Basically just a story I felt like telling, which may have some useful info for somebody out there....
Why I went with Megasquirt on my 4.6L Vortech Supercharged Cougar:
You cannot rely on others. That’s where Megasquirt came along… Megasquirt is a stand-alone engine management system. It has two injector drivers capable of running batch injection on up to 16 cylinders, and ignition controller drivers compatible with standard single coil output, Ford EDIS, and GM HEI. With Megasquirt and a wideband oxygen sensor, a vehicle can be street or dyno tuned by anyone with free open source software.
This all started summer of last year. I was in correspondence with an SCT Tuner who was well known in the Thunderbird community, and had likely more experience with a built 4r70w transmission than anyone I knew of. He seemed like the logical choice for tuning, and was very helpful at the time with troubleshooting some transmission issues I was facing due to another member of the Thunderbird community who was supposed to be reputable. At the time, I purchased an X-Cal 2 flasher device, and the tuner sent me two tunes; one to verify that the transmission wasn’t contorted beyond repair, and the other a base program for the supercharged motor.
April 5th, 2009 rolls around, and I start the car for the first time with the entirely new setup on the baseline tune I was sent. Running pig rich at 9:1 air fuel ratio (Fouled all plugs), I was able to capture three data logs, which I sent in on April 7th for adjustments to my tune.
Two weeks pass, and I hadn’t heard a word back about my car. Concerned that my data might have been lost in transit, I sent a confirm e-mail on April 21st. I was a bit fed up at this point and started looking for other tuners as well. Kansas City has a rather extensive street/track racing scene, and I had hoped at least one of the venders would be able to work with me. My options were R&A Motorsports, Supertune Performance, MC Racing, Revline, and the House of Boost. Revline, the company I trust the most, is a Honda shop, and Chuong couldn’t do anything for me. MC Racing is full of clowns who suggest faulty parts, and cannot even point out wheel spin on a dyno. I have a friend that works at R&A (Who make the Twister and Dominator Mustangs), so I gave him a yell. He informed me that unless I wanted to get a new tune from scratch, and buy different flasher hardware, I would have to go to another SCT dealer. He recommended Supertune Performance, who wouldn’t touch the car since they didn’t build it. Mind you, at this time, the “Car” is more of a lawn ornament, and if I were to actually find a tuner locally, I would have to have it towed on a flatbed.
Three weeks, one day, and three girlfriends after my confirmation e-mail, I decided to send another confirmation. Hours after sending said e-mail, I realized how ludicrous it was to have to put my life on hold for months at a time waiting on someone else to make crucial changes on my vehicle’s configuration. On May 14th, I ordered Megasquirt, and was going to do it all myself. Bring it on. Saturday the 16th, I got a wiring harness off of a Crown Victoria to bastardize as well as a soldering iron (I didn’t know how to solder at this point). May 17th, I finished my wiring harness, gave my Megasquirt some basic parameters such as how many injectors I had, how big my motor was, and turned the key. Guess what? It fired, and I still had time to see the girlfriend afterwards. On the 18th, I successfully worked out some bugs (due to my own error in temperature sensor selection), and on the 19th I turned down a booty-call with a different chick, took the cat, and hit the streets. Wideband and laptop in tow, we made it to the gas station without a hitch. That was the first trip the Cougar had made in over a year.
For the first few days, I made it a habit of carrying the laptop with me so I could watch the fuel tables and tweak things as needed. On the 21st, I got a new laptop, and on the 23rd, I was comfortable enough with my tune to take the car racing. It was a very cool night, and inlet temperatures were pretty low, so I figured I would see how things stacked up with the new setup… Some poor yellow EVO and a cute little Integra had no idea what hit them. Unfortunately, after heating things up with the EVO, I was hearing pinging at about 5500rpms. I tried to compensate with more fuel, but it was futile. The factory computer was still commanding too much timing. Additionally, there was a pulsating loss of power above 5500rpms which I mistakenly attributed to being a spark cut from the factory computer.
