Megasquirt woes/venting/susess story

iam guessing that there is more than a few people out there that have used megasquirt and had trouble with it... but i just got my Saab 900 spg running corretly for the first time in 2yrs! i was having a ton of false triggers issues with my LM1815 vr decoder board and the car would not rev past 5k this is a v2.2 board v3 chip MSnS running a ford edis coil pack, ford sensor, 36-1 wheel. but i finnally got to the tipping point with the LM1815 and bought a new style VR decoder board from Jbperf.com that uses an updated chip and Vola she runs mint now! i just wanted to vent and say how happy iam that its finally running good now!!! here a pic of my autox machine

HOLY WHEELS BATMAN

Haha!! This might be the most awesome autox car i've ever seen!!!!

Taiden wrote: HOLY WHEELS BATMAN

hahaha 13x10

Is that at devens? I did not know you were local to me. Ya MS can be great or the bane of your existence.

Sweet 900!!!!

dean1484 wrote: Is that at devens? I did not know you were local to me. Ya MS can be great or the bane of your existence. Sweet 900!!!!

yep that was at a track club usa event. iam from Athol, i see your from Maynard i work over on 27 in Acton right before the Maynard line

Thank you!

wow.. when I first saw the pic.. I thought you had your autoX wheels NEXT to the street tyres..

Nice looking SPG.. I think I am jealous

You want 4 more slicks cheap? I bought 4 used last year from another dwarf group to run at a national event but didn't go due to weather. I'm going this year but they changed tires so i can't use the Hoosiers I've got. Can't run them with my group either. Make me an offer there in Winchendon.

44

I've got to say that that it the coolest Saab I've ever seen!

got more pics of the saab? I like the hood vents

Needs more tire.

That's probably the meanest looking Saab I have ever seen. Cool.

Yeah, wow . That thing must stick like glue!

How does it fair amongst the competition?

I blew the muffler of the exhaust while trying to get my MS car started.

I'm also having false triggers and the like with my MS1 and EDIS. I'm pretty confident that it is a ground issue, but I need to change the new clutch disc first. The clutch disc decided to separate from the hub before I even got to drive the car!

6 years of work and there isn't a piece of mechanical, hydraulic, electrical or fluidic system that I've not replaced or rebuilt. I just want to drive the bloody thing. I feel like I'm preparing for some bizarre Top Gear special with this car.

You know what? For all of this abuse, pain, suffering and monetary outlay this project has and is putting me through, I'm still looking forward to the next project. Whatever it might be.

tcoleman900 wrote:

Oh, you need to do some sweet box-flares!!

thanks for the kind words guys!!! ^ yes i deff need box flares but ive been bouncing back and fourth on the design

here mor pics!

build thread http://saabrally.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1875

Luke wrote: Yeah, wow . That thing must stick like glue! How does it fair amongst the competition?

it does

i'll have to let you know cause with that MS missfire i could rev above 5k, and 5k in second gear isnt all that fast

44Dwarf wrote: You want 4 more slicks cheap? I bought 4 used last year from another dwarf group to run at a national event but didn't go due to weather. I'm going this year but they changed tires so i can't use the Hoosiers I've got. Can't run them with my group either. Make me an offer there in Winchendon. 44

what compound? how much? do you know Joey Kendal?

turboswede wrote: I blew the muffler of the exhaust while trying to get my MS car started. I'm also having false triggers and the like with my MS1 and EDIS. I'm pretty confident that it is a ground issue, but I need to change the new clutch disc first. The clutch disc decided to separate from the hub before I even got to drive the car! 6 years of work and there isn't a piece of mechanical, hydraulic, electrical or fluidic system that I've not replaced or rebuilt. I just want to drive the bloody thing. I feel like I'm preparing for some bizarre Top Gear special with this car. You know what? For all of this abuse, pain, suffering and monetary outlay this project has and is putting me through, I'm still looking forward to the next project. Whatever it might be.

i know exactly how you feel, ive found grounds are the most important thing with MS and they all have to be centralized on the block, i re-ran all my grounds on this car and it helped some of my "noise". i'll tell you though i wish i bought one of the $30 ocilliscopes of Ebay along time ago......makes diag'ing crank sensor issues %100 easyer. and make sure you get Tunerstudio. haha

Awesome looking auto crosser! Curious how much power your making. Is that a vacuum pump for the crankcase ventilation? Glad to hear you got the Megasuirt sorted out. I've got a Megasquirt 3 kit I have not built yet that I am putting on a 900 SPG.

Welcome to the evil MS run dedicated AutoX/track car club, I should put that on a bumper sticker...

tcoleman900 wrote: i know exactly how you feel, ive found grounds are the most important thing with MS and they all have to be centralized on the block, i re-ran all my grounds on this car and it helped some of my "noise". i'll tell you though i wish i bought one of the $30 ocilliscopes of Ebay along time ago......makes diag'ing crank sensor issues %100 easyer. and make sure you get Tunerstudio. haha

You are not kidding - i've got a new MS install and the grounding issue had me stumped for several weeks. Moving the grounds from a chassis ground to a dedicated (MS only) point at the valve cover solved all of my issues. The weird thing is I also have a large ground strap connecting those 2 points together - I'm scratching my head on that one.

My other mistake was using a Silver type heat sink paste (from a desktop computer ECU) on my coil driver. This meant that it was grounding the coil driver to the MS case (when it should've been isolated). Took a little while to figure that one out also. Swapping to a silicone based heat sink paste fixed that and ....BRAP BRAP!

I only have 13 x 9's

Your SPG, along with many others (MadMachine) has rekindled my desire for a c900. I must have one soon!

I gotta get mine fixed soon.. damn hurricane

fifty wrote:

tcoleman900 wrote: i know exactly how you feel, ive found grounds are the most important thing with MS and they all have to be centralized on the block, i re-ran all my grounds on this car and it helped some of my "noise". i'll tell you though i wish i bought one of the $30 ocilliscopes of Ebay along time ago......makes diag'ing crank sensor issues %100 easyer. and make sure you get Tunerstudio. haha

You are not kidding - i've got a new MS install and the grounding issue had me stumped for several weeks. Moving the grounds from a chassis ground to a dedicated (MS only) point at the valve cover solved all of my issues. The weird thing is I also have a large ground strap connecting those 2 points together - I'm scratching my head on that one.

I think I cheated in using the relay board lol... after reading about someones post of welding various parts to others with poor grounding... I should be good (using what volvo did which is a lot of grounding lol) but we'll really see once I get the thing completely together and I get to revving it over 1500rpm or so eh...

i got to say also i thought i knew a thing or two about EFI before i did the megasquirt (iam a Saab dealer tech by day) but i quickly found out i had a lot to learn haha, but i believe getting a MS to run right its quite the learning experience, and the best feeling when you get a clean strong pull out of the car.

Broadspeed- its a oil catch can, good luck with your install!

EvanB- the old C900's dont get the respect they should IMO