87turbodance
05-16-2011, 11:21 AM
MEGASQURT INSTALL GUIDE
As of this writing the only way to tune the fueling curve and spark curve on the 3.0 is with a standalone or a piggyback control such as a Greddy eManage. Some work is being done with the 3.0 SMEC controllers but there has been minimal progress that I’ve seen and tuning for boost seems unlikely.
First step to setting up MegaSquirt on your car is buying it. There three different boards available and there are three different processors available (at the time of this writing). All three of these processors can be used with any of the three boards but I recommend sticking with the MS2 or MS3 processor and the 3.0 or 3.57 boards. I do NOT recommend the MS1 processor or the 2.2 board; these are obsolete and not worth buying in my opinion.
If you are running an A604 automatic you will need to either run an aftermarket controller for it, such as the MS GPIO board that is currently being developed. I had some success running my ’89 604 with an ’89 TCM with my MS install. The ’89 TCM needs an rpm signal from the “low data rate” output on the stock distributor and needs a signal from the TPS sensor to work properly. For the rest of this guide I will assume that you do NOT have an A604 and are instead running an A670 3speed auto or an A543 5 speed manual.
I recommend installing a Wideband O2 sensor and Wideband Controller such as an Innovate LC-1 Digital Wideband Controller (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/innovate-lc1-digital-wideband-controller-wo-sensor-3744-p-42.html) or a SLC OEM: Sigma Lambda Controller OEM (http://14point7.com/SLC-OEM.php) if you're the adventurous type.
WHAT TO BUY
The cheapest basic setup (MS2/3.0 board) will run you about $266 + wire harness + shipping from DiyAutotune.com
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/ms230-k_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtii-engine-management-system-wpcb3-unassembled-kit-p-59.html)
The top of the line setup with all the bells and whistles will run you about $650 + wire harnesses + shipping for a fully assembled MS3/MS3x controller.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/ms3357-c_bl_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtiii-ems-system-with-ms3x-expansion-v357-assembled-p-435.html)
The basic things you need to order are:
1. The Megasquirt controller its self. Price starts at $266 and goes up from there.
2. The Megasquirt wire harness. You could make your own harness, but I don’t recommend it. DIY used automotive grade wire with excellent labels which makes installation much easier. A completed harness from Diy is $69 + shipping. I also recommend getting additional wire from Diy to populate pins 3-6 and 10-16 in their harness. These pins may be needed for adding addition inputs and outputs to MS. Alternatively, you could buy the RSAutosport harness for roughly the same price with all the pins populated, but, the RSAutosport harness availability is becoming questionable and I have had some problems with bad crimps on some of the wires.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/msharness12_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ms3-ready-p-43.html)
3. You may need to purchase some addition kits or components. You will need additional ignition drivers (BIP373) if you plan to drive more than one standard coil (3 coils for wasted spark). http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/mk-bip373_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/bosch-bip373-coil-driver-mod-kit-p-230.html)
If you wish to use coil near plug, GM LSx coils would be the easiest to use in my opinion. The GM LSx coils are logic level coils and do not require any additional coil drivers inside the MS case.
The stock 3.0 and 52mm 3.3 throttle bodies, as well as many other OEM throttle bodies, use a stepper idle control valve. The MS2 and MS3 processors have a stepper motor driver built in but some other throttle bodies (ie. Ford) use a PWM idle valve which would require purchasing a PWM idle valve control kit (not required with 3.57 board)
4. You will need a few resistors for creating different driver circuits and for setting up your tach input from the distributor optical sensor or crank sensor if you have one. These resistors are available from DiyAutotune in the pull-up kit for $2.00.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/mk-pullup_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/pcbv3-and-v22-pullup-resistors-39modkit39-p-137.html)
5. You need to decide what kind of ignition setup and trigger input you are going to use with Megasquirt. You can simply use the stock distributor and single coil ignition which allows for batch injector firing and distributor ignition or you can modify your crank pulley into a toothed wheel allowing for wasted spark ignition (MS2 or MS3) and sequential injection (MS3 with the addition of a cam sensor).
I recommend going through the process of adding teeth to your crank pulley because it is fairly simple with a protractor and a drill press and provides better crank position information to MS allowing for more accurate ignition timing as well as future proofing your setup if you wish to use a more advanced setup in the future. I simply bracket with angle metal can be used to mount a sensor to the front engine bracket that can read the teeth on the crank pulley.
