I was cruising another web site, and saw reference to someone who had "cobbled together" a F.I. system on their 427 Ford using a MegaSquirt ECM, and a bunch of junkyard used parts... Claimed they put the whole thing together for $360. A little intrigued by this claim, I did a google search, and sure enough, lots of others have built similar setups for low bucks... Some of them feeding 500+ cid engines making big HP numbers. This is news to me, and my intrests have suddenly peaked. Does anyone here know anything about this setup? If so, give us the details!
http://www.hwforums.com/2089/index.html Here's the most in depth discussion I have found on the subject. Schroll down to the "Carbs drool and FI rules" post http://www.megasquirt.info/ This is their home page http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/megasquirt/ Here's a yahoo group that contains a lot of info
I know little on the subject.... There was a professor "or scientist" there(screwing off on his own time for about 6 months) at the engine shop that built mine. Great guy, I talked with him quite a bit. He was working on FI for some of the Cobra engines..... It takes a ton of data to find the correct settings. Anyway he was using both the dyno's to get the data, so he could burn the chips for FI. Not anything you should try at home in you garage.... You must have the right equipment for measurement. :bglasses:
I wont dispute that's the proper way to do it, but what I'v read so far, it looks like there's some sort of chart you can put together,,, taking into account cid, VE, bsfc, and a handfull of other variables, and then program it so it's close based on your calculations. After that, it's a matter of spending a few hours driving around fine-tuning it with your lap-top. There are things the MegaSquirt will not do, such as tune itself on the go for altatude changes, or synchronize itself for multiple throttle bodies,,, but there are ways aroud that. All in all, I'v been impressed with what I'v read, and I'm going to order one. I would still very much like to hear from someone who has first hand expirence with this system, and their feedback- good or bad
do a search on this site. One of our members put one on his pickup and said it was basically as easy as you described it. Bummer, I definitely need elevation correction living up here in the mountains....
yeah, MS has been making a big splash in the import tuning world (where i first saw it). its not quite a standalone system YET. there are still a couple things that need to be added to the system to make it fully standalone...and their very close to this. and this beats the heck out of anything else on the market in terms of price. add to that their customer service...you have a winning deal. i havent seen too much about FI'ing old cars, but i know there has been alot of success with remapping fuel for high HP applications on sport compacts. id definately look into this system if you were serious about going with FI on your old car
wow i would be really interested in this sort of thing but i dont have a dyno and i dont like tuneing my car with the old butt dyno!
here is the guilty party: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=45570&highlight=megasquirt He's lurking ou there, maybe he'll chime in now that he's had it for a while....
Tuning would be risky if your engine is high compression and on the edge of detonation anyway. For an average motor, it should work out as long as you're careful. There are DIY wideband O2 sensors that can be built, or you could buy one. The megasquirt will interface with a wideband if you want to go that way, and you could get accurate a/f ratios. There is a datalogger in the program they provide (for free, btw). The tuning process consists of small driving cycles, working up eventually to full-throttle passes. Read through the manual- it's very thorough. It will give you an idea of what it takes to put together one of these systems and tune it. If anyone wants someone to build a unit for them, I'm up for it. I have been designing and assembling electronic systems for the last 12 years. ________ Portable weed vaporizers
