I'm starting this thread to hopefully bring together all the smart tuning people on the forum to help and critique my Megasquirt install. What makes my install a little unique is the application. This is for my FSP AutoX Build found HERE. It's a 2.0L FS motor/trans in a BG chassis. I will be keeping the stock BG wiring harness since it routes through the chassis properly. Kcbhiw built the MS board and a PnP harness for the BG wiring for me. I'll be pulling it out of the box and starting the install over the next few days. I'm sure I could use a little help with the initial tuning since some of the stuff is a little confusing.
The FrankenProtege Megasquirt Thread
- Thread starter xelderx
- Start date
Justin,
You may want to look at this Microtech thread as a place to start:
http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94716
Steve has posted up some Fuel and Timing maps (in Excel speadsheet format) for NA Protege's with Stock injectors. I think that will be a pretty good place to start.
Welcome to the world of engine tuning. It's basically a full-time hobby once you get it running halfway decent. And you thought suspension tuning was fun!
You may want to look at this Microtech thread as a place to start:
http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94716
Steve has posted up some Fuel and Timing maps (in Excel speadsheet format) for NA Protege's with Stock injectors. I think that will be a pretty good place to start.
Welcome to the world of engine tuning. It's basically a full-time hobby once you get it running halfway decent. And you thought suspension tuning was fun!
There was a small setback today. It was my first attempt to crank the car. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. I turned the ignition on and the MS lights came on as well as the fuel pump primed. I turned the car over and it didn't initially fire, probably due to the complete lack of fuel in the lines before this, so I backed off to keep from burning up the starter. I tried it again and got a stumble out of the engine as well as a good backfire from the exhaust. That was promising as it meant the injectors were working in some form. The is an issue with my setup that could cause the coils to be reversed so I switched the plugs on the coils and tried it again. This time I got nothing and also noticed that the fuel pump didn't prime. I started checking things and noticed that the MS wasn't turning on. I went to check the coils and they were extremely hot. I started checking power feed to the ECU and it's getting power. It seems something internal on the MS has fried itself. I'm not sure if the coils are still functional. This isn't very promising.
It's not possible to hook up stock ignition. The wiring harness is from a BG chassis which uses a single coil/distributer. The motor/coils are from the BJ chassis which is a coil on plug setup. The ECU is on it's way to be tested and see where the problem is. Kcbhiw talked me through a few voltage checks on the circuit board and everything appeared to check out OK, but the MS won't communicate with my laptop anymore or transmit any outputs to the car.
Ok...long overdue update. We were having major issues with my laptop not connecting to the ECU in the car. On the Stim everything worked fine, but nothing worked on the car. We found out by dumb luck that the jump box I was using to power the car was creating the problem. I finally installed the battery I'll be using and now everything is OK with that issue.
The next hurdle is with the coils. With the ignition turned on the coils begin to heat up. This shouldn't happen at 0 RPM. We are trying to figure out if it is a problem with the stock coils not having a built in ignitor or if it is something we can adjust in the ECU settings.
The next hurdle is with the coils. With the ignition turned on the coils begin to heat up. This shouldn't happen at 0 RPM. We are trying to figure out if it is a problem with the stock coils not having a built in ignitor or if it is something we can adjust in the ECU settings.
I finally got my car to fire today. The stock 3rd Gen Protege coils have built in ignitors. My main problem was in the Spark Settings table. I had the Spark Output Inverted set to YES...should have been NO. I then had to fidle with my TPS wiring. The MS was inverting my TPS values. The car still won't fire or run without a good amount of throttle input. It looks like I'm going to need to play with the IAC valve tomorrow and hopefully get her to idle properly. I was curious about cranking pulsewidths so I went down to the GM dealer and had one of my friends hook up a scan tool to a new truck so we could see the cranking pulsewidth. It was using upwards of 20m/s and I've only got my car setup between 3-12m/s depending on CLT. Kevin believes that my cranking and idle problem is in the IAC since the motor seems to need more air (per me opening the throttle)...not fuel.