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3830/sam0881l.jpg
You can control everything on your 12V 3.0 and completely remove you SMEC/SBEC with a basic V3.0 board and a MS2 processor. You will need to add an external voltage regulator to control your alternator (buy one for an ’84 2.2 Omni with pigtail) and you will need an aftermarket cruise control box to retain cruise control.
WHAT DO WITH ALL THE WIRES UNDER YOUR HOOD
First thing to do when installing Megasquirt is to do some pruning under the hood of your car. I recommend removing all of your fusible links and installing a Power Distribution box from a ’90-92? LeBaron. This cleans up the engine bay and puts all of your relays and under hood fuses in one convenient place.
1. Remove all the wiring associated with the A604 TCM if you had one.
2. Remove all the engine control wiring. You need to keep all the starting and charging circuits intact unless you plan on upgrading that wiring at the same time.
3. When removing all of the existing computer wiring, remember to keep all the connectors for the sensors, injectors, coil(s), ect with a short (12") pigtail on them - we will need these for the Megasquirt harness. Alternatively, you could purchase brand new Weather-Pak connectors from Ebay or Diy to make a brand new engine harness. If you are changing the type of injectors you’re going to run, remember to obtain the correct connectors with pig tails.
4. Make sure you leave all the wiring for your cars indicator lights and non computer related equipment intact. ie horn wiring, speedometer wiring, headlights, ect. Make sure to leave the cooling fan wiring intact or replace the wiring with new wires and connectors - we will need this. Also leave as much of the wiring that used to go through the firewall from the dash to the computer intact. We will need some of these wires for your tachometer, maybe speedometer, and ignition switch power.
5. After removing all this wiring you should only have a hand full of wires left under the hood of your car. At this point I recommend installing a Power Distribution box from a LeBaron / Daytona. These are available in the high optioned cars and cleans up all the under hood relays and wiring very well. These distribution boxes mount behind the battery with a nifty bracket. If you had the time you could even pull the complete harness out of a donor car with the bulkhead connectors and re-pin the harness to fit your stock bulkhead connector for a factory look. Try to get as much un-cut wiring as you can if you go this route.
If the above sounds like too much work is too daunting, MS can be installed using all the factory under hood wiring by simply removing the stock SMEC/SBEC/SBECII by cutting the 60 way connector off the under hood harness and splicing in the MS harness wires with the addition a single relay dedicated to providing power to MS right off the battery through a small inline fuse. This method works but may leave you chasing electrical gremlins for months due to unreliable 20 years old wiring and/or poor ground.
MOUNTING MEGASQUIRT AND RUNNING HARNESS
http://www.diyautotune.com/images/products/msharness12/msharness_pinout.gif (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ms3-ready-p-43.html)
I chose to mount my Megasquirt under my dash behind the glove box. There is a nice cavity on my Spirit that is just the right size for it. I screwed mine to the heater box with some self tapping screws.
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/8420/sam0845u.jpg
Alternatively, you may have room to mount MS in the passenger side kick panel. After determining where to mount Megasquirt you will need to run your harness to the engine compartment. I chose to re-use the hole where my auto shift cable went through the firewall. Whatever method you choose to use to get the wiring to the engine bay, ensure that you use a grommet to protect the wires and make sure there is a tight seal to keep noise, fumes and water out of your car.
Once the wires are under the hood you need to plan out your wire routing scheme. I ran all the power wires across to the driver’s side in what remains of the harness that runs along the top of the firewall. I ran the rest of the wires across to the engine and under the plenum. From under the plenum I ran each wire to its destination making sure to have a Megasquirt ground wire for each sensor including the crank position sensor. This makes a nice, neat, factory looking setup with no spaghetti.
It is very important that you run a sensor ground wire to each sensor location. If you look at the above picture you will see that 7-9 are ground wires and 17-19 are ground wires. Pins 7-9 should all be grounded to the same location on the engine block. Pins 17-19 are to be used for sensor grounds. For example, run pin 17 to the distributor pickup, run pin 18 wire to the coolant temperature sensors and run pin 19 to the TPS and IAT sensor. If your plenum is reversed you can tie the distributor sensor and the coolant sensor together instead. The point is to make sure that the ground for each sensor is connected to either pin 17, 18, or 19. This keeps noise out of the sensor signals.
You can get rid of your factory map sensor and bracket as we won’t be using it anymore.
