Building my Mtech-1, Full Build-up Pictorial

[Dave]

the plural of anecdote is data?

I have basically the same motor as james - MS is working just fine for me :p

Well, bully for you, Chris. ;)

I can get you more data if you like. It just doesn't make sense to me to spend lots of $$ on an engine build and then entrust it to a shareware program with which you will have no recourse if there is a failure.

Looking at what James has done, it is clear he has not taken any shortcuts or cut any corners.

Can you run it with MS? Sure. WIll it run fine - probably. Can you tune it as well as with some better ECUs? Not really.

[nando]

I can get you more data if you like.

I'm still waiting for the first data. you told a story about a guy you know who knew another guy.

Can you run it with MS? Sure. WIll it run fine - probably. Can you tune it as well as with some better ECUs? Not really.

really? did your sister's mechanic's friend's uncle tell you about a guy he knew who couldn't tune his car very well with MS? :p

I'm not trying to say MS is the end all be all, or that there aren't better things out there. but your single point of reference and some wierd idea that you can't tune MS very well isn't very convincing when you are trying to say it's complete garbage.

I guess I "cut corners" on my car then? :p

[Dave]

Before I decided to build a car for SpecE30, I was looking at a LOT of different possible projects, including a stroker build or FI. So I read up on it - and not just internet forum blather, TYVM.

In a nutshell, the guy from 034 (sure he is VERY biased) put it this way. And I talked to him on the phone and went into more detail about it, FWIW. I have also talked with my aforementioned mechanic friend who has built and tuned several cars with MS and with 034. And FWIW, when he sells an 034, he does not mark it up, so its not like he's pushing that product to make more $$.

What MS does is provide a mechanism to make an engine run, for not so much money. Granted you have to support yourself in the technical dept. It doesn't work out for a lot of folks that are going way beyond putting a cam in the car and a new waste gate spring.

Sequential injection and ignition matters, accurate distributorless ignition matters (particularly when you dont have lots of other circuits and knick knacks to make it all add up feature for feature). Having it all wrapped up in an environmentally suitable package, with appropriate components and connectors ALL MATTER. Fuel distribution (when the injector phases are not synced to the cam or crank for that matter) is scary nightmare when you are dialing in 30 pounds of boost and are knock limited on your ignition. Having one cyl run 10% more or less fuel than another due to intake resonance can melt your engine internals in a heartbeat. Running only 2 injector phases tends to work out OK on a 4 cyl engine but not so good on 5,6 and 8+ cyl engines, and is seldom considered for bleeding edge setups.

Lets also not ignore that running 2 injector phases means that your pulse width on a 4 cyl engine is half the time as it would be with sequential on the same 4 cyl engine. On 5,6,8+ cyl the pulse width gets lower yet.
Why should this matter?

When you put bigger injectors in your engine for more potential power, the idle pulse widths go down, and well so does your ability to provide a repeatable amount of fuel because the injector has a switching time both opening and closing. This means that the more you have to trigger a given injector per engine cycle, the greater the uncertainty in the amount of fuel for a given pulse width. This uncertainty varies from trigger to trigger particularly when the injector "dead time" is a sizeable percentage of the total idle pulse width.
In simple math, 2 injector phases on a 4 cyl engine has twice the fuel uncertainty.
Did you also know that you have more fuel potential with sequential injection than with batch triggered?
Why?
Because when you trigger the injectors at a higher rate (as with batch injection) there is less time opportunity for actual fuel to flow since the injector takes time to switch fuel on, then off, and since that lost fuel flow opportunity is doubled ( on a 4 cyl engine, worse on 5+) then that time is lost and you don't get to use that fuel time.
Simple math, 2 injector phases triggering each twice per 720 crank degrees, each injector has a .6ms "dead time".
At 6000 RPM, there would be 10ms of total injector opportunity before hitting 100% injector duty. .6ms of that 10ms is lost fuel time.
If the injector flows 20lbs/hr wide open you lost .6/10 or 1.2lbs/hr of fuel potential capacity.
This means an effective flow rate of 18.8 lbs/hr.
The same injectors sequential is 19.4 lbs/hr effective.
As the RPMs get higher, the differences go up even more.

It really blows my mind all the features MS has, but of course not all at the same time and not all off the same piece of hardware. This is used as an argument against other engine management systems all the time, but few people step up to the plate and say, hey you CAN do that with MS but you have to do this and add that ETC.

So Chris, sorry if I offended you when I referred to it as "that megasquirt crap". This is where I was coming from. I am glad it works for you.

[uflnuceng]

So James... when are you parting it out? :D I'll monitor the FS thread

[James Crivellone]

So James... when are you parting it out? :D I'll monitor the FS thread

hahahahah, never! I'm keeping this thing forever.

And in response to the engine management, I've been looking into Autronic ANd 034 actually.

I have a complete megasquirt ECU lying around that I may assemble into a factory M20 harness, however I'm not really interested in it.

I'm leaning toward Autronic at the moment, especially considering that I'd like the ECU to be swappable over to the S38 down the road so I don't need to spend $3000 all over again.

I will probably go UniChip to tide me over for awhile, but who knows, thats still up for discussion, the stock ECU with a 173 91octane MarkD is doing alright for now.

