, this would be replaced by a Walbro pump which is a great pump, but they are pretty loud. Fortunately, this car already had a Bosch L-jet style pump mounted in the factory location under the tank (it was a '76 model) that appeared to be perfect shape, so we kept it in place working with it's original wiring.

I have a Walbro pump on my own car and am familiar with these noisy pumps. I was able to quiet mine down some by using the foam sleeve between the mounting clamps. I also used the rubber isolators that VW/Porsche used to mount their factory pumps to the chassis. Mine is now just a bit louder that the factory Bosch pump.