Megasquirt

[mr.grassie]

Im haveing some serious doubts here.

As im sure most of you know, my little baby is currently up for sale.... but....and its a BIG BUT (cheeky giggle) i have just been told about the capabilities of the megasquirt ECU and how cheap it is.

I got quoted £285 for the ecu, loom, base map (admitadly not a nissan one), software, seriel cable, and full instructions.

The ecu has 2.5 bar map sensor built in, and is infinately programable for fuel map as well as ignition map.

My setup at the moment is poor, but effective. however, compared to what my car could be like with this, my set up is garbagio.

I would very much like to know if anyone has used, or still is using one of these systems? are they actually any good? are they cheap and nasty? how eay are they to work with?

I know for a fact if i could get my car to run with the right maps, a MAP sensor, and ignition that reacted to rpm AND boost, then it would go like merde off a shovel.

hell I might just keep the thing and upgrade to this.

your thoughts please gentlemen.

 

[Ed]

I would prefer E-manage imo. I looked into megasquirt, and at the time it didnt have the options I wanted, plus it doesnt work with Nissan cas sensors. Does it have ignition control yet - needed lots of extras to do this last time I looked.

 

[Type-R]

if you lived closer to me i would buy your car emanage it and go then be laughing my ass off.

so the moral of the reply is to emanage it. I didnt emanage mine either trying to find short cuts and easy ways out... since installing and mapping the emanage it has totally transformed my car its unbelievable how good it is know.

 

[Ian]

it's just a fact everyone needs to relaise, for anything in a high state of tune. You can't bodge a map. You can get away with tweaking the fueling for a basic exhaust set up. But when you start going cams and/or forced indcution, there is no alterntiive do a proper map IMO. Whether that be, stand-alone ECU, piggyback or modified stock map.

 

[mr.grassie]

I spoke to ben at www.mtechautomotive.co.uk

he recons that their Megasquirt Version 3 has full ignition control (advance/retard/dwell) and will work with my distributor only system as found in most k11's.

This is on top of total fueling contol, and map sensor as standard.

This setup appears to be quite good on paper, especially for only £285 plus postage.

to good to be true?

 

[Raceworx]

ill put money on it needing a tothed wheel of some kind adding to the car as it wont read the nissan crank signal as ed says very few etand alones do as most european ones were developed for fords and rovers ect

 

[mr.grassie]

does that pose a big problem, can one be added easily?

 

[Ed]

This is custom so probably CAN read the nissan CAS with a modified program. It does look also like it can properly do ignition now. However it is still a small map of only 12x12 cells. Thats smaller than most. I cannot comment further as I've not used one but it is cheap.

 

[Ian]

what would a smaller cell map mean ed? less precision across the RPM range?

 

[Ed]

Yes exactly that.

 

[Alienfish360]

how big is the emanage map?

 

[Ian]

16x16 isnt it?

 

[Raceworx]

who would be able to write a program to read the crank signal?? i think when compaired to the things you can get from an e-manage plus the ease of instalation are there any pros to the megasquirt apart from cost?

 

[Ed]

It would be easy to make a modified crank angle program. Its all open source and fully supported, hence its sucess.

 

[mr.grassie]

I’m just trying to decide wither it is worth the cost or not.

Emanage is good granted but do I realy need 16x16?

For what you get for your money, would I be wasting 300 note on a system that I could never get to improve the performance of my car?

Or……..

Is this system likely to be value for money and transform what I have from a cobbled together way of controlling things into a fuel efficient flying machine?

 

[micra_pete]

standard ecu is 16x16, with clever intepoloation after that, i had a play with a megasquirt a while ago, its okay, but its a step down from the standard ecu, imo.

what i will say though, is if like me, it was a car going from carb to fuel injection, its a great little bit of kit.

 

[mr.grassie]

did you get a chance to use the software for it? is it easy to use?

iv never programed an ecu before, and to be honest wouldnt know where to begin.

The one I was told would be best would be preloaded with the base map for a 1.8 turbo ford engine. the guy reconed that this would get my car running.

but from there, is it just a case if turning the fuel up/down and the changing the ignition advance/retard/dwel, until it runs sweet.

god help me, i think i might be out of my depth with this one.

 

[Ed]

e-manage will be so much quicker to get up and going - and be better imo.

 

[micra_pete]

^^^ yeah, im gonna agree there too, i wouldn't ditch the management already in a car for megasquirt