[nando]

james, you taken an AFR reading on your motor yet? maybe the mark D chip is better than what I had, but I was really surprised when I got my car on the dyno..

[James Crivellone]

they can be done well, but why bother with motronic at all? you're still stuck within it's limitations. there are just better alternatives, that's all.

Motronic is actually very powerful if you can interface with it properly. I've been slowly learning how to modify the stock software and been talking a bit with Mark about it.

I still need to buy an EEPROM burner so I can test my Alpina 2.8 software

[James Crivellone]

james, you taken an AFR reading on your motor yet? maybe the mark D chip is better than what I had, but I was really surprised when I got my car on the dyno..

I have not had a chance, I have not been driving it much until I get everything Appraised again and get yet another policy change added to my insurance.

[Mclassy]

James,

I know that Im new here, but Im not new to cars. I had a G35 with a Vortech SC while it came with a Unichip. I experienced nothing but problems with the unichip. Since it is not a direct ecu replacement, it fought with override the ecu and ended up throwing codes and wouldnt run. I reset the ecu and tore the Unichip out, sold it at that. I went on to a UTEC, and it ended up blowing my ecu. Granted I wasnt having luck....

I definitely wouldnt suggest a unichip, simply because its fairly new to the scene and not too many tuners are apt to using it. I couldnt get my local tuner (who did a rb26 in a 240sx) to mess with it. Maybe, in your area, you have guys that have access to play around with Unichips, but I sure wouldnt want them playing with your car. Support for Unichip was rough too. I couldnt get in contact with them, because they originate in AUS. I ended up contacting the guy that install the SC on a previous car using the unichip and he still was of little help. It wasnt accessible without access to the programming, so that also was a downfall. Granted its only 100 bucks for that access, but the UTEC was free with plenty of maps. I dont know much about what the bimmers can use for management past e46 M's, but I definitely wouldnt recommend using a Unichip. Best of luck to you!

[MR 325]

^ It's a bit different when you're comparing a new car's ECU to one from 20 years ago too.

[Mclassy]

^ It's a bit different when you're comparing a new car's ECU to one from 20 years ago too.

Absolutely, these new ecus are much less accessible today, but they still pose the issue of not have maps readily available. The only plus is if youve got a bad map, you can simply disconnect the Unichip and run the stock mototronic.

[UNHCLL]

Before I decided to build a car for SpecE30, I was looking at a LOT of different possible projects, including a stroker build or FI. So I read up on it - and not just internet forum blather, TYVM.

In a nutshell, the guy from 034 (sure he is VERY biased) put it this way. And I talked to him on the phone and went into more detail about it, FWIW. I have also talked with my aforementioned mechanic friend who has built and tuned several cars with MS and with 034. And FWIW, when he sells an 034, he does not mark it up, so its not like he's pushing that product to make more $$.



So Chris, sorry if I offended you when I referred to it as "that megasquirt crap". This is where I was coming from. I am glad it works for you.

Dave,

Did you forget who you were talking to? Do you know how elite & expensive the iX is to all other E30's? I mean, it's technically superior and more costly than any other e30 in the world. $23,300,465.00 is not even an acceptable assumption on what it costs to maintain one of those cars per year!!!!

:roll:


Chris,
No offence to you or anyone else using Megasquirt... but it is pretty primative overall. You can assume I don't like it because I need to spend the gob's of $$ on a "name brand" ECU setup. But lets compare apples and apples. MS is a piggyback, just like the MAXX setup for the S14. It's a band-aid for built/tuned motors. Sure, MS can offer ignition control too, but to what degree and what headache? For me, I'd rather spend more good money in the begining, than bad money chasing problems later.

As for the idea of "recourse" if your engine goes bang... I don't care if you bought the entire Ferrari F1 team of engineers to design you software, if you're tuning it... its your mistake and your oopsy.


Regardless, as stated previously, James' car is very clean and was completed on a fairly quick timeline for such a project.

-C
(all aforementioned comments/ideas/sentiments are my own and are not meant to be inflamatory or derogatory. Have some humor when you read this.)

[FredK]

Do you know how elite & expensive the iX is to all other E30's? $23,300,465.00 is not even an acceptable assumption on what it costs to maintain one of those cars per year!!!!

:roll:

FUCK! That's like only 2 sets of iX CAs and tie rods.

[nando]

Dave,

Did you forget who you were talking to? Do you know how elite & expensive the iX is to all other E30's? I mean, it's technically superior and more costly than any other e30 in the world. $23,300,465.00 is not even an acceptable assumption on what it costs to maintain one of those cars per year!!!!

:roll:

huh? where did that come from?

oh I forgot, you have an E30 M3 now, so you're automatically superior to all of us. :p

[UNHCLL]

huh? where did that come from?

oh I forgot, you have an E30 M3 now, so you're automatically superior to all of us. :p

:roll:

You must have missed the parenthetical line at the end of my post...

That's been a standing joke for how long now? Even you used to make cracks about it...

There are guys on this forum with way more money into their cars than I have into mine. I'm no elitist... I just know what I like and what I think. Get over yourself and your iX ego.

-East Coast Chris