What’s next? EDIS-8… EDIS is a distributorless ignition system in the same family as the DIS units found on a Supercoupe, and works under the same principles. On May 29th, I finally had time to hit up the salvage yard. I was able to find EDIS-8 on an early 90’s Crown Victoria as well as pigtails for the coil packs and the crank position sensor. I began work on the wiring harness, and had all of my connectors soldered on at the lengths I wanted, and decided it was time to call it a night. I go inside, check my e-mail, and guess who I hear from after all this time???
After almost 9 weeks, I got a reply from the tuner, who informed me that his CPU burnt up, he had to build a new computer, and get it reprogrammed (not sure what that means). Apparently, the big wigs at SCT also released some new security patches, and the tune file I was running is no longer even supported by SCT. It would have to be re-written from scratch. Additionally, SCT only allows 150 burns before updating software, so there was no hope of anyone getting any information off of my previously written tune.
Meanwhile, I was neck deep getting stuff done! I had to troubleshoot some stuff, and discovered that unless the factory computer can share the crank position sensor, the stock ECU does not see any RPMs, and will not turn on the fuel pump. I was able to share the crank sensor with both the ECU and Megasquirt, and the car started right up!
Tuning my ignition advance with EDIS solved the pinging issues I was facing, but some wide open throttle runs revealed that my surging loss of power was the transmission slipping because the stock ECU’s calculated load values are wrong, and it is not commanding enough fluid pressure to the valvebody. I e-mailed the tuner again on the morning of the 4th, and his thinking is that the car is in limp mode because it doesn’t see the driver’s side o2 sensor, temp sensor and injectors. I e-mailed him back on the 5th, and informed him that the torque converter will still lock up under WOT if I’m able to get enough of a load to suck the needed airflow through the MAF… It seems like some calibration would solve the problem, but I haven’t anything since, and it is now the 11th.
The final decision is to sell my freshly rebuilt J-modded 4r70w and 3800 stall torque converter, and swap in a T-56. I’ve already been sourcing parts. We don’t mess around where I come from, and I’m not about to wait months on somebody else when I could have the car running in a matter of weeks.
Fortunately for some, there are a few tuners out there who can get quality tunes out in a timely manner. For the rest of us though, it’s always nice to know there is another option. Megasquirt was my solution, and I’m ultimately very happy with the decision. Whether it would be a good solution for you is up to your own speculation.
Megasquirt probably isn’t the best option for you if:
- You have an electronically controlled transmission
- Your cylinder heads flow unevenly
- You are not computer literate
- You do not know anyone who understands how air fuel ratios work
- You are uncreative or lacking in basic wiring or fabrication skills
- You cannot hear pinging or don’t know what it sounds like
Here’s what I used:
MegaSquirt-II EMS System - SMD PCB3.57 - Assembled Unit - $405
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtii-ems-system-smd-pcb357-assembled-unit-p-165.html
12' MegaSquirt Wiring Harness (MS1 / MS2 Ready) - $65
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ready-p-43.html
Innovate Motorsports LC-1 Lambda Cable with LSU4.2 Sensor - $199
(Would NOT suggest this unit, but I have not tried any alternatives. It is very finicky.)
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/innovate-lc1-digital-wideband-controller-with-sensor-p-41.html
I was able to get a full wiring harness, EDIS, and additional bulk cable/fuses/relays for $60 at Radio Shack and the Junkyard.
Is being able to tune your own vehicle worth $750?? For the run of the mill car, it probably isn’t. For people like me who keep messing with their car and changing things, yet want to be at the top of their game, it becomes more appealing.
I was able to complete the install in a weekend and get the car started. I hadn’t ever successfully used a soldering iron before I started (I’m 22), and I still ended up with a nice, clean, fused, wire loomed harness running to my injectors, and subsequently my coil packs with the addition of EDIS-8. There really much to Megasquirt.
Sensors Megasquirt needs:
- PIP signal from EDIS (For RPM trigger)
- Coolant temp sensor (Any type you can find)
- Manifold Absolute Pressure (Onboard the MS unit. Needs a vacuum line)
If you already have EDIS, you’ll need to connect the Megasquirt to the SAW wire on the EDIS unit. The PIP signal will need to be shared with both the stock ECU and Megasquirt
If you don’t already have EDIS or want to run a second unit, splice in a connector on your Megasquirt harness so that the factory computer can share the crank position sensor and see RPMs.
