Megasquirt PNP Please explain !!

[olboy]

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I have been looking at turboing my mx5
I have no problem with the nuts and bolts side of the deal.
The problem is that I'm to old to understand the computer side of things.
I know I need a computer but is the megasquirt Pnp as simple as it sounds just plug it in adjust a few settings
and away we go or is it adjust a few settings to be able to get it drivable to someone who knows what they are doing.
The car is an unregoed track day only car and i don't want to spend megadollars.
thanks in advance for any advice anyone has to offer
olboy

[NitroDann]

You are correct, you do need a wde band o2 sensor amd the optional iat sensor for your application. You can just 'tweak a few settings' and it will be done, it takes knowledge skill and experience. Where are you from?

Dann

[olboy]

Does that mean I can do it ?
I'm on the south coast ( white car blue roof, roll cage, diff, track day, KEP ) you know

olboy

[greenMachine]

I am not too familiar with the MS, but AFAIK the PNP part is just the hardware, that is it will plug straight in to your harness. Given a racecar (may) not be using the factory harness, this may not be such a big advantage for you. Any of the reputable replacement ECUs can be had with a set of wires (the 'flying leads') which can be connected to your ECU and then wired to your sensors, coils, injectors etc. Some (eg Haltech in my racecar) can be had with a short wiring harness which sits between the new ECU and your factory harness connectors, making it PNP.

ALL ECUs will require expert tuning to ensure they are managing YOUR engine (ie meeting its specific requirements, not a generic set of requirements0. That does not necessarily mean spending mega dollars with a professional tuner, but it does mean you, or your mate, or your mate's mate, needs to know what they are doing.

I can't emphasise enough the importance of a good tune. It will give you what you want (power) but it will not kill your engine. A bad tune can kill your engine quicker than the time it takes to say it. Not trying to scare you off, but you need to know how important that tune is.

Best advice I can give is decide who is going to tune your car, and then get what they recommend to meet your specs (including budget). Although most tuners can tune most ECUs, better to get something they are familiar with and know all the tricks.

Good luck. Keep asking questions, and looking for answers. Here is a good place to start, but also the big board (miatanet.com) and miataturbo.com have a lot of info.

[NitroDann]

Oh gday mate. I doubt you can. My car is registered so i learned by playing with it everyday i drove it just living with horrid driveability. I also have a fair bit of experience tuning 2 strokes, and did a hell of a lot of reading first. But with practice im sure you can. your problem is finding a place you can spend a whole day tuning and learning from someone whos experienced.

Dann

[greenMachine]

Does that mean I can do it ?
I'm on the south coast ( white car blue roof, roll cage, diff, track day, KEP ) you know

olboy

Yes you can.

The real question is whether you are prepared to take the risks, spend the time getting it right, and can access/prepare your own 'base map', and know/learn how/what to change to affect the performance of your engine. If you ask in the right circles, you will probably get a base map that is, say, 75% right. You can then run the car on the dyno, or at eg Wakefield Park SOTS days, and experiment with the settings.

But if you have to ask this question, the answer is almost certainly, yes you can, but not any time soon.

It seems to me that you need to do a lot more research (see post above) to know just what sort of a pond you are jumping into, and to develop the knowledge to do it yourself.

Why don't you take the time to come up here to Canberra for our next Coffee & Lies, first Saturday of the month, and talk to some of the people who have racecars, and/or tune them?

[NitroDann]

Greens advice is very good. Im typing on a phone which is why my answers are short. Essentially the pnp will plug straight into your car (i know his car). A hell of a lot of people who drive race cars have never heard of megasquirt, ive only met one tuner who has ever heard of MS. Having said that, there is a humongous community supporting it. Almost everyone on miataturbo.net runs one, and there are people everywhere in the world like me and you who can help you.

My advice is that the mspnp is right for you, but you need to find someone who has tuned a few cars to help you. My personal car is daily dríven, big cams, and on e85, i tune it and it runs nice, im also doing a megasquirt install on an mr2 at the moment. I have no formal training but with some reading and a lot of playing ive worked it out just fine.

