Who wants to Megasquirt, full sequential fuel/ spark a 68 charger! This Guy!!

[JimG]

Redmist, a question regarding your second pressure sensor. I should say at this point that I am familiar with the tuning aspect of Megasquirt only in a rudimentary fashion. I'm not nearly as far along as you are, and so far my attention has been mainly on hardware and figuring out the wiring, so this might be a stupid question, but here goes anyway.

First, I assume you'll wire the second sensor into an unused analog input? Second, and most importantly, will you be using a wideband meter? If so, wouldn't the exhaust O2 go lean if you drove to high altitude and and wouldn't Megasquirt compensate without the need for a second pressure sensor? I realize that you'd have to allow it enough authority to make the changes, and perhaps this is why you chose to go that route.

Assuming I'm full of hooey up this point, how will you integrate the second sensor into your fuel (and perhaps spark) map(s)?

Regarding the relay board - I bought one of them but have decided not to use it. A few Bosch automotive relays on the firewall or in the car will accomplish the same thing. The thing looks rather fragile and unprotected to be under the hood of a car. Call me paranoid...

Thanks,

Jim

[Budnicks]

very coo EFI project, thanks for sharing your tech info & knowledge....

[redmist]

JimG, Regarding the calibration in regards to EGO sensor and BARO sensor... the answer is, I don't know, haha How the computer gets a barometric reading without two MAP sensors is by sampling the MAP just before startup. So as soon as you turn the key, the ECU samples the MAP before you start. This gives it correct barometric pressure, and uses it for tuning. How it uses it, I don't know yet. It must do something, because it is a common application with the megasquirt to run two MAP sensors. From the reading I have done, the BARO correction has to do with increased exhaust back pressure at altitude. It's "Hilly" here in Idaho, so I am going to give it a try.

I am running an EGO sensor. It's an AEM that I already had in the car. It's a simple one wire hookup to the megasquirt assuming the ground is good to go.

I think you are correct about the relay board. The more I play with it, the more I think it's going to fail. I guess I will be a test subject on this one! I drive the crap out of this car, and I drive it hard, so if anyone can get it to fail, I will.

I think your Crank sensor should work just fine. Vibration is what kills them, and yours looks fine to me.   

[redmist]

And todays work:

I got all my input sensors wired in today. Take note that the CAM in is part of the MS3X and does not go to the relay board. Same for the second MAP sensor. The default MAP is physically part of the MS3 board. An additional MAP is a function of the MS3X so it also got hooked to the MS3X and not the relay board.

Anyhow, here is the board all wired up, and I also drilled my second pass through for all my outputs.



Here you can see a cluster of the sensors. almost all of them terminate in the same area, so it's going to be a clean install!!



Next I made up my MS3X output harness. This is every single wire that can possibly be hooked to the MS3X. I wont be using all of them though. Everything on the right, I am using. The bundle on the left will be hidden under the dash for expansion. It's stuff like Map switching, Nitro control, launch control, Analog ins, Variable valve timing, Flex fuel, Extro EGO ins... Anyhow. It will be there if I ever need it. the bundles on the right are Spark outs, Injector outs, Grounds, Tach out, MAP 2 in, and CAM in.



Passed through the hole, and ready to start laying on top of my existing harness. I remembered to put my grommet in the hole on this one though DERP! It's not seen in the picture though.




And i just couldn't help myself.... After getting this far, i just had to see the log working in tuner studio!! So I hooked up the one remaining wire to my CAM Position sensor from the MS3X, and opened tuner studio!!

CRANKING!!!!!!



AWESOME!!!!!!

What you are seeing here is the CAM Position sensor on the top (green) Crank position sensor in the middle (Blue) and "Sync Error" on the bottom (red).

You will notice that the top green line is mimicking my half moon cam sensor, and my crank sensor is showing where the missing tooth is. Also note that the missing tooth falls in the middle of both the highs, and the lows of the cam sensor...  BAM! the car now knows exactly where it is at in the compression/exhaust stroke, and it knows timing based off crank!! the red line on the bottom being flat shows ZERO signal error. While cranking, I got a "SYNCED" message in Tuner studio that tells me that if I had the rest of the car wired up, it would have fired and ran!!

Almost there!! Little more wiring, and a fuel system and I can fire it up.    