Megasquirt also supports (But does NOT require):
- O2 sensors
- Intake Air Temp sensors
- Idle air control valves
- Throttle Position sensors
- Mass Airflow sensors
Once wired up, a serial cable connection from a laptop is used to configure basic parameters such as what ignition Megasquirt should expect in order to control timing, what size the injectors are, how big the motor is, how many times per cycle to inject fuel, etc. There is even a table generator used to make a Volumetric Efficiency (VE) (aka fuel) map based on expected horsepower numbers. On my vehicle, it was very close to being accurate until the higher RPMs where it needed more fuel.
If everything is configured, ideally you would start the car, let it warm up, and then adjust your volumetric efficiency map to get the lowest vacuum values you can. With that set, write down what air fuel ratio you are burning at and turn off the car to cool completely. The next time you start it up cold, your air fuel ratio will be different from before because fuel does not burn as well when injected into a cold cylinder. At this point, you open up the “Warm-up Wizard”, which has a list of coolant temperature values and corresponding multipliers to add or remove fuel based on how hot the engine is. As the car warms up, simply add or remove fuel wherever needed to keep the car at the air fuel ratio you wrote down earlier. Congrats, your car will now start up and idle every time.
For the next section, you need a little bit of tuning knowledge. With Megasquirt, you can adjust the VE table LIVE with the car running and driving (So call a friend you trust with your keys). This allows you to see exactly what cells in the table the computer is referencing while simultaneously seeing the air fuel ratio they are creating. Since this is real time, all you need to do is make a call on what you feel the air fuel ratio SHOULD be under the car’s condition, and increase or decrease the VE value until your wideband reads the mixture you desire. Ideally, as load increases, I like to see the air fuel ratio smoothly transition from 15.0:1(ish) to 11:1 without any major spikes or jumps. Now your car runs and drives!
There are some more things to be taken into account such as acceleration enrichment (injecting extra fuel when the computer sees an increase in throttle position), ignition timing, and air charge temperature adjustment, but hopefully this gives you a taste of what I’m working with.
-2TC
Why I went with Megasquirt on my 4.6L Vortech Supercharged Cougar:
You cannot rely on others. That’s where Megasquirt came along… Megasquirt is a stand-alone engine management system. It has two injector drivers capable of running batch injection on up to 16 cylinders, and ignition controller drivers compatible with standard single coil output, Ford EDIS, and GM HEI. With Megasquirt and a wideband oxygen sensor, a vehicle can be street or dyno tuned by anyone with free open source software.
This all started summer of last year. I was in correspondence with an SCT Tuner who was well known in the Thunderbird community, and had likely more experience with a built 4r70w transmission than anyone I knew of. He seemed like the logical choice for tuning, and was very helpful at the time with troubleshooting some transmission issues I was facing due to another member of the Thunderbird community who was supposed to be reputable. At the time, I purchased an X-Cal 2 flasher device, and the tuner sent me two tunes; one to verify that the transmission wasn’t contorted beyond repair, and the other a base program for the supercharged motor.
April 5th, 2009 rolls around, and I start the car for the first time with the entirely new setup on the baseline tune I was sent. Running pig rich at 9:1 air fuel ratio (Fouled all plugs), I was able to capture three data logs, which I sent in on April 7th for adjustments to my tune.
Two weeks pass, and I hadn’t heard a word back about my car. Concerned that my data might have been lost in transit, I sent a confirm e-mail on April 21st. I was a bit fed up at this point and started looking for other tuners as well. Kansas City has a rather extensive street/track racing scene, and I had hoped at least one of the venders would be able to work with me. My options were R&A Motorsports, Supertune Performance, MC Racing, Revline, and the House of Boost. Revline, the company I trust the most, is a Honda shop, and Chuong couldn’t do anything for me. MC Racing is full of clowns who suggest faulty parts, and cannot even point out wheel spin on a dyno. I have a friend that works at R&A (Who make the Twister and Dominator Mustangs), so I gave him a yell. He informed me that unless I wanted to get a new tune from scratch, and buy different flasher hardware, I would have to go to another SCT dealer. He recommended Supertune Performance, who wouldn’t touch the car since they didn’t build it. Mind you, at this time, the “Car” is more of a lawn ornament, and if I were to actually find a tuner locally, I would have to have it towed on a flatbed.
