Megasquirt Article

I'll be trying another EFI system on our upcoming VW project. Details are yet to be firmed up, but it should fill in some of the other options.

Per

Good, looking forward to it. If you want an article on EFI gone wrong let me know

Per Schroeder wrote: I'll be trying another EFI system on our upcoming VW project. Details are yet to be firmed up, but it should fill in some of the other options. Per

Indeed, that will be interesting.

Most interesting is how you react to the different styles of tuning for the various systems out there...

Eric

porschenut wrote: Good, looking forward to it. If you want an article on EFI gone wrong let me know

Now, that sounds a lot more like the tone of a GRM'er...nice to meet you Mr. Nut, welcome aboard

alfadriver wrote:

porschenut wrote: One more comment to the low buck crowd. If you want to use old, non balanced injectors its your money and your engine.

Considering the massive volume of cars on the street without ballanced injectors, it's a luxury, not a requirement. Doing this for a living really opens your eyes up to what is REALLY required to make a lot of power, safely. Ballanced injectors are in that last 0.5% power improvement, which, IMHO, isn't worth it, since the dyno time it would take to get the 0.5% is pretty darned expensive (let alone the parts that would be required on the car to actually take advantage of it- header material, valves, and knowledge of the critical head temps). Cleaning them is good, but, again, that's easy to do yourself. Anyway, I though it was a good, GMR style article. Eric

I would agree with this.

I don't know if he was just a genius or what, but once I had my MS installed, one of my friends rode around with me for an hour or so with his laptop and just the oem narrowband. I was happy with the performance, but a month later I bought some dyno time just in case ($75 an hour btw). After two hours on the dyno, we'd made another 4 hp leaning it out here and there. fwiw.

porschenut wrote: Another one I didn't mention was dyno time. Yes you can tune the car without it, but to really get the system running at 100% you are kidding yourself. I think the article said something about a couple of hours, how much would that cost us?

It wasn't Megasquirt, but I tuned my Civic from a barely running baseline to a well optimized tune in a couple of hours on a dyno. That was starting from scratch, switching to a completely different fuel, so lots of tweaking of fuel, ignition, and boost. At 2 hours we had good curves. It cost $100 / hour. Pretty cheap IMO.

I just megasquirted my Volvo 122S. I had an ancient MS1 (v2.2 board) laying around that I soldered together years ago that was set up for GM HEI and TBI, so I decided to use a GM single barrel TBI setup. I think I had something like a hundred bucks into the MS long, long ago. Nowadays, a used, DIY, modded MS1 v2.2 isn't worth much, but I'll value it at $25 to be fair.

I got a distributor from a '75 240 that was plug and play, as it drops right into the block and has a VR sensor that works perfectly with the GM ignition module. I hate points, so although I could have gotten along with the points, I paid to avoid it. $45 delivered from a junk yard. I got a GM TBI assembly, ignition module, temp sensors, single wire O2 sensor, metal fuel lines, air filter housing, etc. from an 80's Buick Skyhawk(?) 2.0 in the U-Pull. I also got an external, high pressure fuel pump from an 80's Ford pickup from the U-Pull. There was a coolant passage that had a plate blocking it off, when I removed that it accepted a 3/8" pipe tap perfectly, so that's where the coolant temp sensor went. I think the total was something like $100 for my yard parts. I had to buy some fuel line, a filter, clamps, and a few brass fittings for my fuel plumbing, that probably ran me another $50 or so.

I have been wanting to take a stab at building a manifold, and this seemed like a good time to start since the intake manifold is fairly simple on this B18. I had some scrap steel laying around that I used to make flanges...horribly time consuming to do with a hole saw, sawzall, etc. but I was trying to be handy with what I had laying around. Next time I'll be making a flange pattern and getting some flanges laser cut at a local fab shop, which will cost more, but I bet it would have been worth it for the quality and time savings. I bought some steel mandrel bent tubing locally for $45 and used about half of it for the intake. I welded it up myself, so the intake ended up costing me something like $50 (and I still have some leftover bends for future projects).

I have an ancient laptop around (that got me through college) that I use for my MS work. I won't even bother putting a price on it because it's practically worthless. Works fine for rare needs (serial port stuff), but the battery has been dead for years and it's slow as molasses.

