My latest Megasquirt install, MS2 w/ITBs, wasted spark, relay board and custom harness Options

[aircooledtechguy]

Megasquirt EFI is an amazingly capable system that is 100% tuneable. It is, however a mis-understood system and many of it's detractors have either not actually used it themselves or have used a cobbled together system of mis-matched parts. After 8 year of working with Megasquirt and doing installs, I have found that buying a complete, well engineered system with a quality harness is key to success. Also having an expert tuner can't hurt either.

Some may know that I work closely with Mario Velotta from The Dub Shop for all my Megasquirt parts and kits as well as tuning help. Here's a very typical install of one of his kits. You don't need the buy the most expensive kits to get a great running car and Mario will not up-sell you things you don't need for your application.

This install was on a 914 2.0L that had factory D-jetronic. Normally we would keep it plenum based re-using much of the factory parts, but with the TB badly worn and this clients desire to clean-up the engine bay, so we went with 40mm ITBs with modern 32# injectors. Ignition is a crank triggered (36-1 wheel mounted behind the fan w/ a bracket and hall sensor) using a coil pack and 8mm plug wires. Exhaust sampling is with an Innovate LC2 All sensors are wired through custom made harnesses. These feed into a relay board. This relay board is not a piece that is 100% necessary to use, but I feel it simplifies and cleans-up the install by getting all fuses and relays used into one neat, clean compact footprint.

The install took about 2 days. This included careful removal of the old D-jet system and installation of all the components is the new system. We chose to mount this system in the fwd, right end of the rear trunk. Probably the most difficult part of the install was installing the hall sensor bracket with the engine in place. While totally doable, it was a tedious part of the job.

Mario came out to assist in the in-car tuning. The result of a 2-2.5 hour drive is smooth as silk driving from idle to red line, under light throttle or heavy. Acceleration is smooth. No bucking, burping or farting Here is a short video of the test-drive and an over view of the install.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9rcczRTG_M...e=youtube_gdata

[aircooledtechguy]

I agree that installing EFI will not necessarily give you an increase in HP/Torque but it's alot easier to optimize your fuel and timing via a laptop than with jets, venturies and distributor springs. It's also a lot more precise.

D-jet is a good system when everything is working correctly. But it's electro-mechanical and it's the mechanical side that usually fails. Also it's not tuneable. Yes, you can tweak it here and there to support a larger, hungrier motor, but not that much larger and not that much hungrier and your cam selection is very limited.

With MS (and other digital systems like it), every single RPM & load condition is tuneable. With MS2 for example, the fuel tables are a 12X12 (loadXRPM) grid (MS3 has 16X16) with each cell being individually tuneable. Spark control is the same.

So what that enables you to do is to precisely tune for virtually any load/RPM condition for any engine of any displacement with any cam or head combo. That is something D-jet users can only dream about since the D-jet ECU is not very tuneable.. Many blame this on the MAP sensor, but in reality it's the ECU that can't adapt to the load requirements that the MAP is sending it. MS can!!

With MS3, you can run fully sequential injection which allows you to really smooth out a radical cam at idle. It gives you the ability to individually tune each cylinder independently.. This gives you the ability to have a radical cam the idles like a stock cam'd motor @ 900-950 rpms. Again, that's a D-jet tuners dream.

IMHO, D/L-jet is great, *When it works*. Once it doesn't you can easily spend a lot of time/money finding the parts you need to fix it, but in the end, you're installing another 30+ year old part. . . With MS, I don't need to hoard parts; I don't worry about it. A key part of a reliable MS system is a clean/orderly install that's done right. Many are cobbled and look hacked-in so only the original installer can figure it out. These are typically the MS cars you read about giving the owners lots of problems.

As for resale,. . . A stock 2.0L car with 100% complete and working D-jet will likely sell for slightly more to a collector but not necessarily to a owner that's a driver. But if you have a clean, neat and tidy install of an MS system and hand the original D-jet to the next owner, I can't ever see getting less especially if the next owner plans to actually drive the car. That brings us back to the real reason to convert away from stock: DRIVEABILITY plain and simple.

Build a new, big motor later?? No problem. It's a re-tune of the ECU. Add a turbo?? No problem, it's a re-tune and enable boost control and a controller. Need launch control?? Enable it on the drop-down menu.

IMHO, D-jet, carbs and distributors are all compromises. MS is a no compromises and expandable system.