Three weeks, one day, and three girlfriends after my confirmation e-mail, I decided to send another confirmation. Hours after sending said e-mail, I realized how ludicrous it was to have to put my life on hold for months at a time waiting on someone else to make crucial changes on my vehicle’s configuration. On May 14th, I ordered Megasquirt, and was going to do it all myself. Bring it on. Saturday the 16th, I got a wiring harness off of a Crown Victoria to bastardize as well as a soldering iron (I didn’t know how to solder at this point). May 17th, I finished my wiring harness, gave my Megasquirt some basic parameters such as how many injectors I had, how big my motor was, and turned the key. Guess what? It fired, and I still had time to see the girlfriend afterwards. On the 18th, I successfully worked out some bugs (due to my own error in temperature sensor selection), and on the 19th I turned down a booty-call with a different chick, took the cat, and hit the streets. Wideband and laptop in tow, we made it to the gas station without a hitch. That was the first trip the Cougar had made in over a year.
For the first few days, I made it a habit of carrying the laptop with me so I could watch the fuel tables and tweak things as needed. On the 21st, I got a new laptop, and on the 23rd, I was comfortable enough with my tune to take the car racing. It was a very cool night, and inlet temperatures were pretty low, so I figured I would see how things stacked up with the new setup… Some poor yellow EVO and a cute little Integra had no idea what hit them. Unfortunately, after heating things up with the EVO, I was hearing pinging at about 5500rpms. I tried to compensate with more fuel, but it was futile. The factory computer was still commanding too much timing. Additionally, there was a pulsating loss of power above 5500rpms which I mistakenly attributed to being a spark cut from the factory computer.
What’s next? EDIS-8… EDIS is a distributorless ignition system in the same family as the DIS units found on a Supercoupe, and works under the same principles. On May 29th, I finally had time to hit up the salvage yard. I was able to find EDIS-8 on an early 90’s Crown Victoria as well as pigtails for the coil packs and the crank position sensor. I began work on the wiring harness, and had all of my connectors soldered on at the lengths I wanted, and decided it was time to call it a night. I go inside, check my e-mail, and guess who I hear from after all this time???
After almost 9 weeks, I got a reply from the tuner, who informed me that his CPU burnt up, he had to build a new computer, and get it reprogrammed (not sure what that means). Apparently, the big wigs at SCT also released some new security patches, and the tune file I was running is no longer even supported by SCT. It would have to be re-written from scratch. Additionally, SCT only allows 150 burns before updating software, so there was no hope of anyone getting any information off of my previously written tune.
Meanwhile, I was neck deep getting stuff done! I had to troubleshoot some stuff, and discovered that unless the factory computer can share the crank position sensor, the stock ECU does not see any RPMs, and will not turn on the fuel pump. I was able to share the crank sensor with both the ECU and Megasquirt, and the car started right up!
Tuning my ignition advance with EDIS solved the pinging issues I was facing, but some wide open throttle runs revealed that my surging loss of power was the transmission slipping because the stock ECU’s calculated load values are wrong, and it is not commanding enough fluid pressure to the valvebody. I e-mailed the tuner again on the morning of the 4th, and his thinking is that the car is in limp mode because it doesn’t see the driver’s side o2 sensor, temp sensor and injectors. I e-mailed him back on the 5th, and informed him that the torque converter will still lock up under WOT if I’m able to get enough of a load to suck the needed airflow through the MAF… It seems like some calibration would solve the problem, but I haven’t anything since, and it is now the 11th.
The final decision is to sell my freshly rebuilt J-modded 4r70w and 3800 stall torque converter, and swap in a T-56. I’ve already been sourcing parts. We don’t mess around where I come from, and I’m not about to wait months on somebody else when I could have the car running in a matter of weeks.
Fortunately for some, there are a few tuners out there who can get quality tunes out in a timely manner. For the rest of us though, it’s always nice to know there is another option. Megasquirt was my solution, and I’m ultimately very happy with the decision. Whether it would be a good solution for you is up to your own speculation.