Next on the list.....

Injectors and coils:

[JimG]

Your persistence is motivating, Redmist!

I've decided to get my car going in "spark only" mode at first... keeping the carb in place but letting Megasquirt run the ignition.

You still need most of the sensors in place and debugged for it to run, but I figure it might be easier to just deal with the spark table, especially since I'm still learning about it. 

Jim

[redmist]

Smart idea honestly...  And it's a nice way to flow into the change over with less down time. 

[Budnicks]

redmist, great read, I love the ingenuity, I love you sharing your knowledge base... but you did all that great work, you have a great combo, why not get your induction/intake air from somewhere much cooler {outside the engine compartment}, any place as dry & cool as possible, other than the engine compartment HOT Under hood intake air charge... I would think that will kill some power too.. It's just a thought, I'm not picking on it, I'm curious & was wondering what the reasoning was there ??

[redmist]

Budnicks, it will be addressed down the road for sure. My plan is to move the battery to the trunk, and have the air intake do a turn at that location, and then have the air intake right behind the drivers front light area....

That is unless a Pro-Charger finds is way in the location where the battery is first...   

[Budnicks]

Budnicks, it will be addressed down the road for sure. My plan is to move the battery to the trunk, and have the air intake do a turn at that location, and then have the air intake right behind the drivers front light area....

That is unless a Pro-Charger finds is way in the location where the battery is first...   

sounds like a great idea, I like the whole set up, the Pro-Charger would also be a great addition... 

[redmist]

UPDATE:

Here is where I am at. All I need is a supply line to the fuel rail, and I can fire it up. 

Here is a video to keep you guys content.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNzlqlgHOEU

[Budnicks]

cool video, thanks for sharing, lots of information...

[Paul G]

I am really looking forward to you getting it running. It will be very interesting to see what kind of power it will make compared to a carb and dizzy, and also the fuel consumption comparison.

[mhinders]

I am really looking forward to you getting it running. It will be very interesting to see what kind of power it will make compared to a carb and dizzy, and also the fuel consumption comparison.

Interesting topic...if you think about wide open throttle power there is probably no advantage with correctly tuned port injection compared with a correctly tuned carb...in fact there is some evidence that feeding the fuel in the throttle body (like a carb...) may have a slight power advantage at WOT (Megasquirt forum, success stories, Hemi built for Engine Masters challenge, where throttle body injection was found to give slightly more power than port injection, all on WOT only).
So I think one can say on WOT there is no difference basically. The big advantages with EFI is the tunability, and the drivability that good atomization of the fuel gives on low revs, where a big port/big intake/big carbed engine has difficulties due to slow air speed and fuel dripping from the walls of the intake. The EFI with port injection doesn't care much about slow air speed, and you can set the air-fuel mixture (and ignition) to whatever value the engine wants just by a little typing on the keyboard, and the engine is smooth as silk even on low revs.
The extensive tunability gives you the tools to easily minimize the fuel consumption at cruising speeds.

A guy not far from here has built a new 5-cyl Audi for dragracing. The engine gives 1200 BHP (engine is 2.8 liters I believe), and the car is very streetable, it's unbelievable if you have been struggling with with carbs a bad fuel atomization clogging some spark plugs while other are dry. And think about the MotoGP bikes...well over 240 hp from a 1 liter engine, revving 17000 rpms, and smooth as silk when they just off-idle drive out from the pits...try that with carbs!!!  

[redmist]

It's alive!!!!

First try at starting gave me a massive puff of smoke through the intake. I had fire event set 360deg out of phase. I switched to Wasted COP Spark, and tried again today. Fired and ran for two seconds and died. Cranking cranking.. nothing...

Smelled like gas real bad, opened laptop, dropped cranking pulse width down a bit, dropped required fuel down a ton, and started! She fired and ran! SUPER LEAN! Upped my required fuel to my original value, and we are in business!!

This is the smoothest this engine has ever ran. Honestly it makes me think I may have had an intermittent problem or something with the old MSD/distributor setup. It is super smooth, and just winging the throttle by hand, the response is amazing. it climbs the RPM's like it never did before.

I have a lot of tuning yet to do, but my target AFR is closer with no tuning on this megasquirt system then it ever was with a year of tuning on the carb.

Take your carb, throw it in the trash...  