You basically need to follow the instructions on the website. You build the MS, or order it built. You then plug it into a laptop and flash the right software onto it . Install the tuning software (MS tunerstudios). Plug the MS into the car, fit the appropriate sized injectors for your turbo upgrade.
The tunerstudio software is very straightforward. You load the fuel map from the cd in the MSpnp box onto the computer. Or you get one off miataturbo, id suggest you start like this. You then tune the car with the software. Ie it will show a heaps of boxes on a grid with boost on the vertucal axis and rpm on the horisontal. When its idling it will have the '1000rpm/80kpa of vacuum' box highlighted. Basically if you think its too lean yoi just increase the number in the box. Ignition advance is exactly the same.

This is basically the procedure, you need the wideband oxygen sensor so you can see exactly how rich or lean it is, and you tune based off its reading.

Theres also things like accelerator pump settings, that inject an extra percentage of fuel when you open the throttle suddenly, to stop flatspots.

It sounds worse than it is. Im happy to help you , but it is a steep learning curve. Alternatively plug in the MS, wire open the wastegate, and idle it to a tuner and lay down 2 grand.

Dann

[NitroDann]

Greens advice is very good. Im typing on a phone which is why my answers are short. Essentially the pnp will plug straight into your car (i know his car). A hell of a lot of people who drive race cars have never heard of megasquirt, ive only met one tuner who has ever heard of MS. Having said that, there is a humongous community supporting it. Almost everyone on miataturbo.net runs one, and there are people everywhere in the world like me and you who can help you.

My advice is that the mspnp is right for you, but you need to find someone who has tuned a few cars to help you. My personal car is daily dríven, big cams, and on e85, i tune it and it runs nice, im also doing a megasquirt install on an mr2 at the moment. I have no formal training but with some reading and a lot of playing ive worked it out just fine.

You basically need to follow the instructions on the website. You build the MS, or order it built. You then plug it into a laptop and flash the right software onto it . Install the tuning software (MS tunerstudios). Plug the MS into the car, fit the appropriate sized injectors for your turbo upgrade.
The tunerstudio software is very straightforward. You load the fuel map from the cd in the MSpnp box onto the computer. Or you get one off miataturbo, id suggest you start like this. You then tune the car with the software. Ie it will show a heaps of boxes on a grid with boost on the vertucal axis and rpm on the horisontal. When its idling it will have the '1000rpm/80kpa of vacuum' box highlighted. Basically if you think its too lean yoi just increase the number in the box. Ignition advance is exactly the same.

This is basically the procedure, you need the wideband oxygen sensor so you can see exactly how rich or lean it is, and you tune based off its reading.

Theres also things like accelerator pump settings, that inject an extra percentage of fuel when you open the throttle suddenly, to stop flatspots.

It sounds worse than it is. Im happy to help you , but it is a steep learning curve. Alternatively plug in the MS, wire open the wastegate, and idle it to a tuner and lay down 2 grand.

Dann

[Tezzax5]

Either send sabretooth a pm or follow the links to his megasquirt website...from his profile on here
He runs a turbo NA with megasquirt

He should be able to give you a definitive answer on what you are trying to achieve...

I think the guys there even share basemaps,etc on the website

No point reinventing the wheel till you gain some knowledge





t

[Steampunk]

Here's the site Tez mentioned:
http://ozmx5.com/
Also go to Miataturbo.net, LOTS of knowledgeable people there with sections specifically for the PnP, but be warned DON'T ask simple questions that you can find out yourself by spending 15 minutes searching the net, you won't make ANY friends there that way. Whatever questions you have would have been asked at least 20 times on miataturbo so search and read first.
The guys from DIYAutoTune (the makers of the PnP) are also on miataturbo.net.

Learning the software tuning side of things is fairly straightforward IMO. Of course there are some quite technical lingo to learn, but once you decipher it, it's easy and things start to snowball from there.
Once you get comfortable with AFR settings, you'll move onto Ignition Curves, then to Acceleration Enrichment, then to barometric and temperature correction, then to Alpha-N and Hybrid Alpha-N settings ...

You'll have fun.

[timk]

If you find someone to tune it then I probably wouldn't bother with a wideband etc. For a race car just run it in open look all the time.

Cheers

[NitroDann]

As sabateur said, the wide band is for tuning. If your not going to tune it, dont buy one. Open loop means that the software in the ecu ignores feedback from an oxygen sensor, on closed loop, the o2 sensor will tell the computer if its rich or lean and the computer will adjust it a percent or two, then the o2 sensor sends another signal. Hence closed, thereforw complete loop.

Dann