Megasquirt probably isn’t the best option for you if:
- You have an electronically controlled transmission
- Your cylinder heads flow unevenly
- You are not computer literate
- You do not know anyone who understands how air fuel ratios work
- You are uncreative or lacking in basic wiring or fabrication skills
- You cannot hear pinging or don’t know what it sounds like
Here’s what I used:
MegaSquirt-II EMS System - SMD PCB3.57 - Assembled Unit - $405
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtii-ems-system-smd-pcb357-assembled-unit-p-165.html
12' MegaSquirt Wiring Harness (MS1 / MS2 Ready) - $65
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ready-p-43.html
Innovate Motorsports LC-1 Lambda Cable with LSU4.2 Sensor - $199
(Would NOT suggest this unit, but I have not tried any alternatives. It is very finicky.)
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/innovate-lc1-digital-wideband-controller-with-sensor-p-41.html
I was able to get a full wiring harness, EDIS, and additional bulk cable/fuses/relays for $60 at Radio Shack and the Junkyard.
Is being able to tune your own vehicle worth $750?? For the run of the mill car, it probably isn’t. For people like me who keep messing with their car and changing things, yet want to be at the top of their game, it becomes more appealing.
I was able to complete the install in a weekend and get the car started. I hadn’t ever successfully used a soldering iron before I started (I’m 22), and I still ended up with a nice, clean, fused, wire loomed harness running to my injectors, and subsequently my coil packs with the addition of EDIS-8. There really much to Megasquirt.
Sensors Megasquirt needs:
- PIP signal from EDIS (For RPM trigger)
- Coolant temp sensor (Any type you can find)
- Manifold Absolute Pressure (Onboard the MS unit. Needs a vacuum line)
If you already have EDIS, you’ll need to connect the Megasquirt to the SAW wire on the EDIS unit. The PIP signal will need to be shared with both the stock ECU and Megasquirt
If you don’t already have EDIS or want to run a second unit, splice in a connector on your Megasquirt harness so that the factory computer can share the crank position sensor and see RPMs.
Megasquirt also supports (But does NOT require):
- O2 sensors
- Intake Air Temp sensors
- Idle air control valves
- Throttle Position sensors
- Mass Airflow sensors
Once wired up, a serial cable connection from a laptop is used to configure basic parameters such as what ignition Megasquirt should expect in order to control timing, what size the injectors are, how big the motor is, how many times per cycle to inject fuel, etc. There is even a table generator used to make a Volumetric Efficiency (VE) (aka fuel) map based on expected horsepower numbers. On my vehicle, it was very close to being accurate until the higher RPMs where it needed more fuel.
If everything is configured, ideally you would start the car, let it warm up, and then adjust your volumetric efficiency map to get the lowest vacuum values you can. With that set, write down what air fuel ratio you are burning at and turn off the car to cool completely. The next time you start it up cold, your air fuel ratio will be different from before because fuel does not burn as well when injected into a cold cylinder. At this point, you open up the “Warm-up Wizard”, which has a list of coolant temperature values and corresponding multipliers to add or remove fuel based on how hot the engine is. As the car warms up, simply add or remove fuel wherever needed to keep the car at the air fuel ratio you wrote down earlier. Congrats, your car will now start up and idle every time.
For the next section, you need a little bit of tuning knowledge. With Megasquirt, you can adjust the VE table LIVE with the car running and driving (So call a friend you trust with your keys). This allows you to see exactly what cells in the table the computer is referencing while simultaneously seeing the air fuel ratio they are creating. Since this is real time, all you need to do is make a call on what you feel the air fuel ratio SHOULD be under the car’s condition, and increase or decrease the VE value until your wideband reads the mixture you desire. Ideally, as load increases, I like to see the air fuel ratio smoothly transition from 15.0:1(ish) to 11:1 without any major spikes or jumps. Now your car runs and drives!
There are some more things to be taken into account such as acceleration enrichment (injecting extra fuel when the computer sees an increase in throttle position), ignition timing, and air charge temperature adjustment, but hopefully this gives you a taste of what I’m working with.
-2TC