As of this writing the only way to tune the fueling curve and spark curve on the 3.0 is with a standalone or a piggyback control such as a Greddy eManage. Some work is being done with the 3.0 SMEC controllers but there has been minimal progress that I’ve seen and tuning for boost seems unlikely.
First step to setting up MegaSquirt on your car is buying it. There three different boards available and there are three different processors available (at the time of this writing). All three of these processors can be used with any of the three boards but I recommend sticking with the MS2 or MS3 processor and the 3.0 or 3.57 boards. I do NOT recommend the MS1 processor or the 2.2 board; these are obsolete and not worth buying in my opinion.
If you are running an A604 automatic you will need to either run an aftermarket controller for it, such as the MS GPIO board that is currently being developed. I had some success running my ’89 604 with an ’89 TCM with my MS install. The ’89 TCM needs an rpm signal from the “low data rate” output on the stock distributor and needs a signal from the TPS sensor to work properly. For the rest of this guide I will assume that you do NOT have an A604 and are instead running an A670 3speed auto or an A543 5 speed manual.
I recommend installing a Wideband O2 sensor and Wideband Controller such as an Innovate LC-1 Digital Wideband Controller (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/innovate-lc1-digital-wideband-controller-wo-sensor-3744-p-42.html) or a SLC OEM: Sigma Lambda Controller OEM (http://14point7.com/SLC-OEM.php) if you're the adventurous type.
WHAT TO BUY
The cheapest basic setup (MS2/3.0 board) will run you about $266 + wire harness + shipping from DiyAutotune.com
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/ms230-k_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtii-engine-management-system-wpcb3-unassembled-kit-p-59.html)
The top of the line setup with all the bells and whistles will run you about $650 + wire harnesses + shipping for a fully assembled MS3/MS3x controller.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/ms3357-c_bl_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtiii-ems-system-with-ms3x-expansion-v357-assembled-p-435.html)
The basic things you need to order are:
1. The Megasquirt controller its self. Price starts at $266 and goes up from there.
2. The Megasquirt wire harness. You could make your own harness, but I don’t recommend it. DIY used automotive grade wire with excellent labels which makes installation much easier. A completed harness from Diy is $69 + shipping. I also recommend getting additional wire from Diy to populate pins 3-6 and 10-16 in their harness. These pins may be needed for adding addition inputs and outputs to MS. Alternatively, you could buy the RSAutosport harness for roughly the same price with all the pins populated, but, the RSAutosport harness availability is becoming questionable and I have had some problems with bad crimps on some of the wires.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/msharness12_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ms3-ready-p-43.html)
3. You may need to purchase some addition kits or components. You will need additional ignition drivers (BIP373) if you plan to drive more than one standard coil (3 coils for wasted spark). http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/mk-bip373_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/bosch-bip373-coil-driver-mod-kit-p-230.html)
If you wish to use coil near plug, GM LSx coils would be the easiest to use in my opinion. The GM LSx coils are logic level coils and do not require any additional coil drivers inside the MS case.
The stock 3.0 and 52mm 3.3 throttle bodies, as well as many other OEM throttle bodies, use a stepper idle control valve. The MS2 and MS3 processors have a stepper motor driver built in but some other throttle bodies (ie. Ford) use a PWM idle valve which would require purchasing a PWM idle valve control kit (not required with 3.57 board)
4. You will need a few resistors for creating different driver circuits and for setting up your tach input from the distributor optical sensor or crank sensor if you have one. These resistors are available from DiyAutotune in the pull-up kit for $2.00.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/images/products/mk-pullup_med.jpg (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/pcbv3-and-v22-pullup-resistors-39modkit39-p-137.html)
5. You need to decide what kind of ignition setup and trigger input you are going to use with Megasquirt. You can simply use the stock distributor and single coil ignition which allows for batch injector firing and distributor ignition or you can modify your crank pulley into a toothed wheel allowing for wasted spark ignition (MS2 or MS3) and sequential injection (MS3 with the addition of a cam sensor).
I recommend going through the process of adding teeth to your crank pulley because it is fairly simple with a protractor and a drill press and provides better crank position information to MS allowing for more accurate ignition timing as well as future proofing your setup if you wish to use a more advanced setup in the future. I simply bracket with angle metal can be used to mount a sensor to the front engine bracket that can read the teeth on the crank pulley.
