Your experiences with Megasquirt, Haltech, ECUmaster?

[rcx132]

Hey everyone,

I stuck to the stock factory ECU for my 4x4 buggy build. But now I'm starting to regret it. The EGR puts so much abrasive crap into the engine and I cant delete it. Now I need to adjust the idle speed to suit the accessories and off road use, and I cant.

All the sensor wires have their own dedicated loom and go back to the cabin for easy connection. I have an oscilloscope and know how to use it. How difficult do you think it will be to get an aftermarket ECU set up?

PS Not keen on batch injection ! My OCD wont allow it !

 

[Morris]

I have limited experience with Micro squirt. It's not capable of sequential but can do a sort of semi-sequential, firing 2 and then the next 2 360 Deg later. It's a small unit and easy to wire up.
If you truly need full sequential then it's MS which ever suits your needs. The software is the same (tuner studio) and free. For a small fee you can have Autotune.
I was leaping into the unknown when I started with it, no previous experience and so far I have a running engine that needs final tuning. I have 36-1 trigger wheel, lambda, MAP sensor, tips, coolant and manifold temps and IAV. Stock injectors and a VW lost spark coil pack.

 

[Melvyn Best]

I spent ages researching megasquirt years ago to convert my kitcar to injection, bearing in mind I know little about electronics all I read ended up just confusing me even more, in the end I got myself an Emerald ECU which was dead easy to wire up and to get the engine running enough to start programming before a rolling road session. From my experiences I would not hesitate to go the same route again , it is capable of sequential or batch firing , some of the newer ECUs can have several interchangeable programs amongst loads of other features one of which is a system for a stable idle speed, along with good back up

 

[Kayos]

I built a mega squirt a looooong time ago, when it was a new concept

As part of a group buy I purchased a PCB and had to use Ford coil pack and add a trigger wheel and sensor to the crank, at the time I couldn't modify it to use the existing cam sensor. All parts sourced slowly from various places

First car it was in was a Cavalier C20SEH? The 2.0 8v Sri engine that I added a turbo to, then it was my Vauxhall 1.8 small block, a hybrid of my own design that used various parts from the different engines to give me a crank trigger wheel, cam sensor, high compression and a few bits. I fitted GSXR1000 throttle bodies to this engine and "tuned" it with a wideband O2 sensor

Great fun, not sure I'd do it these days, although I understand it is vastly improved now

 

[Morris]

@Kayos yes much improved. The microsquirt is a fully built unit all ready to go. MS1-2-3 the same and I believe there are other units available as well. The Microsquirt is only £395 ish with a 2.4m loom. It has a footprint the size of a packet of cigs.

 

[Kayos]

@Kayos yes much improved. The microsquirt is a fully built unit all ready to go. MS1-2-3 the same and I believe there are other units available as well. The Microsquirt is only £395 ish with a 2.4m loom. It has a footprint the size of a packet of cigs.

Sounds like dream compared to when I did it!

 

[bricol]

I spent ages researching megasquirt years ago to convert my kitcar to injection, bearing in mind I know little about electronics all I read ended up just confusing me even more, in the end I got myself an Emerald ECU which was dead easy to wire up and to get the engine running enough to start programming before a rolling road session. From my experiences I would not hesitate to go the same route again , it is capable of sequential or batch firing , some of the newer ECUs can have several interchangeable programs amongst loads of other features one of which is a system for a stable idle speed, along with good back up

Been running an Emerald for more than 20 yrs. Got a spare in the loft for when I was going to tune my Lancia, but I think it might now be used in my trials car.

Trying to run sequential injection failed and I could not work out why - it ran on batched. Finally one evening at midnight a thought occurred . . . in the garage a few minutes later, in my pjs and slippers, cam cover now off all became clear . . . no reluctor on the aftermarket fast road cam to trigger the sensor!