I am going to run it on wasted spark for a while and sort out my fuel maps, then I will switch it over to sequential spark after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIgmTehfvQ

[mhinders]

Congrats!!! Must be a great feeling! 

[tan top]

    awesome job         

[Budnicks]

sounds great...

[JB400]

Congrats on propelling a classic mopar into the 21st century

[68CoronetRT]

Very nice! It's a good feeling when you put all that hard work into the wiring and computer tuning for that first start up. Now the long process of fine tuning the car begins!

oh and I will need that MS tune from you once you get all your dyno tuning/bugs worked out... 

You running MS 3.0? Maybe you already answered that.

[redmist]

Correct, MS3X

As far as tuning, all I have to do is drive the car... it tunes itself using VEAL.   

Here is a small video showing how Tuner studio uses the maps I have created. The only thing you are responsible for are AFR, and Ignition timing. Knowing where these should be from my old carb setup makes setting up the maps easy. After that, VEAL or Autotune will smooth the VE map from there. As you drive it looks at how much the ECU is correcting to match your target AFR. it then makes those changes to your VE table and smooths it out. So Instead of your ECU constantly trying to hit your target AFR, it just uses the VE table from then on out.

I created a dirty map real fast to see how it works.

Also take note that the car has sat all night, and all day. This was the first start since I made the last video. I just sat in the car, reached over and turned the key.  And I haven't even let it autotune anything yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdWiAnOgl1E

[Dino]

I want one...

[Homerr]

That's really interesting to see it start and run, and the engine bay looks damn cool!

What's left to do before it is test driven?

[elacruze]

I'm stunned.

See what happens when you stay away from this list too long?

I've had so many answers given and solutions presented to make my project better and easier than I'd imagined. My manifold is still a couple months (!) away from completion, but I'm getting hard onto the other details as soon as we get home from the Power Tour.

I can't wait until we all have these projects finished and can compare notes. My old Holley Commander 950 system is so nice I'll never have a carb on anything I drive more than 50 miles at a time, and it's a crude, stupid, hard to tune system.

One thing I'd like to point out to the casual readers interested in EFI is that with these electronic systems, all the sensors and software and wires don't do anything more than what your brain does when you tune a carb/distributor; they merely provide information to the electronic brain. Viewed that way, it should be pretty simple to see that this is much easier to tune than a carb since you can actually see what's going on with your eyes instead of imagining it in your head. You don't need to read the plugs to tell you if you're too rich; you can see the A/F ratio on the screen. You don't need to get out the timing light; you can see the timing on the screen.

EFI is awesome. And, once you've tuned an EFI system, you'll be amazed at how much better you can tune a carb/distributor system afterwards since you so much better understand what's going on in there.

[Dino]

I'm stunned.

See what happens when you stay away from this list too long?

I've had so many answers given and solutions presented to make my project better and easier than I'd imagined. My manifold is still a couple months (!) away from completion, but I'm getting hard onto the other details as soon as we get home from the Power Tour.

I can't wait until we all have these projects finished and can compare notes. My old Holley Commander 950 system is so nice I'll never have a carb on anything I drive more than 50 miles at a time, and it's a crude, stupid, hard to tune system.

One thing I'd like to point out to the casual readers interested in EFI is that with these electronic systems, all the sensors and software and wires don't do anything more than what your brain does when you tune a carb/distributor; they merely provide information to the electronic brain. Viewed that way, it should be pretty simple to see that this is much easier to tune than a carb since you can actually see what's going on with your eyes instead of imagining it in your head. You don't need to read the plugs to tell you if you're too rich; you can see the A/F ratio on the screen. You don't need to get out the timing light; you can see the timing on the screen.

EFI is awesome. And, once you've tuned an EFI system, you'll be amazed at how much better you can tune a carb/distributor system afterwards since you so much better understand what's going on in there.

Now I really want one!

[68CoronetRT]

Ahh Autotune. Good choice!

A buddy of mine is running the same MS3x with a twin turbo 318 68' Charger. EFI and auto tune. Says it works awesome and takes a little time to learn but with the right AF input it does wonders!

This is so inspiring! We are thinking of running MS3 with twin throttle bodies that appear like the old factory dual quads. Just need to fab up an intake manifold, and do a little wiring.