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3830/sam0881l.jpg
You can control everything on your 12V 3.0 and completely remove you SMEC/SBEC with a basic V3.0 board and a MS2 processor. You will need to add an external voltage regulator to control your alternator (buy one for an ’84 2.2 Omni with pigtail) and you will need an aftermarket cruise control box to retain cruise control.
WHAT DO WITH ALL THE WIRES UNDER YOUR HOOD
First thing to do when installing Megasquirt is to do some pruning under the hood of your car. I recommend removing all of your fusible links and installing a Power Distribution box from a ’90-92? LeBaron. This cleans up the engine bay and puts all of your relays and under hood fuses in one convenient place.
1. Remove all the wiring associated with the A604 TCM if you had one.
2. Remove all the engine control wiring. You need to keep all the starting and charging circuits intact unless you plan on upgrading that wiring at the same time.
3. When removing all of the existing computer wiring, remember to keep all the connectors for the sensors, injectors, coil(s), ect with a short (12") pigtail on them - we will need these for the Megasquirt harness. Alternatively, you could purchase brand new Weather-Pak connectors from Ebay or Diy to make a brand new engine harness. If you are changing the type of injectors you’re going to run, remember to obtain the correct connectors with pig tails.
4. Make sure you leave all the wiring for your cars indicator lights and non computer related equipment intact. ie horn wiring, speedometer wiring, headlights, ect. Make sure to leave the cooling fan wiring intact or replace the wiring with new wires and connectors - we will need this. Also leave as much of the wiring that used to go through the firewall from the dash to the computer intact. We will need some of these wires for your tachometer, maybe speedometer, and ignition switch power.
5. After removing all this wiring you should only have a hand full of wires left under the hood of your car. At this point I recommend installing a Power Distribution box from a LeBaron / Daytona. These are available in the high optioned cars and cleans up all the under hood relays and wiring very well. These distribution boxes mount behind the battery with a nifty bracket. If you had the time you could even pull the complete harness out of a donor car with the bulkhead connectors and re-pin the harness to fit your stock bulkhead connector for a factory look. Try to get as much un-cut wiring as you can if you go this route.
If the above sounds like too much work is too daunting, MS can be installed using all the factory under hood wiring by simply removing the stock SMEC/SBEC/SBECII by cutting the 60 way connector off the under hood harness and splicing in the MS harness wires with the addition a single relay dedicated to providing power to MS right off the battery through a small inline fuse. This method works but may leave you chasing electrical gremlins for months due to unreliable 20 years old wiring and/or poor ground.
MOUNTING MEGASQUIRT AND RUNNING HARNESS
http://www.diyautotune.com/images/products/msharness12/msharness_pinout.gif (http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/1239-megasquirt-wiring-harness-ms1-ms2-ms3-ready-p-43.html)
I chose to mount my Megasquirt under my dash behind the glove box. There is a nice cavity on my Spirit that is just the right size for it. I screwed mine to the heater box with some self tapping screws.
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/8420/sam0845u.jpg
Alternatively, you may have room to mount MS in the passenger side kick panel. After determining where to mount Megasquirt you will need to run your harness to the engine compartment. I chose to re-use the hole where my auto shift cable went through the firewall. Whatever method you choose to use to get the wiring to the engine bay, ensure that you use a grommet to protect the wires and make sure there is a tight seal to keep noise, fumes and water out of your car.
Once the wires are under the hood you need to plan out your wire routing scheme. I ran all the power wires across to the driver’s side in what remains of the harness that runs along the top of the firewall. I ran the rest of the wires across to the engine and under the plenum. From under the plenum I ran each wire to its destination making sure to have a Megasquirt ground wire for each sensor including the crank position sensor. This makes a nice, neat, factory looking setup with no spaghetti.
It is very important that you run a sensor ground wire to each sensor location. If you look at the above picture you will see that 7-9 are ground wires and 17-19 are ground wires. Pins 7-9 should all be grounded to the same location on the engine block. Pins 17-19 are to be used for sensor grounds. For example, run pin 17 to the distributor pickup, run pin 18 wire to the coolant temperature sensors and run pin 19 to the TPS and IAT sensor. If your plenum is reversed you can tie the distributor sensor and the coolant sensor together instead. The point is to make sure that the ground for each sensor is connected to either pin 17, 18, or 19. This keeps noise out of the sensor signals.
You can get rid of your factory map sensor and bracket as we won’t be using it anymore.