 

[Melvyn Best]

Been running an Emerald for more than 20 yrs. Got a spare in the loft for when I was going to tune my Lancia, but I think it might now be used in my trials car.

Trying to run sequential injection failed and I could not work out why - it ran on batched. Finally one evening at midnight a thought occurred . . . in the garage a few minutes later, in my pjs and slippers, cam cover now off all became clear . . . no reluctor on the aftermarket fast road cam to trigger the sensor!

Mine must be getting on for 20 years old , I doubt if the laptop I used to set it up still works , my newer laptop wouldn’t take a floppy disc and as for my iPad??

 

[bricol]

Mine must be getting on for 20 years old , I doubt if the laptop I used to set it up still works , my newer laptop wouldn’t take a floppy disc and as for my iPad??

That's an issue I have. Laptop used only for the task refuses to turn on. If I need to update, check or change anything, I'll be stumped! Never mind remembering what to actually do !

 

[northwest]

I was in with Dave Walker at the time he set Emerald up and his early attempts were challenging to say the least. I understand it was eventually sorted but I never saw a successful setup using his cams and Emerald engine management. I gave up "performance cars" twenty years ago now and cannot really say I miss the late night frustrations of trying to get something to work that quite clearly wouldn't and confine my electronic frustrations to CNC nowadays. I cannot say I miss the expense now either or the horrendous engine rebuild costs. Somewhere I have a pic of the last Pinto I built and a beautiful thing t behold it was, but it never produced what I had expected of it sadly.

found a couple pics:


I spent hours on this head and used a Superflo 110 flow bench,



Didn't matter, still didn't give me a good return on the effort or money spent, sodium filled valves and I even X-rayed the thing!
Looked bloody impressive though.

 

[8ob]

If you are going the mapable route and intend to get it on a dyno it pays to make sure you have everything right. We wasted a lot of time and money tuning a V8 Ford, first visit the injectors timed out, for second trip fitted bigger injectors and upped the fuel pressure and then the pump ran out of flow, only got it right on the third attempt. This is on an older Emerald cams ECU with everything stored on a floppy disc.

Bob

This beast

 

[bricol]

20 yrs of (ab)use of my self built 200 bhp Rover k-series would indicate he did get the Emerald ECU working well. With it running a direct drive box and CWP gear for acceleration not speed, it sits at high revs at decent speed - which coming back from south of France in a day means a lot of revs for a long time - and would probably kill me now - tiring in a car with no roof.

 

[Popcorn]

The VEMS is another set up to look at slightly more expensive but has everything you need built in:

VEMS - Home - VEMS

We enable enthusiasts and racers to extract the potential from of their engines

www.vems.com

 

[sako243]

Not with those specific ones but I have built my own. Currently just a prototype with an off the shelf core but once the vehicles up and running it'll be replaced with a fully integrated one.

Running Speeduino at the core of it but in a nice waterproof housing with proper automotive connectors. One for the vehicle side of the harness and one for the engine side.

 

[minimutly]

Did you know the guy who set up and ran Omex lives 5 miles away from you in Blaenwaun? I was chatting to him thinking "I know this voice from somewhere", when he told me what he used to do. Turns out we'd spoken many times, did some business together some years ago. Now he's building Ford 16v engines and dynoing them.

 

[Blobber]

If you are going the mapable route and intend to get it on a dyno it pays to make sure you have everything right. We wasted a lot of time and money tuning a V8 Ford, first visit the injectors timed out, for second trip fitted bigger injectors and upped the fuel pressure and then the pump ran out of flow, only got it right on the third attempt. This is on an older Emerald cams ECU with everything stored on a floppy disc.

Bob

This beast

View attachment 478483

Epic, what was the output of that?

 

[qwakers]

of those three haltech would be my choice, but take a look at link.

