muythaibxr

Well to each his own... Every "Pro" with years of experience had to start somewhere... and I doubt most of the pros even know as much as some of the "novices" on the megasquirt forums... the people on the megasquirt forums (not all, but several) know how software for ECUs is written, not just how to tune it.

Just like sudseh said.... tuning is not magic. If you do your homework are very careful (meaning if you do the same thing the pro's do) you won't "pop your motor."

I say if you're afraid to experiment, you'll never learn anything.

And the answer to "why mess around" is that megasquirt set up for a rotary with a wideband controller and sensor costs around $380 with the sensor (assuming you build your own megasquirt). Without the wideband setup, it's about $140 for the megasquirt itself, and at most another $20-40 for the parts for extra circuits.... and you end up with an ECU that works just as well as the more expensive options, which you tuned yourself, and you end up with the knowledge to do it on many other types of motors.

Megasquirt with the MSnS-extra firmware is a "real" ecu by every definition I can think of... mainly that it does everything your "real" ecu's do, and does it significantly cheaper.

and AGAIN, the point of my post wasn't to push megasquirt... although I like the megasquirt with the MSnS-extra firmware.... the point was that even with your so-called "real" ECU's, you shouldn't be afraid to save yourself some money, and gain yourself some knowledge by tuning yourself.

sudseh

As a Singaporean newspaper put so succinctly, "skateboarding is an unnecessary risk because you can hurt yourself and the ones you love."


Doing something on your own is half the fun. If you don't push yourself and your abilities to the failing point, you learn nothing.

Building an ECU is somewhat like writing and debugging and debugging and debugging and finalizing and revising and installing an ethernet driver for an unsupported OS (like os/2).
If you skip any step, or try and shortcut, you will fail.
But, that is why there are devices called telephones and bbss and other utilities that let an individual gain the knowledge needed so that they can realize the full process and DON'T fail.

In my not humble opinion, the ONLY things that separate a stereotypically "professional" ecu from a megasquirt type unit, are build quality, price, and speed of installation.

Build Quality: Yes, a normal, semi-trained person will not have the repetition of perfect joints that a rolling mach...err reflow soldering machine can attain, but if you take your time and proceed carefully, you too can make perfect joints every time.

Price: The megasquirt is far and away much more economical to build and install correctly than any "professional" ecu. (I bill myself at $120/hour for comparison.)

Speed of Installation: An ecu that is plug 'n play such as a Microtech will allow you to simply plug the unit into the car and go get it tuned. But there is no fun in just going "hey I think I want a new ecu and not actually have to understand what it does". That's like buying an off-the-shelf pistol without actually taking the time to learn how to rebuild and clean it, and when you actually need it and the slide is stuck, you don't know what to do.


I guess what I'm saying is that a diy ecu is for people who would really like to know how their car works and aren't afraid of taking risks. The rewards far outweigh the price of failure. Plus, after you have installed and tuned a few systems, you could probably sell yourself very well to a "professional" shop as you have had hands on troubleshooting/tuning experience.