1st N/A MegasquirtnSpark install, completed

[Ant]

Well today I finished the Ms istall on the Racecar.com track weapon( tech 1 sport )

Everything went well, found a minor wiring error in the original BMW loom though, had 2 inj on one bank, and 4 on the other, all hidden away in the stock loom so not been fudged in the past. Very oddball !

Verdict, fitted and mapped over a 3 day period including some unexpected spannering , excellent !

Throttle response is superb, the intake bellows like never before and the car just picks up its skirts and goes ! , had some w/spin action on the M/way last night on a full power upshift 3 to 4, unexpected but hey, it was rather wet

this is an odd beast, 2.7 with 9:1 CR and a cam etc, makes all its power in the 4 to 5.2K region, either the cam is retarded a little or the CR is tooo low to pull the top end, big improvement on its previous AFM based setup however.

The CR is low because its getting a supercharger in the next few weeks watch this space , updates in full should be added to the racecar.com site soon

fully mappable fueland sparks, oh suits you !

[Turbo-Brown]

Cool! Sounding good

Does the MS come with a pretty decent estimation of the sparking then?

That's crazy about BMW getting their own wiring wrong!

Guess it doesn't make much difference to the running, but how weird!?

[Ant]

I enjoyed it TBH Alex, love getting stuck in

The MS comes with not even a hint of basemap , nor are any wheel decoder settings etc supplied, its rather like a PC with a newly formatted HD,

I lifted the spark basemap from the motronic, extrapolated the load/rpm sites to match the MS setup( more sites) then altered to suit where required.

the fuel map was created by a dongle in the software, then I used target AFRs and GEGO enrichment to get the generated basemap a bit closer to required,then it manual mapping plus datalogging and 167 miles of driving the "final" map was born, ended up with a tiny 5% accel enrich from closed to WOT @ full load so I'm pretty happy TBH, everywhere else runs V nice from the actual Map without enrich


The setting up for the crank trigger was a minor PITA but once I got my head around using trigger returns all came good.

If I get more than 5 minutes spare I'll do an article on it I think, all useful info and pix etc.

[Jimbob]

Good news then Ant

I'm still stuck at work, so trying to read up on MS now but my eyes are beginning to hurt reading it all..

Still, music to my ears my man!

[e30_Turbo]

Well done dude

So that's 3 succesfull installs and fresh maps for all!!

Having heard the car as I spoke to Ant today it does sound awesome indeed, just need a few more willing participants to get MS'd and we may be able to have our own "megasquirt" area!!

Top work fella, well done again!!

Mark.

[Ant]

Shall I pencil you in then Jim ?

[tim_s]

ant, impressed! you nicked the timing map from the motronic, you clever chappy!

i take it you know all the offsets for the motronic maps on the eproms then? and its easily decoded into degrees etc? forgot you're the motronic expert! could you do the same for mine if i got MS on it?

jimbob, know how you feel, been trying in between uni reading to get a bit of a feel for MS today...

[tylerma]

this megaspuirt malarky sounds the bomb

just wish I had an engine worthy of using it

[Mops]

I did ms2 install and all is great except one major problem i have. Namely I'm pretty sure I have 'weak spark' problem. I.e MS by itself is not capable of driving rather large coil that my e30 has.

now, important observation: my motronic 1.0 ECU has built/integrated in ignition amplifier (otherwise known as ignitor or ignitor module). MS2 doesnt have that, it's capable of driving up to 7.5A on the coil and will current limit if the coil wants to pull more.

aparently motronic 1.3 ecu's have ignition amplifier external, under or next to the coil (i.e ms can drive these no problem).

ANT, can you explain to me know how you going ignition ? and whether you run coild straight of MS or you have ignitor module ?

[Ant]

60-2 trigger ( stock 88 on motronic 1.3 onwards , stock VR pickup )
std fit coild and dizzy cap
MS 1 V3.0 PCB

coil is live with ignintion on and grounded through the MS as per motronic setup

My kit came with an upgraded coil driver btw, maybe thats the soloution for you M8 ?

all I can suggest is talk to Jerry or Glenn on MSefi, see what they can offer as an alternative

[Jimbob]

Yo Ant what's it like starting/running from cold?

First week of March is good for me dude just need to check my work diary before concrete

[Turbo-Brown]

60-2 trigger ( stock 88 on motronic 1.3 onwards , stock VR pickup )
std fit coild and dizzy cap
MS 1 V3.0 PCB

coil is live with ignintion on and grounded through the MS as per motronic setup

My kit came with an upgraded coil driver btw, maybe thats the soloution for you M8 ?

Important to remember that the E30 has a reference of 90degrees BTDC and not the 120degrees that's normally used with the 60-2 tooth wheel. Think that's caught more than one of us out: Crank crank crank, cough why won't it fire?! oh it's running 45degrees cranking advance not 5 (either that or miles the other way )

Just out of interest, my car didn't have an external ignition amplifier (1985 325i motronic)

[Mops]

60-2 trigger ( stock 88 on motronic 1.3 onwards , stock VR pickup )
std fit coild and dizzy cap
MS 1 V3.0 PCB

coil is live with ignintion on and grounded through the MS as per motronic setup

My kit came with an upgraded coil driver btw, maybe thats the soloution for you M8 ?

all I can suggest is talk to Jerry or Glenn on MSefi, see what they can offer as an alternative

what upgraded coild driver ? it's the first time I hear about this.

I have this VB921 chip.... I thought it's standard and one and only....
never heard about 'uprated coild driver' option...
can you explain what it is ??? is it just higher rater fet driver or some additional circuitory or wtf ?