 

[jsf55]

Done a bit with a few with mixed results, the MS wouldn't work with the Pertronix ignition and kept failing, i then went for mappable ignition only in Mega Jolt home built which was great, then moved on too Fast EFI but i didn't realise it wouldn't work with N2O so that went, and changed the lot for a GM package LM59 (LM7 but for flex fuel and bigger injectors) and HP Tuners. Once you get to grips with what all the sensors do it's not so bad ....

 

[Munkul]

I did Megasquirt MS2 self build for a turbo 1.2 punto, after a bit of tweaking it put out around 190hp with proper in-gear boost control, launch control, flat-foot-shifting... Was a great ECU for tweaking. So are all of them to be honest. Omex, emerald, DTA, etc. They're all good, with a few pros/cons to each. I did have an Omex at one point for a 106 and used Nistune for my drift car.
Don't get hung up about batch firing injectors. It's simply not all that important.
You'll be able with a lot of learning, to put a rudimentary map onto the car and sort the idle and light throttle areas yourself. I'd highly recommend a wideband O2 kit like an AEM, and wire it directly into the ECU for easier tuning, possibly autotune.
Biggest thing IMO is getting to a dyno, and mapping the 1/2, 3/4 and WOT areas of the map. Then as much time as you want them to spend sorting out cruising areas. You can do this yourself if you want. I spent hours with a laptop while my mate drove around, hours well spent as i managed to actually get some good fuel economy from my cars
Good luck! Its a fairly steep learning curve, but it's a lot of fun!

 

[jmp49]

I have a ms1 I built from the group buy days at the begining, originally for a rover v8, but then the RR died a rot death, and it made its way eventually onto a Kawasaki GPZ1100B2, with a belt driven magneto (mallory sprint mag), taking timing pulses from the mag. Ive recently revamped that bike with coil on plug ignition and a microsquirt because its more practical than running a old mag with no spark advance, and belts that run open and are prone to leaving you stranded and its better packaged for bike use. I was going to try and interrupt the mag spark timing with the ms because it hasnt got the lower that houses the mechanical atu because of how the kit was made, but doing that doesnt make the open belt drive any better for daily use. The only issue I ever had with that was one of the output transistors popped and burnt a track, but because I put it together myself, I just replaced it and put a jumper in. Thats the beauty of a open design with no secret bits, you can dig inside and work out why its not doing the thing, or make it do new things if you have enough determination. And the thrill of having a bike running a mag and fuel injection was pretty intense, even if I got hate from the mag crowd for efi (on a bike that was factory efi...) and from the efi crowd for mag ignition. Mapping wasnt too much grief, I put a wb o2 in the exhaust and once it was tuned, swapped it for a nb setup because the wb02 sensor driver boards were quite expensive and I only have one...
Ive got a microsquirt on a kawasaki turbo unfinished project too, theyre light years ahead of the original hitachi injection computers which I wasted years dicking about with trying to mod before just binning it.
On my drag race bike project (kz based), thats currently stalled I hate to say, it has a MS3+MSX, for injection, ignition timing with 8 plugs (4 cylinder motor, but dual plugged with different timings on the two plugs), control the water injection and other duties. The only thing it doesnt control is shifting which is done by a pic chip dedicated to the job (I have a rather unique pneumatically shifted 3 speed box)

I see haltech around a lot and they seem to be pretty well supported and turn key and well marketed with a lot of people pushing them on social media, but I cant just shake the open nature of where megasquirt started even if it did go a bit commercial when tuner studio came out etc and it can be dug into and understood and tinkered with. I still have the old linux megasquirt software on a laptop somewhere, but I migrated to TS when I made the investment in the ms3. Adding the msx expansion gives more IO for per cylinder egt and some other nice stuff too + data logging capabilities...
Its stalled because it shat its crank on a engine dyno a few years back, then I got really injured in a car accident that took a few years to recover from properly, and I havent made a replacement crank yet. But it will still be running the msx when I do.
All good fun, whatever you go with, provided you want to learn about it and aren't afraid to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.