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** MegaSquirting a V8 - "Basics of How to" ... The A-Z Saga


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Hi John,

I am using megatune 2.25, I have the guage for front bank o2 sensor volts up which is where I am getting the readings from. When I was trying to get the lambda sensor to run before on the land rover sensors it started off at 0 volts. It is possible that it is a configuration glitch as nige reflashed the ecu when he tested and tried with his map on before puting the original 4.6 map back on. This is the first time since then that I have put up the o2 volts display, I cannot remember having the option before of being able to have front and rear but it was a long time ago so that could be my memory. I open up megatune in ms extra 029V as my project landy one became corrupt, well over a year ago and wouldn't open up and display anything.

Glenn

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Glenn

I remember this from the past

Then as now I say you are over complicating something, I tested the ECU by DRIVING it on my truck (albeit with my MSQ Added) and it was fine. I then reloaded a KNON GOOD MSQ that has run dozens of wengines from 1st turn of the key - So, on that basis something is actallu WRONG with your set up

I would suggest you assume nothing, but start at the simple things.

What now is exactly the issue ?

What do the symptoms feel and sound like ?

EXACTLY what have you done to the wiring ?

P2.25 MT - but which version ?

Take the D37 plug off. List up where each wire is connected to 1 though to 37

Where are the earths which earths go to the ECU and which to engine and chassis etc etc ect

Is this a existing loom converted or a new loom from scrath

HOW did you go about making the changes

EXACTLY what VR / COILS / PLUG LEADS / PLUGS / wiring / earths / fuel pump / etc etc have you used

Forget saying "I have chjecked X and is fine" as something is not fine, so assume EVERYTHING apart form the ECU is faulty

Breathe in, and then post up EXACTLY what you did when you fitted MS from start to finisg.

Forget detailed anaylsis / .000002 v reading and "I have recalibrated Y and Z" just spew out the bais facts of you fitting

and if ness take advise from those here and maybe fit new items that you may well (poss correctly) belive to be sound

and see. Frankly I have worked on some true horrors of MS and it is amazing how forgiving it is,

AGAIN _ there is some basic you have overlooked / got wrong - irrelevnt how many times you have checked - its nigh on impossible to find your own faults - I know - been there done that =assume NOTHING other than ECU is OK and list as much as you can

Nige

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Hi All,

I am after some more help/advice on my landy, I did get it to run last Feb and did spend sometime in March trying to get the warmup cycle better each time I ran it but just didn't find time to get the lambda sensor welded in the exhaust, and couldn't use it as it was all over the place with the fueling.

I am now needing to use it, the fuel comsumption is savage and I don't like the way it runs, it sounds too far advanced sometimes and too far retarded at others.

This last weekend I have got the lambda in and wired up, first thing I thought was odd was megatune was showing 0.27 Volts this didn't change with the engine running but flickered between 0.25-0.27volts, so disconnected the lambda sensor and same reading, disconnected the wire input into the db37plug and still the same, the ego for the rear bank is reading 0 volts which is what I was expecting to see for the front bank, anyone got any ideas why I could have this and what to do/try?

Many thanks

Glenn

How have you got the lambda wired up? Black is not the earth.

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Hi bobtail84,

Thank you for your suggestion and I agree black not being earth has confuesed a number of people in the past in the thread, however without the input signal wire from the lambda sensor connected to the DB37 plug and lambda not plugged in I have a residual voltage on the guage "front bank o2 volts" on megatune, so I dont believe it cannot be the lambda sensor itself or the wiring to it as it is not plugged in.

Thank you Nige for your input, I will write up exactly what I have done so far and how, but this is going to take more than a couple of mins as I have now been trying to get the landy to work on megasquirt for nearly 2 years so when I have done that I will post again.