So, adding up my parts cost, I added injection to a previously carbureted car for about $270. After the project was complete, I had a pile of spare parts (carb, fuel pump, intake manifold, distributor, etc.) that I'd say is conservatively worth $100. I used these parts on another 122S I sold that needed the parts, so it worked out great for me. That means, all said and done, I have something like $170 into my megasquirt conversion on a previously carbureted car. If the car had been injected previously, the conversion would have cost a small fraction of that amount.

If you want to get into the tuning aspect, which I think is another issue entirely from the conversion as some people will spend time on the road tinkering and others will go over the top with dyno time, I've got a wideband O2 from the DIY_WB days. I probably have $200 into that, but nowadays there are much better options for the same money (or less). My setup is probably only worth $100 or so, just because the sensor is now rare and still worth that much to guys with a lean burn Civic VX. My setup only has one injector, so no need for a new one or balancing to "protect" the engine. I've wasted money on balanced and rebuilt injectors in the past, I won't make that mistake again.

So there's a perspective from the "cheap bastard mentality" that toyman mentioned above. I could have spent a bunch more money and got a Volvo head/intake/injection setup, MS2 w/ 3.0, new fuel pump, fancy air filter, new injectors, etc. but that's not what I chose to do, I wanted to build it from junk just for fun. I enjoyed being resourceful and it started getting me into the swing of making something from scrap, which I'm becoming intimately familiar with on my $2009 challenge car. If somebody else chooses to spend more to do it differently, that's not an indicator of how much it "should" cost, but how much they wanted to spend to do it differently.

For the record, I think Megasquirt is the cat's ass. It's not nearly as "powerful" as factory ECMs, but when it comes to ditching carbs and points on an ancient engine on the cheap, it's hard to beat. Plus, if I want to add fan control, traction control, nitrous control, COP, and boost control the 122S, I'm ready to go.

Bryce

porschenut wrote: Good, looking forward to it. If you want an article on EFI gone wrong let me know

I can help with that one as well, I have a good 034 example and I have a really funny one about Tec2 on a racing boat...

Per, what system are you going to try on the VW?

Not sure. The Gotech seems like an interesting choice, but there are plenty of others out there. I'd like to do ITBs or a custom manifold or something on the ABA.

Getting in late on this, but when I read the MS article I thought the opposite of the OP. I noticed the assembled costs and was thinking to myself, "these costs aren't as low as they could be!" Anyway, I guess everyone reads it from a different perspective. My MS costs are: MS1V3 - $190 , LC1 WB - $200, Stim and various other stuff - $50, cleaned RX7 injectors $110, Win98 laptop with dead battery - free from coworker ($20 for inverter). So that's up to around $550 for me. Ran great on my 93 Miata, I'm moving it over to my 96 Miata as we speak. Thanks GRM for this great MS article as well as the one from a few years back. It's what got me interested!

I'll throw in my MS experience for my first post. I'm 'squirting the S14 in my 1990 E30 M3. Total parts cost was ~$1K including having someone build it for me, an Innovate WB controller, trigger wheel, VR Sensor, and new coils. Injectors were pretty new so I'm not rebuilding them yet. I'll be running Alpha-N because the ITB's make for a crappy MAP signal. I'm wiring the car now, so hopefully it gets running within the next month or so. Also, it is possible to tune and hit every load site without a dyno, it just takes a lot more time and effort.

porschenut wrote: Second your cost table was pathetic. You didn't include the crank angle sensor, injectors, air filter, laptop to program,orwide band O2 system. That could easily double the price you show.

Should the rest of my tools/toolbox be figured into the budget? If not, then why should the laptop?

Yes that stuff could double the price. That doesn't mean it will double the price. You're exaggerating/over generalizing everything you possibly can to try to back up your double claim.

Of course it might cost way more (double or even way more than that). it might cost way less too. Every project is different. The fact that yours cost more (even though the things you included were possibly not necessary) doesn't mean that their estimate was wrong.

And based on the things you want to include in your #s to get to double, I suspect even your project necessities came in more like 150% at most.