Megasquirt

[Dave Adams]

For sometime now i have been tempted by a megasqirt system, has any of you out there got any experience of them and know where i can get one (i could order the kit, but i figure it will be cheaper to get a secondhand one or unfinished one)

[Big Vern]

think you've missed the point allan. 

[Big Vern]

Right then Dave, As it would seem you are interested in megasquirt as an educational tool then it probably is right up your street. I would still speak to Phil Ringwoodof e xtraEFI as he's uk based and extraEFI has more support for uk engines and their sensors. He can hopefully guide you on how to configure your 'squirt. I would also go with using the extraEFI code/firmware and software as it seems to do more and is more stable. I wish I'd known about extraEFI when I was messing about with megasquirt.

If you're interested I have somewhere in the shed honda 600 and 1000 throttlebodies etc. and some fuel rail extrusion I bought in from the states a few years back.

I will also talk to a guy I used to work with as he was playing around with an engine management project, that would test your microelectronics capabilities :-)

 

 

 

[Dave Adams]

The thing is i have a hobby interest in electronics as well as an onc in microelectronics. i have actually been looking at a scratch built sysyem using PIC‘s.

[Paul Sheridan]

Sound advice from BV......... fueling and firing an injected engine on a budget is always going to be problematic, unless you go for one of the turn key systems like Omex, Emerald, MTech ect.  With MTech you also get some time on their rolling road for final tweeking :-) 

[Big Vern]

Deffo dont get a second hand one Dave, it wont be configured to what you want. If you really want to spend that myuch of your life cursing and getting frustrated speak to Phil Ringwood - extraEFI You can buy ready assembled and tested from him to save some of the pain. I suggest you have a good long chat with him to make sure its what you really want to do. Personally I think the fiat twin cam will sound much better on sidedraft webers - A Lancia monte-carlo passes my office quite regularly and sounds great.

[Big Vern]

Had personal experience of megasquirt - If you want something to plug and play and your main interest is driving the car, then its NOT for you - if you like experimenting and are happy to use it as an educational tool and speed many hours faffing around with the end result being something you can use then go for it.

Most people buy it 'cos of the price, get frustrated when they can't get it to work how they want quickly, support is generally poor especially in the uk.

I got fed up with it 'cos I needed to get an engine mapped and in the car, I hadn't realised just how 'prototype' it was and binned it in favour of an Omex system that was running the engine the same day it arrived!

IMHO megasquirt is cheap only because its untested, and immature in the software/hardware department, not because you build it yourself (through solder components are dearer than surface mount and pick and place can turn out loads for pence)

[Paul Sheridan]

I was originally going down that route for my Zetec, and was going to order a kit from the states. But researching and reading many posts on the subject left me in two minds, what sealed its fate was, a freind of mine got one (ready built) which we fitted and set up as per the instructions. We had problems with cold starting, the engine was over fueling despite contant tweeking of the parameters on the computer. We took the car to an engine mapping specialist and he got it better, but by no means perfect.

There were other glitches with top end revs also.

All this said, my reaserch was done about three years ago, so things may have changed. I am using the V4 ECU from MTEC,  these units are expensive but infinitely more tuneable, with full back up from MTEC.

 I think that Jonno used a megasquirt in hin Leggy on a Zetec with bike throttle bodies, may be worth a word with him.