megasquirt questions for 10:1 motor

[paduster]

so i am planning on building a 10:1 motor and have bought all the parts needed for the rebuild. now i was planning on just doing it on the motor of my lebabon but even after a 20w50 oil change it still has 1 to maybe 2 psi of pressure at idle and up to temps. and sometimes even 0. but now looking to buy a core motor and rebuild it and run this motor till it dies or i have it all together with megasquirt.

now i want to get this info together to get a specific parts list needed for the megasquirt and motor.

1. i want to run distributorless ignition so what kind do i use and what all is needed for it to work.

2. what can i use to block off the hole for the distributor cause this motor will be painted and thinking i might have to have something made so it looks good

3. any other things that might be brought up along the way

4. now just encase this motor i am running now dies before i get done with everything will it be ok on the stock computer

[Sundance 6g72]

will what be okay on the stock computer? the 10:1 motor? YES. i drove a 10:1 motor with our 5spd ecu and it felt great.

it will be hard to kill the new engine without turbocharging it or doing something else radical.


what ignition would you like to run? The easiest would be wasted spark. you need the following

- megasquirt set up with 3 coil drivers (DIY autotune can do this for you)
- wasted spark coil setup (3 coils, each driving 2cylinders
- crank sensor. I think a VR sensor would work best. 87turbodance will chime in on the crank sensor info im sure
- toothed wheel on the crank pully (i dont know much about this, others will chime in. i know ed just got his car going on this setup or something similar)

to block off the dizzy, i think you could just get a plate bolted down to the top of it or maybe one of the later model sohc 6g72 cars had no distrubtor and had a plug in place of it? something is telling me that is the case for one of the models.

[paduster]

will what be okay on the stock computer? the 10:1 motor? YES. i drove a 10:1 motor with our 5spd ecu and it felt great.

it will be hard to kill the new engine without turbocharging it or doing something else radical.


what ignition would you like to run? The easiest would be wasted spark. you need the following

- megasquirt set up with 3 coil drivers (DIY autotune can do this for you)
- wasted spark coil setup (3 coils, each driving 2cylinders
- crank sensor. I think a VR sensor would work best. 87turbodance will chime in on the crank sensor info im sure
- toothed wheel on the crank pully (i dont know much about this, others will chime in. i know ed just got his car going on this setup or something similar)

to block off the dizzy, i think you could just get a plate bolted down to the top of it or maybe one of the later model sohc 6g72 cars had no distrubtor and had a plug in place of it? something is telling me that is the case for one of the models.

yes the 10:1 motor and yes would like to run wasted spark this motor has a bad miss at 3000 and i belive it isin the distributor

[Sundance 6g72]

i suspect my dizzy of doing funny things from time to time as well.

when you order your MS. just tell diy you want to run wasted spark on a v6 and would like 3 coil drivers. You also want to run a VR sensor (or hall effect, 87turbodance convinced me to run a VR on the setup im putting in a different car)

thats about it as far as specific mods that have to be done to an MSII to run that ignition.

Im assuming you want to know if the stock ecu will be nice to the 10:1 motor because you want to break it in easily? it second this idea. You want to always avoid tuning an engine for the frist time before its even broken in. that takes lots of smarts. try and get the ms installed before yuo pull your current motor and get it tuned or keep the stock ecu in until the 10:1 motor is broken in. the longer it idles for the frist run, the harder it will be to get those rings to seet.

[paduster]

well i am most likely going to break the 10:1 motor in on the stock computer then install the megasquirt after the breakin at least. but i want it ready for the wasted spark too so i want the toothed wheel installed and ready to switch over. i would try and run megasquirt first but this motor is funny and has some weird power loss issues that i cannot track down but thinking of doing a leakdown test this weekend if i have time after trying to put new top on.

[Sundance 6g72]

your first sentense confused me. sounds like you should deff keep the stock ecu in the car until the motor is broken in on its first drive. the way i did mine (might not be the best way) was i idled it for like 3-5min and then turned it off. changed oil and filter. started it and idled it down the road until it was pretty warm and then gave it some good boosted pulls right off the bat. seated the rings good. after you do some good pulls, change the oil and then drive the car but not as hard as the frist time and put on maybe a 100 miles or so before you run the MS.

you can install the crank trigger wheel whenever you want. I cant go into detail on that part though because ive never done it.

[Shadow24]

Here's a couple quick questions:

What have you budgeted for MS? (this will partially drive which version to get)

What functionality is ESSENTIAL for your setup? (CoP, sequential injection, etc)

Are there any other functions you want? (launch control, knock-sensing etc)

What is the intended use of the motor? DD + the odd road romp, Autocorss/roadrace, Drag race?

Max RPM and desired power level? Boosted or N/A?





