ok i have a couple of questions. As my engine is being rebuilt and ported and i want to drag the most power out as possible i've been looking into safc's and some standalone setups. Safc sounds good only because of the price, i would really like to go standalone and get rid of my afm. but standalones are ******* expensive! but then i came across the megasquirt. is this too good to be true? lol standalone for like 200 dollers. . lol sounds good. i don't mind having to put it together and what not that's not a big deal. The only issue that i am having right now is that i don't have a laptop. . is it nessisary to have a laptop to tune the megasquirt? people have base maps for megasquirt for free, couldn't i find one similar to mine and program it from my PC or something? What are all of you standalone guys out there doing, do you all have laptops? they are also pretty damn expensive. and also i don't think my local dyno has any megasquirt experience. I dunno. Please help me out a bit here I would really like to get this system. Thanks
Dom
oh and Merry Christmas/ happy holidays

 

Hmmm...this might go OT...

Used laptops (at least for Haltech applications) don't have to be up-to-date.
I get used laptops (anything over 200MHz) from $100 or so.
Used laptops in the 500MHz to 1GHz range are still arodun $500 or less.
If you look around, brand new laptops can be had for $500 - $600 - check dell.com / hp.com / compaq.com - these are the big PC discounters.


-Ted

 

An EMS can be tuned with a PC. Also, you do not need to buy a computer if you can borrow one.

I have not tried out the megasquirt, but I looked at the software. It seems like it has the necessary basics, although it is not nearly as advanced as the other products on the market.

Speed-density ECU's can't compensate for slight engine differences like an AFM ECU. Therefore, you will need to tune the EMS to your particular application, and somebody else's map will not work properly. If you don't know how to tune an EMS, and you don't have any friends to help you out, then I suggest sticking with the stock setup because you will risk blowing your engine if you try to monkey with it yourself.

 

i don't have friends with much experience but this is somethign i would like to do. I am serious about my car, i'm just not rich .. lol that's why the megasquirt ecu seems like a good choice. Also my car is N/A so i'm not too worried about blowing it up. If i don't try i will never learn/never be able to help anyone else so i think i should try it . . lol I would only be using the megasquirt to control the fuel, i would leave the stock ecu for spark for the timebeing. Any info on this would be great. thanks
Dom

 

There is a huge megaquirt forum and yahoo group, I'd advise you to look over there.

 

I think you are looking at the original code. The current code is a lot more advanced, and with developments going on a pace (the advantage of open source) I think it will be well beyond most of the aftermarket units by the end of next year. For example, autotuning is already available with the logging software and is currently being tested as native code.

The MS2 code has been written from the ground up to work with lambda as an input and can be tightly coupled to a wideband for engine control.

What features do you want an ECU to have? You never know they may already be there.

 

Yes, it was the original code.

I often wish I could change some of the commercial EMS software currently on the market.

 

So come join the open source revolution :-)

 

I just may do that once I have a place to work on my cars again. Heck, even the old code looks like it would be a lot of fun to play with on an NA 13B.