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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

MegaSquirted Supra?


Calorus

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Anyone tried this? I'm comfortable that the engine will be fine, but I've heard tales of the the speed sensitive powersteering and was wondering if there were many other speed sensitive/ecu managed processes which I'd need to be thinking my way around.

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It's not a BAD ECU, but it's not great. Very good for kit-car types who want to learn more. But, as with most open-source stuff, the warranty is your own.

 

Also, don't forget, the ECU is only as good as the assembly of the parts and the tuner who maps it.

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Yup, I genuinely want to learn more - I'm a programmer by trade so that bit doesn't threaten me too much and I'm about to try a 1JZ conversion. Happy to suffer under my own ignorance, but I'm not too sure about what may cease to function once the Toyota ECU is out of the way.

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I don't think so, the 1JZ lump is coming from a 1990 Soarer... So I think I'm safe!

 

The MegaSquirt should run that fine. You'll be able to do the fuel/ignition/boost etc.

I think the resolution is 8x8, though, which is quite low.

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The MegaSquirt should run that fine. You'll be able to do the fuel/ignition/boost etc.

I think the resolution is 8x8, though, which is quite low.

 

There are firmware changes etc and stuff that lifts the resolution a bit I believe from my research, just never had the time to finish it.

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Can you piggyback a megasquirt or is it a replacement?

Both :)

 

There are firmware changes etc and stuff that lifts the resolution a bit I believe from my research, just never had the time to finish it.

Ah, that's decent enough, then.

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The MegaSquirt should run that fine. You'll be able to do the fuel/ignition/boost etc.

I think the resolution is 8x8, though, which is quite low.

 

Yeah, I suspected I'd be safe on the engine front, it's the Chassis front I'm worried about. When someone was talking about the cop-out de-restrictors which just divide the wheel speed by 1.61, someone else mentioned that there were a lot of speed sensitive foibles on the body electronics which would be messed up, the one which stuck in my mind was the power steering, but they'd made it sound as if there might be more... Am I being an automotive hypochondriac, or were their warnings justified?

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I have an old Sky remote you can try, why do people insist on trying to modify an ECU that had millions spent in development with one that has had pence thrown at it, you must be mad, still helps pay for my race car when it all goes tits.

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I have an old Sky remote you can try, why do people insist on trying to modify an ECU that had millions spent in development with one that has had pence thrown at it, you must be mad, still helps pay for my race car when it all goes tits.

 

Because, as with all things in automotive-dom - far from being made to function perfectly in my situation, the ECU as supplied was designed as a jack of all trades. The 'millions in development' argument is as valid for the stock turbos, and the stock suspension, and stock bumpers... Isn't it?

 

But since hacking a different engine in then trying to get 50% more power out of it then thrashing it round a track probably wasn't in the Denso product spec I'm tempted to argue that MegaSquirt is a far more targeted product...

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Because, as with all things in automotive-dom - far from being made to function perfectly in my situation, the ECU as supplied was designed as a jack of all trades. The 'millions in development' argument is as valid for the stock turbos, and the stock suspension, and stock bumpers... Isn't it?

 

But since hacking a different engine in then trying to get 50% more power out of it then thrashing it round a track probably wasn't in the Denso product spec I'm tempted to argue that MegaSquirt is a far more targeted product...

 

You carry on, what do I know, we only had 4 cars on the dyno yesterday and another 4 today and have only fitted 5 ecu's this week so do you not think I am speaking from experience, like I said try a sky remote or come down and have a look at death alley where

1) there are decent cars with a decent ECU mapped by either the owner or a trained chimp

2) nice cars with crap piggybacks etc that are now f****d

 

If you are looking for a 50% increase and the ability to 'thrash' around a track why are you fitting one of the cheapest ecu's known to man? or are you running Ruffian radials and Tescos finest 20/50 with Halfords brakes.

 

What I should do is have a display cabinet for all the cheap and nasty ECU's that customers think are fine untill they see the results on a dyno and end up changing for one that will really do the job which works out very expensive especially when you factor engine damage in the equation.

