Everytime I've tuned a megasquirt I regretted it
constant supply of problems from them. Not saying they don't work, just that in the hands of mortal men the MS ecu has too many ways you can screw up without realizing it.
For example gold-box plug and play, my friend installed one and when he hits the switch for his gauges all the tps/map sensor voltages of the MS ecu start jumping around like crazy.
Impossible to tune now and needs ten hours of re-wiring and diagnosis for months now to trace this problem with MS's "best pnp box". Now it won't even connect to the laptop anymore. the ECU might be corrupted.
links:
http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=122&t=69207
:
http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=131&t=69215
Sure if I had installed it, it probably would have been fine because I am aware of cross talk and EMI interference. But regular people? Just tend to put wires wherever and this is what you get.
Next a friend installed MS ecu on 2JZ and could never get a crank signal. Spent months coming back to the car and never got it to work properly. turning internal resistor pots etc... Had to open the ECU several times and finally gave up on that one because the wiring was just not good enough. Once again wiring issues (Not the MS fault, just mortal man) the wiring output on MS2 style was very archaic and easy to screw up.
link:
http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=131&t=68080
Next MS ecu on a VW Jetta, I think 2.5L, I spent a loooong time generating a pinout and turning resistor pots and doing firmware. Finally got it fired up and running, timed it, but it still ran weird as hell and didn't sound strong. I could tell the ECU needed "fine tuning" of its sensitivity to the cam/crank triggers because it would hit and miss and drop signal at certain times, it had specific rpms of "interference" where the software tried to bandaid with "noise suppression algorithms" that never worked right. The combo of the engine may have also kinda sucked and all together the owner gave up on it after driving and tuning for a couple hours. moved on to a different platform...
link:
http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=101&t=63168
Never had this kind of shit with other stand-alones. never spend 30-50 hours wiring, diagnosing, taking ECU covers off, updating firmware, making posts on the MS forums asking for help... and getting no where.
The MS people and owner/mods are very very helpful. This isn't an "MS SUCKS" post, its just my perspective as a potential tuner for other people's vehicles that have decided to use MS ECU and its been far more difficult and troublesome and getting-nowhere-fast than any other computer I've ever seen.
in comparison:
This last Sat. I tuned a PnP Haltech ECU for 2.0L Nissan. From 1pm to 8pm I took the owner through every single setting and not only taught him how to use it (to some minor ability) I saw the car, compression test, pressure test, timing test, and completely tuned it from top to bottom in that one single day without any issues. And that was only my 2nd PnP Haltech this year (I don't see many of those on 2.0L engines)
As an owner/tuner I think the MS ecu is GREAT. Extremely customization is my middle name and I could have one whipped into shape within a short time in my own car, I am sure of that. The mistakes that keep happening are unrelated to the ECU/design per its FUNCTIONS (it functions exactly as it should), instead they mistakes are much more related to it's installation, error handling, software programming, sensitivity scale, and above all else requires that the owner be aware of every little functional detail in order to use it successfully (which is fine if its YOUR CAR). To put this another way, I think its great if you plan to tune the car yourself, handle everything yourself, because you WILL LEARN how to deal with these issues and how complex an ECU really is. It just isn't great when you approach a random car with a bunch of small wiring and installation mistakes, with everything the owner already "buttoned up" so you can't even inspect the wiring, and asks you to tune something that won't give a clean TPS or Crank signal. They don't want to hear "we need to take everything back out and re-do it" or the price attached to that service. IMO Deal with the MS ecu yourself and only yourself and put 100% effort into it and it will be fine. There is no other way though, don't expect somebody to come magic away the problems with a laptop.
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