Are you sure you driving the coil directly, not through ignition amplifier ? (that ignition amplifier is basically high power transistor, or even simpler... a instant response relay to drive the coil). It is so transparent to the system, you dont know whether you are running one unless you trace the wire from ECU to the coil and confirm there's nothing else connected along the way.

[e21Jason]

Hi

I just got a manifold made to take some s52 throttle bodies to the m20, I think i wll try to draw it up in solidworks and get a price for CNC'ed adaprtors next time as the labour in making the port transiation was the most expenive part.

I have bought a VEMS kit will I am planing to run COP, Alpha-N and adapting the distributer housing to give me a cam senor so i can run sequential injection.

Any advice and the possibilty of a base map would be most welcome.

Jason

[Andy335Touring]

I wouldn't bother with sequential injection, a lot of hassle to set up correctly with marginal fuel economy improvements and it does nothing to improve power.

I got this info from Motec and Dave Walker(Emerald) when i was reserching a stand alone ECU, i have my Emerald running paired injector fireing.

[Turbo-Brown]

I wouldn't bother with sequential injection, a lot of hassle to set up correctly with marginal fuel economy improvements and it does nothing to improve power.

I got this info from Motec and Dave Walker(Emerald) when i was reserching a stand alone ECU, i have my Emerald running paired injector fireing.

It does help fuel economy a bit, but like you say Andy, it's really not worth the bother!

Interesting to note that cars like the NSX run Sequential at low engine speeds/loads and switch to batch at higher loads/speeds to make better use of smaller injectors.

[Ant]

I've uploaded a small video clip to google video beta, will post the link once its been verified by the pwers that be.

update as and when

[racecar]

Hi everyone

Ant did a great job installing megasquirt on my car - and i am really pleased with results!

Throttle response is much stronger than AFM - and car feels/sounds strong.

The only downside is that you open "pandora's box" concerning how the engine is running - it has highlighted that i have got some cam/valve timing adjustments to make - gonna check it all out next weekend - but all good fun and something new to get the grey matter round.

Going in Ant's turbo 325 was a revelation aswell as it highlighted what can be done with a really well engineered turbo conversion running sensible level of boost - just ran like a stock 5 litre!

I recommend Ant's services to anyone who is seriously looking at Megasquirt and/or an FI set up.

If i did not already have an Eaton M90 blower out of a DB7 sitting at home and a desire for that "whine" - i would really consider talking to him about a turbo set up.

next stage - below - where megasquirt is gonna come in really handy...

[Widge]

Just out of interest, how much did this cost? For the kit / and for fitting.
And did that include you helping ant?

Also, I assume with MS you have done away with the AFM or even a MAF?

[Jimbob]

Also, I assume with MS you have done away with the AFM or even a MAF?

That's the most attractive part about it, to me anyways.

[Widge]

Me too, would make making some ITb's worth the effort.

[Jon_Bmw]

Look at the pulley on that bad boy!

Sounds like you'll be enjoying the pleasures of forced induction soon

[chu346]

I wanna go FI now

[Geoff]

Jon see that supercharger...well add another and that is what my friends dad is running on his Aston Le Mans V600....600BHP

It sounds like a louder Mad Max Interceptor when your in it, truely amazing!!

Over 100mph in 2nd gear..

[Widge]

Over 100mph in 2nd gear..

Not getting at you mate, but I hate it when the Max Power generation talk about how fasst a car will go in such and such a gear, it's judt a matter of gearing! I mean I see the point, you eather have silly long gearing that will get to 200mph or it revs up to 10000 but it still annoys me.

[Jon_Bmw]

Much as i'd like to see that supercharger, i'm with widge i can't see it doing 100mph in 2nd!

You want short ratio gearboxes on most UK curcuits, and definatly no where in the world where one would want to be able to do 100mph in second gear.

Just plain stupid, you would be outta the power band so long, i don't care how big the supercharger, it wouldn't compensate for a well geared Aston with half the size charger. Still interested in pics though

[Ant]

back on topic.......

video is now live, hit the link to see whats what, needs sound

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 0411033697

[Widge]

Wots with the wietd exhaust pipe?
And where does the pipe that's taken the place of the AFM going to?

[Ant]

the weird exhaust is an adapter I made to take Wideband readings from the tailpipe Widge, its actually a venturi effect jobby and goes almost a foot onto the rear box, looks crap, works great

the convoluted pipe is a cold air feed only, intake temps were 51 degrees C without it, 22 with and thats at WOT the stock airbox base and filter are lurking out of shot

the car will get a revised intake when the blower goes on, needless to say a cold air feed is number 1 on the list

anyone spot whats missing apart from the AFM ?

[Jimbob]

Lack of air filter??

[Widge]

Bloody, Idle Control Valve, are BMW the only people who bother using one?

[Turbo-Brown]

Bloody, Idle Control Valve, are BMW the only people who bother using one?

Aah, been scratching my head all lunch time on that one

Most manufacturers use an IACV of some kind!

There's even one on the BMW throttle bodies engines!

[Widge]

Presumibly that supplies a little bit of air frm infront of the throttles to each individual throttle body? Lot's more bloody hoses to look after!
So if I eventually go ITB's I'll go MS too.

[Ant]

well spotted, jim there is a small cone on the end of the tube, just to keep rocks outa the intake

can anyone see the extra sensor btw ?

[chip-3door]

Ant, you say maybe the cam is retarded, surely you have that the wrong way round?
Retarding a cam will move the power up the rev range, not down it.

Or am i misreading what you have put?


Glad to hear its up and running anyway, the megasquirt "autotune" when attached to a lambda sensor and given a target map really does make doing the fuelling very easy.

Where abouts on the engine do you find is best to bolt your det cans pickup to when mapping for advance, as ive not ever tried mapping these engines yet but will be doing so on ours at some point probably.