What has steered you away from the GM ECU?
Jeff
What has steered you away from the GM ECU?
Jeff
" Just piercing the surface"
Dyno tuning will be your friend. Just went through this with A whole lot of help from my friends on my old Porsche 911
Jay Z.
'93 White/Teal Classic 22
Looking great! Keep up the good work!
Jay, I agree. The dyno will not only get the tune better, but also save me a bunch of time. I imagine I will still have to tweak it a bit once it's in the boat, but the dyno should get it 95% there.
Looked into this as that is what most LS guys are using; even those with boosted applications. From what I could find out there isn't a company that will unlock the ecu for life. They sell you "credits" to flash the ecu. Once the credits are used up, you have to buy more.
The stock ecu is the cheaper way to go if you only need to flash the ecu a few times, but I expect to have to flash it a whole bunch of times and the stock setup would end up being exorbitantly expensive in the long run.
22Classic: waiting for the your test data.
Why is faster never fast enough.
Looking good. Hope you get the exhaust soon.
Lake St. Clair, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Oakland
You buy a license per ECU. Did you look at EFI live? The knock control algorithim in the GM ECU would be desirable for a supercharged high compression engine like the LS3. Did you change out the pistons? I may have missed that.
Jeff
" Just piercing the surface"
Actually Jeff, I did not. I had seen mention of EFI Live, but thought it was the same as HP Tuners (which sells credits).
I'm not sure if it would have swayed my decision though. If it was only $400 maybe, but at $900, may as well go aftermarket and have greater control over the function of the I/O's. If you haven't noticed, I have Stockitis. (The fear of anything "stock"). I was diagnosed as a young child when I took a saw to my lego's in order to modify them.
.....I did not change the pistons and I will have two knock sensors with the MegaSquirt.
Why is faster never fast enough.
One of the things I like about the megasquirt is the documentation, it's extremely thorough!!!
Are you aware that the knock sensor doesn't directly interface to the ecu?
Jeff
" Just piercing the surface"
I'm adding the knock module, which solders directly to the main board.
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/...ck-module-kit/
I am aware though, that it's difficult to get the knock working properly.
MS documentation is good to a point. I found the assembly instructions a bit vague in some areas. Luckily the MS forum had the answers I needed as it was easy to find someone who had the same questions.
The area that the MS falls flat is if you need to make any changes. Getting a definitive answer on making changes can be somewhat difficult.
Example is; I have used up all the "documented" inputs, but want to monitor oil pressure. There are 2 inputs which are assigned for CanBus communication. I am not using those and was told by one of the top MS guys that they can be reconfigured as analog or digital inputs. Trouble is, he won't tell me exactly how. I posted a diagram and explanation of how I "thought" it could be done and he kind of, maybe, possibly said it would work. I'm not 100% sure if he said it would work. He didn't say "no", so I have to take that as a yes.
In case you're interested, I'll have the following inputs;
2 x knock, 2 x O2, engine temp, intake air temp, throttle position, manifold pressure, barometric pressure, fuel pressure, oil pressure, cam & crank position, low meth.
And the following outputs:
8 x spark, 8 x injector, fuel pump, tach, low pressure relay.
You can't set up the MS to directly monitor the oil or fuel pressure and put the engine into limp mode (on low pressure), so I plan to trigger an output relay on low oil/fuel pressure and wire the relay to the low methanol input. MS can monitor low meth and set a limp mode.
Why is faster never fast enough.
Do you really need the baro sensor?
Could you put the oil pressure on that channel instead?
Jeff
" Just piercing the surface"
I do boat at different elevations, so the baro is something I want.
The MS has enough inputs for what I want, just a bit confusing in how to wire the last one up.
I've been forced to get a better understanding in how the MS works electronically, as I did a bonehead move and killed a couple of the components.
I powered it up to do a bench test and didn't notice the board was sitting on a strand of bare wire and it shorted a couple of the components. One of them smoked, but I didn't see exactly which one and there was no visible damage. Spent the entire weekend brushing up on my electronics knowledge and troubleshooting the board. I'm 60% confident I found the offending parts and hopefully I can pick up replacements locally.
Why is faster never fast enough.
Ok, I really feel like an idiot now. I don't think the "wire" that I thought had shorted the MS board, actually did. I'd been chasing a component problem for 3 solid days, replacing items I thought might be the problem, only to find out they weren't. Luckily electronic components are pretty cheap.
Anyways, I realized I wasn't getting anywhere and started back at the beginning and took some basic voltage measurements. There were a couple voltages that never made any sense to me, right from the start, but I didn't really "think" about it until I decided to start from scratch again.
There were voltages (albiet only 0.5v) on two pins which should not have anything on them because they were only spare pins, and not connected to anything. Also, there were two other pins that had a higher voltage (by 0.5 to 1v) than what the schematic showed was possible.
So either I discovered how to create energy (unlikely ); or the board itself had a short internally (also unlikely) or it was shorting on the surface. I knew for a fact there were no wires or solder causing a short, so the only other thing on the board itself was the residue of the flux I was using. So I scrubbed it with some alcohol and let it dry overnight. Powered it up this morning and voila! No more problem.
The "smoke" that I thought had come from a fried component was only the flux burning off, as there was one hole that was getting real hot (before I cleaned the board).
Still have a couple components to put back in and give the board another good scrubbing (as there is still a trace voltage on one pin that should be zero), but it looks as if I can now move forward.
The real idiot thing I did was; I have both an electronics flux and a plumbing flux in my tool chest. I didn't pay attention to what I grabbed and was using the plumbing flux. I'm still surprised it caused the board to short out though, as it is lead free and typically (I thought) it was only leaded flux that would cause shorts.
Why is faster never fast enough.
Great progress!
What is your goal for when it might be ready for the water?
Best regards,
Matt P.
You're learning! Nothing wrong with that.
Jeff
" Just piercing the surface"
Later.
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I don't do well with deadlines. The big unknown is the computer. I have zero tuning experience, and I have no idea how long it's going to take me to get the engine running. There's guys on the megasquirt forum that have struggled for months to get their engine running right; and guys that got it virtually right away. I'm hoping I'll be the latter.
Yes, but when I have to learn something new, it chips away at that part of me that is convinced I know everything.
Why is faster never fast enough.
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