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I have built four Megasquirt ECU setups over the years and currently have a Megasquirt 1 fitted to a mini running the ignition through a Ford EDIS ignition module and coil pack whilst the fuelling is being handled by a Megasquirt II on a 3.0 board with my own intake/throttle/injection design.

 

OT - sorry......Fuel injecting a Mini is very tricky though owing to the siamese ports in the head meaning two cylinders share the same intake charge. Going off the subject a little but the reason for two ECUs here is because a Mini needs equal ignition firing angles and uneven injection firing - when I started out looking at this the Megasquirt ECU could not handle that (so I ran two ECUs to leave more inputs and outputs available for the fuelling side of things) but I think a Megasquirt II will do it now whilst running coil on plug, EDIS or distributor based ignition. The Mini also needs massive injectors as the injection window is very small.....I think the 65hp twin point injection has 480cc/min injectors from the factory :D

 

Personally I don't think I'd go fitting a Megasquirt 1 ECU to anything unless it was real low budget. The injection and ignition tables are very small, the resolution on injector pulsewidth is poor, the acceleration enrichment options are extremely limited etc etc. That is not the case with the more advanced Megasquirt II kit - that's miles more advanced.

 

I would consider a Megasquirt II installation in a normal car (rather than just some fun experimenting like I have been doing on the Mini) if....

 

1) I assembled it all myself

2) I found a good mapper who was happy to map my car with this ECU. I'm Ok with mechanical stuff and PCB assembly but leave the mapping to someone else! :)

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Megasquirt is interesting to the same sort of people who like alpha releases of Linux, IMHO. If you are seriously into electronics and like doing things the hard, but probably cheap way, then give it a go. I have seen some really nicely set up engines on Megasuirt, but I have also seen some total abortions that look like a tangled nest of wires from some Sci-Fi film, and that run in constant state of self destruction :) People like me need the support and knowledge base of Motec ;)

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You carry on, what do I know, we only had 4 cars on the dyno yesterday and another 4 today and have only fitted 5 ecu's this week so do you not think I am speaking from experience, like I said try a sky remote or come down and have a look at death alley where

1) there are decent cars with a decent ECU mapped by either the owner or a trained chimp

2) nice cars with crap piggybacks etc that are now f****d

 

If you are looking for a 50% increase and the ability to 'thrash' around a track why are you fitting one of the cheapest ecu's known to man? or are you running Ruffian radials and Tescos finest 20/50 with Halfords brakes.

 

What I should do is have a display cabinet for all the cheap and nasty ECU's that customers think are fine untill they see the results on a dyno and end up changing for one that will really do the job which works out very expensive especially when you factor engine damage in the equation.

 

Well, I'm pleased for you - fact of the matter is, if I just wanted a quick car I'd just open my wallet and let some other bugger do it.

 

I don't. I want MY quick car. This is about gaining the skills and aptitude to do things myself and have a basis which allows me to expand and modify it to better suit the application. The fact is MegaSquirt has been proven on cars which are exceptionally well regarded - so whilst you may have justifiable reservations about my abilities, I think you'd find reservations about MegaSquirt to be nothing but baseless snobbery. No I cannot map a car, but this is why I want to learn - I dare say even with your prodigious skill you were once a novice, too?

 

Megasquirt is interesting to the same sort of people who like alpha releases of Linux, IMHO. If you are seriously into electronics and like doing things the hard, but probably cheap way, then give it a go. I have seen some really nicely set up engines on Megasuirt, but I have also seen some total abortions that look like a tangled nest of wires from some Sci-Fi film, and that run in constant state of self destruction :) People like me need the support and knowledge base of Motec ;)

 

For the record - this is a final of Ubuntu (the Alpha is still on a spare HD somewhere round here...)

 

You mean Geeks, Chris? :)

 

I've been called worse!

Edited by Calorus (see edit history)
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