Ignition-wise, there are a few ways to go for Wasted spark, one is to use the 3.57 board with MS-II or MS-III/MSX and add extra drivers with the MS-Extra code. the other one (and probably less expensive one) is to go with an EDIS module. no need to have 3 ignition drivers in the MS with EDIS, its all done in the module. you don't have to use the Ford single coilpack either, i'm running GM DIS coils on the ford EDIS module

I second getting the motor broken in with the stock computer before adding the MS. I personally subscribe to the "drive it like you stole it" breakin method (with the usual first few oil changes). Whichever way you go, just be aware that startinga tune from scratch will take a good bit of time, tweaking and the like before its driveable, and then a good bit more time until you have a good tune in place.

[paduster]

Eventually boosted 10:1 motor but till I have everything just the 10:1 as far as motor would love launch control and wasted spark or fords Edis. I plan on building the megasquirt myself to keep cost down and I am sure I can do it. So I was just thinking of msII with either and I would just want to know what all to order first as after the core motor gets bought I want ms right after so I have a budget of 200 a week so till I have the money for it i will buy it

[RoadWarrior222]

oil pressure senders are known to crap out frequently, don't go trashing your motor until you've tried a new one of those... 3.0s are really hard to kill usually... apart from with prolonged willfull neglect, or high boost and lean fuelling.

RW222's recommended 3.0 fill is 10W30 High Mileage Pennzoil or Castrol, for excellent seal conditioning, smoke elimination, leak reduction, cleaning/desludging and good gas mileage (And probably 5HP more than 20W50)

[paduster]

oil pressure senders are known to crap out frequently, don't go trashing your motor until you've tried a new one of those... 3.0s are really hard to kill usually... apart from with prolonged willfull neglect, or high boost and lean fuelling.

RW222's recommended 3.0 fill is 10W30 High Mileage Pennzoil or Castrol, for excellent seal conditioning, smoke elimination, leak reduction, cleaning/desludging and good gas mileage (And probably 5HP more than 20W50)

well I put a gauge on it and that is what it is reading that's why I am reffering to it as just rebuilding a core motor ana the 20w50 helped just not totally that's y I say I will run of as long as I can knowing it will most likely last till the new motor is built and same with the ms

[RoadWarrior222]

Okey doke, if that's what a mechanical gauge reads, I guess it does have issues. Might actually be better off with the thicker oil too, which isn't normally the case.

[Shadow24]

A few additional comments:

with a 10-1 motor...get some knock sensing going. Either follow the megamanual and use a GM sensor/conditioner or get the knocksenseMS box here: http://www.viatrack.ca/ . I also would HIGHLY recommend some kind of intercooling with a 10-1 motor to try and stave off pinging/detonation.

I would recommend using a relay board as well (inside the car) to help protect the MS from power spikes and for ease of install. Same with DIY's labeled wiring bundle...better than a mess of single-colored wiring spaghetti...

Don't forget a Wideband o2 sensor as well...

[RoadWarrior222]

meh, 1337 shadetree ninjas wire electronicals in black




... which is only as difficult to troubleshoot as my factory harness now everything has faded to sorta dirty brownish with a sorta dirty pinkish trace.

[paduster]

By the way e85 is close enough to run for me too. I was looking at maybe ms3 and saw on there Facebook they just anounced that they got a new much better knock sensor board or something. But I still think I am going ms2 first then upgrade later

[Sundance 6g72]

i read the same thing on diy's facebook. what pistons do you have? replacement or oem 10:1 from a used motor?

brent pushed his 10:1 motor hard with e85. i support e85 completly.

[paduster]

Oem 10:1 from a dianamte or however its spelled

The ones on my Facebook pics.

[Sundance 6g72]

okay. just wanted to make sure they were "proven" pistons. i dont like the idea of running a replacement piston with lots of power. know one knows when they will give. honestly though, i think e85 is the only choice for any type of high compression motor WITH boost

[c2xejk]

On the ignition setup. I am running a hall-effect sensor with a 36-1 trigger wheel.

I ended up with the generic hall-effect from DIY (the cheaper one.) They have tested it with their wheel up to some ridiculous RPM. I wouldn't go with a VR unless you really want to for some reason. Hall-effect sensors seem to be the default solution... To be able to rev to 7500 RPM I did have to enable some of the noise reduction algorithms.

On the trigger wheel, after spending a bunch of time trying to make something that I could adjust and unbolt, I finally just welded the trigger wheel to the crank pulley... It was WAY simpler than anything else I did and took me about 15 minutes to do.

Right now I am still using the distributor for spark (no engine position), I do plan on eventually going to wasted spark, but it is not high on my list right now. With the crank wheel, spark timing is ROCK solid. (with the stock distributor setup, it would wander a few degrees unless I removed the serpentine belt.)

I believe Bobby used a rubber core plug to block off his distributor hole....

[paduster]

All I want is something that will work first try I don't want to experiment with ms. Just want a proven setup and the hall effect sensor sounds like a good chioce. Now I am waiting to find a good core motor to rebuild.

[Sundance 6g72]

either sensor is proven. the cool thing about MS and these ignition setups is that it is not specific to just our engine so the information is everywhere.