Finally started my snail pace megasquirt project

[probey]

Took me a long time to get the project going and finally a little progress.
Sharing some pics of my set up.
Hopefully these pics will help others if planning on going the megasquirt route.
I got a great deal of valuable info from this board but not many pics are available.
Inputs and questions welcome.
Btw, thanks Bryan K and Daniel P for the maps!

[christsay]

The VAC hardware looks nice. No cam sensor means wasted spark or am I missing something?

-chris

[probey]

Thanks Chris. You are correct. I will be running wasted spark via MS2

David

[Dietrich]

That's good progress. Good luck with the project.
-Dietrich

[AlpineRunner]

Looks great! VAC makes top-notch stuff. Will this give you full ignition timing and fuel control? How easily does it tune? I spoke to a guy today to raved about the chip based (not piggypack) Miller Alpha-N. I'm going to looking into alternatives to Maxx this winter.

[probey]

Thank you Dietrich!

Alpine, I am very impressed with the VAC kit. It does simplify the install quite a bit. That being said, I had to machine down the VAC crank pulley as the trigger wheel was designed to fits over the stock crank pulley, and not their after market part. The "neck" of the VAC pulley was too thick. I will attach a pic to explain this.
This setup will give me full control of both ignition and fuel!
I have an electronic engineering competency of a second grader, so please don't ask me about ease of tuning.
I have acquired a couple of maps (fuel+ign) by the generosity of forum members so I'm couting a lot on the them to fire up my car after Im done with the install.

[Bryan]

David, your install looks great! I really like the crank sensor mount (is that a hall or VR sensor?). I wonder if VAC sells that separately? Mine is a hacked up homemade installation that could be improved. Is the main board located in your glove compartment? Which MS board are you installing?

I have spent a lot of time recently updating my car with the new firmware version of megasquirt. I updated a lot of my wiring, too. I realized that I was using the stock car grounds and not grounding the sensors directly to the megasquirt. The car runs much more refined now. Let me pull a version from my laptop this weekend and reshare my config file and fuel maps. What injectors are you using? I finally got my low impedance evo green injectors set up correctly with pulse width modulation.

I don't mind sharing my maps with anyone else interested. Is there a good location that I can put them up?

[probey]

Hi Bryan,
I'm not 100% sure, but I think its a VR sensor. It came along as part of the VAC standalone installation kit.
Using the Megasquirt relay board really helps to clean up the wiring in the engine bay. I will be installing the MS in the glove compartment.
I have the MS2 V 3.57 board.
My current plan is to use the stock injectors and stock coolant temp sensor. I want to make the car as stock appearing as possible due to CA smog reasons.
Are you using the stock IAC? If so, how did you wire it?
Thanks again!

For fans of the "other" DTM homologation car.
Here's my conversion from CIS to standalone EFI in my 190e cosworth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcx6qEp8IfE

[Magnus]

Dope. Thanks for sharing the pics.

[probey]

a little update.
I had to modify my megasquirt board in adding 2 coil drivers as I am planning on running wasted spark with my set up. I would prefer to say goodbye to my cap/rotor forever.
this page has good instruction on how it's done.
http://www.diyautotune.com/tech_arti...megasquirt.htm
I have the V3.57 board, but it appears modifications on V3 board would be more simplified.
The last pic shows how I'm hiding the IAT in my spare/broken AFM.
hopefully all of this will come together in a few weeks. I can't wait to fire up the car.

[indie_wannabe]

Looking good probey! I've been running Megasquirt on my car for years and am very happy with it. I started with a assemble yourself version of MS2 on a V3.0 board with the MS2 daughter card. For firmware, I've been running the current versions of MS extra almost the entire time. I'm a big fan of the MSExtra firmware. I'm running wasted spark vai a Ford coil pack and extra coil driver like you plan to. A few years ago, I switched to MS3pro. I'm happy with the change, but it wasn't necessary.I do like the more advanced injector controls, better knock sensing, and all the extra I/O channels in MS3pro. But you can definitely run a E30 M3 well on MS2.

I found the MS system to be easy to tune. Now that TunerStudio from EFI Analytics has Auto Tune, it's even easier to get your fuel map dialed in.

I may be missing something, but I don't see why you need to run the MS relay board or why it would clean up the wiring. Admittedly I don't know much about the relay board 'cause I didn't use one. I just used the stock relays for my install. Unless I'm forgetting something, I was able to get wiring access for all the relays from the stock wiring harness connector in the glove box. Are you keeping the stock wiring harness? Are you planning to use a wide band O2 sensor? I would NOT recommend running or tuning your car without one.

Bryan was a big help when I put MS on my car. I didn't know he was still active on the forum. Bryan, good to see you around and thanks for your help!

Brad

[Bryan]

David, the 3.57 board looks very nice! I'm still on my original 3.0 board, although I recently burned up my power plane when trying to build a 12V tach circuit in my proto area. I had to jump the 12V supply across the board to the regulator to fix it. Whoops. Good thing my wife is an electrical engineer!

Hey Brad! It is good to hear from you again. I went into hiding when I was finishing up my graduate degree, but now that I am tinkering with the M3 I'm seeing what everyone is up to. It feels like a long time since I was here last. You are very welcome, it makes me really proud that I could offer some help when you were doing your install. Now you have a MS Pro with knock control! Speaking of, what knock sensor are you using? I have always wanted to have knock control on the car. What was the difficulty of the install?

[indie_wannabe]

Bryan, My knock sensor is a Bosch unit I got here. The install was fairly easy. I originally installed the knock control on my MS2 using Boris's knock sense unit. I bought the sensor, knock sense, and connector from him. It was pretty easy to install. I ended up installing the sensor on the block below the airbox using a 8mm/12mm stud described in post #2 here. Note Ander's post just below about mounting the sensor. Wiring up the knock sense unit is pretty straight fwd. I did it per Boris's instructions. Boris's knock sense system was much, much better than nothing, but I could never get it to work at high RPM. I don't remember exactly when it would stop working. Maybe around 4000? As the RPMs rose, normal engine noise would trigger the knock sensing. It was still useful. Bad gas, the right mechanical failure, or a bad tune could have made the engine knock at lower RPMs. The MS3 knock circuitry and firmware settings are much better. I can sense knock across the RPM band. Not certain, but I believe you can add the M3 daughter card and knock unit to a MS2.

Sounds like you have your tack circuit working. In case it could help you or anyone else, here's how I set up my MS2 to run the dash tach. See post #5. There's some info on how I set up my ICV in the same thread.

Brad

[probey]

Hi Brad and Bryan. Thank you! the relay board is definitely not necessary. It just simplifies the install by centralizing the relays, fuses, and all the connections to one place. I am keeping the stock harness as much intact as possible. I am still paranoid about installing a diy EFI all by myself.
My main concern prior to pulling the trigger on the install is not knowing how to set the tuning parameters, and having a good MAP for megasquirt.
I feel much more reassured after Bryan offered the MAPS and knowing there are people on this board with much experience and willing to help!
Having knock control is pretty awesome. Maybe I'll look into that later as well after I get the car rolling first.

David