MegaSquirt questions.

So, I'm slowly reading through the material on the megasquirt page but thought I would also post my questions on here since I know a lot of people on here have used it.

I really don't know a lot about engine management stuff. I've usually preffered carbed motors with no electronics in the past but am interested in learning more about tuning fuel injected engined.

Just for case of discussion assume I would be using the megasquirt on a Civic / CRX with a turbo charged B-series Vtec motor swap. What are the pros and cons? How involved in setting everything up? Can I expect any significant power difference out of the motor or just better control of the power?

Better power compared to what? No matter what you do to turbo your B series, you will have to do something for engine management. Be that an AFC hack, Hondata, Chrome, Neptune, etc based off of a stock Honda ecu; or a full standalone ecu like Megasquirt or one of the many other brands/types.

It can be argued that you can make the same power on any of these systems, but the repeatability and ease of getting to your goal can be considerably easier with some over others.

Generally with Hondas, Megasquirt isn't that popular. They have many inexpensive stock ECU based tuning solutions. However if you are interested in learning everything about EFI, and not just looking for the cheapest or easiest way to make it 'work,' Megasquirt is a good way to go.

I wouldn't waste time MS'ing a Honda. To much free tuning gear for the stock ecus.

I started in Hondas... and currently run a MS'd turbo miata.

MS is fantastic for vehicles that don't have ecu support... Honda is not one of them.

Look into using Crome. http://www.tunewithcrome.com/ The free version is all you really need. Get a wideband and goto town. For some decent basemaps www.xenocron.com/bins

For a cheap route... find a obd1 P05, P06, P75, PR4 and get a conversion kit from xenocron. Don't waste money on a P28. If you are obd0... you can fake dual map vtec with a PM6 and run Turboedit. Or run BRE on a obd0 b16 ecu PR3/P30.

As the others have noted, there's quite a number of OEM ECU hacks in the Honda community, so MS isn't as popular there as with other engines. It can certainly be done, though, and can be set up for features that aren't readily doable with a stock Honda ECU. Coil on plug ignition, for instance. Horsepower won't necessarily be any different from a chipped ECU as long as the tuning is done equally well.

I've MegaSquirted a Honda before, and used that to come up with this write up:

http://www.diyautotune.com/tech_articles/how_to_megasquirt_your_honda_acura.htm

That write up is a fairly basic one that uses the stock distributor instead of anything fancy.

THREADJACK (apologies - Matt jogged a question I've had)

MadScientistMatt wrote: Coil on plug ignition, for instance.

MS docs say it supports up to 4cyl COP. I am planning to MS a BMW S52 this winter... Since 2 cylinders always fire at the same time - can I keep the factory COP and use a 3cyl setup?

In reply to Giant Purple threadjacker:

I think so, itll just take some interfacing, I know there is an expansion board as well. Im currently debating getting a 2.0 board and batch injection/wasted spark on the LS, then upgrading when 3 is released to do all individual COP etc etc.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: MS docs say it supports up to 4cyl COP. I am planning to MS a BMW S52 this winter... Since 2 cylinders always fire at the same time - can I keep the factory COP and use a 3cyl setup?

The latest MS2/Extra firmware can control 6 cylinder COP. You can also use 3 outputs as "wasted spark COP" if you'd rather free up the outputs.