Had a minor setback today. I couldn't get the car to idle no matter what adjustments I made on the throttle body or in the Megasquirt. I finally started looking at the realtime display in Megatune and noticed that battery voltage didn't look right. Having to start the car over and over again means that I've basically got a huge truck battery hooked up to a gigantic jumpbox. The battery wasn't in good shape to begin with, but it is basically just serving as a buffer and the jumpbox supplies the starting power. I was looking at my voltage and noticed that, even if I could keep the car running with some throttle input, the battery voltage never showed more than 10.5- 11 volts. Even at idle the alternator should be putting out at least 12 volts. I suspected that my Suzuki alternator wasn't working and the low voltage could be causing problems. I had the alternator tested before I installed it so I started to trace the wiring. The alternator only has 3 wires on it...the main charge wire, an output wire for the dash warning light, and a 12V supply wire to trigger the alternator's coil. I traced the 12V supply wire and found out that it just dead ended in the fuse box. It had no supply at all. I looked in the wiring diagrams and found out that it is supposed to jumper off the injector main fuse. I looked at the old wiring harness that I took out of the car because it was pretty hacked up and it had the 12V supply wired correctly. I bought the wiring harness that is in the car now used from someone and I'm wondering what car it actually came from. If the alternator circut isn't wired per the manual we based the MS wiring off of then what else isn't wired correctly. I'm going to fix the alternator issue, but if that doesn't solve the problem I may have to go on another hunt for a decent wiring harness that I know came out of the correct model Protege.
Project is back on track. I fixed the alternator problem and now the electrical system is solid. I will be installing a WB02 sensor on Monday and knocking out some basic tuning. I've been fighting the idle a little bit, but I've been trying to set the idle incorrectly. Hopefully I can dial that in and move on to some normal driving issues.
Why does fixing one issue always create another one. I had to change the injector opening time from 1.0 to 1.3 ms to get enough fuel at idle to bring the A/F ratio into the right area. After I hooked up the WBO2 I could see that I was idling extremely lean. Changing the values in the VE table didn't affect it. I upped the injector opening time and the idle immediately smoothed out and the A/F ratio went close to stoich. I could then make small changes in the VE table and it was working perfectly. After having the car idle for about 20 minutes while I adjusted the VE table and continued to lower the idle RPM the car abruptly shut off. I noticed that it was an ECU issue as even with the key left in the "On" position the ECU was dead. I cycled the power to the ECU several times and let it sit for a minute and eventually turned back on like normal. The car cranked right back up and everything seemed fine. Several minutes later it did it again. It appears I have a random reset issue with the ECU. It simply shuts down and then needs to sit a minute or two before it will power up again. I haven't tried just leaving power turned on to it without the car being cranked to see if that will couse a shutdown or if it only does it while the car is running. The only changes that were made to the settings were the injector opening time and the VE table/spark tables. Does anyone know if having a higher injector opening time could overload a circuit in the MS itself?
hmm, you giving me the goosebumps when i read about electrical issues you dealing with.
see if you're power going in the ECU isn't much larger then it should , plus i believe they have fail-safe mode where if the current rises to beyond the limit then the circuit with shut down to save the rest of ecu from getting ****** up.
Unless you have V2 board then i don't know if what i stated would hold true for the last issue you posted
see if you're power going in the ECU isn't much larger then it should , plus i believe they have fail-safe mode where if the current rises to beyond the limit then the circuit with shut down to save the rest of ecu from getting ****** up.
Unless you have V2 board then i don't know if what i stated would hold true for the last issue you posted
I've been watching the voltage readings in Megatune and it doesn't appear to have any spikes. With the car running it's steady around 13.4V. It might not have anything to do with the settings changes I made. This is the longest the MS has been left on continuously so it may just be something I haven't encountered yet. Other than that the setup is working nicely.
speedy gonzales
Member
- :
- Mazdaspeed proteg
MS 1 or MS 2 ,V2.2 ,V3 ,V3.57 which one you have.
get MS2 v3 , faster chip
I had the feeling that the you had voltage problem, unfortunately mine isn't up yet so i don't know which/where capacitor 16 is located.
Go to their forum and check the layout to check where the power comes from and check those that are in the way.
I had the feeling that the you had voltage problem, unfortunately mine isn't up yet so i don't know which/where capacitor 16 is located.
Go to their forum and check the layout to check where the power comes from and check those that are in the way.