Glenn

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You don't need a lambda to have the engine fine.- its a "Nice to have"

but many Megasquirt V8s and never ever have or have had a lambda on it

If its not running smoothly, and your using the MSQ I gave you and

your ECU ran fine on my V8 - then its something basic that is wrong

Post up, lets get this sorted :)

Nige

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Here goes from the start, I have a Land Rover 110 with a 4.6 V8 Serpentine with a ZF Auto. When I first put the v8 in after rebuilding ,I set it up with a 4 Barrel Edelbrock/Webber carb. It ran very well, but it only did 10mpg was docile unless you floored it, fuel injection would make it sharper, cleaner and more economical, that was the theory and motivation.

After reading the A-Z Megasquirting saga guide and doing some research I started making a pile of parts to convert the landy. I also had a friend that was thinking of converting there 90 v8 to megasquirt so we set about doing mine. He works in the automotive electronics industry so with his electronic skills and me with my practical mechanical skills and all the help offered on the forum then we should have it cracked! Once mine was up and running, then we would do his. (He hasn’t converted his to Megasquirt!)

I had a 3.9 V8 plenum/injectors and wiring loom from a range rover circa 1991 with lambda sensor input. I sourced the bosch pwm valve, coil packs I had from a couple of engine swaps on zetecs (later style). I had a number of alfa twin spark vr sensors made by bosch so used one of those (in 10 years never had one fail).

I emailed John and said what ecu I wanted, and wanted switching for dual tables to run lpg injection, fan switching and tacho output. After a month no response and by this stage I had removed the inlet and carb off the landy. Spoke to www.diyefi.co.uk they built me an ecu to spec but recommended to go direct coil drive as that was the way forward and no one now was messing about with Edis. Having a quick look round most of the other ms forums and sellers were also pushing direct coil drivers.

Odered ecu, it arrived and looked good, spent a day cutting out the stuff not required on the 3.9 loom and rewired to the DB37 plug, plus a 15pin plug that controlled the coil packs direct.

Bolted 3.9 plenum/injection to the 4.6, added the coil packs, built a vr sensor bracket and used the transit toothed wheel on the crank pulley.

Got a map off Nige but wouldn’t go onto the ecu without an error, found that the ecu had the latest version of the firmware on. John sent me a copy of the tried and tested which I put on and then Niges map. Did easy therm calcs for sensors and then we were ready for starting.

It coughed spluttered and didn’t run for more than a few seconds, you could get it to run it you held the throttle part open. After months of trying and going through everything couldn’t get it any better.

Stripped off the megasquirt loom and plugged on another 3.9 loom with a cux14 ecu. Turned key started instantly and cleared itself and ran beautifully.

Went back to megasquirt, fired up and ran for a few seconds then wouldn’t run at all. John and bbc sent me some different settings to try and it was better but wouldn’t run properly.

In desperation I then decided to take ½ the system out of the equation and to just run fuel and run the ignition with the distributor. Megasquirt is supposed to be able to do this, changed the settings to allow this and it ran a bit better than before but not right, sometimes it would start and run some times not, no logic but very frustrating. About this time I changed the sensors to the GM temp sensor and rover v8 water temp sensor. Changed the details on the ecu and no better.

After people yelling at me to ditch the coil direct drivers I then converted to Edis8. Everyone said you will plug it in and it will start, well it didn’t it was not a lot better than before. At this point I had long had enough, I had a vehicle that wasn’t usable and had cost a lot of money in materials and road tax and insurance so sit stationary no mind the time and effort. Nige kindly agreed to test the ecu, I sent off to him and he reflashed the firmware, and put his map on. His landy started and ran, quite good I believe. He then put on a known good map and sent to me. I bolted onto the landy. It started on all 8 cylinders and sounded sweat for 2-4 seconds then stopped. It did this for a little longer the second time before stopping. On the third attempt it started, ran, stumbled, then picked up and sounded not too bad. Result land rover finally running on megasquirt only warm up table to fine tune and tuning to do!

It still does this start and stop performance but is better when the weather is warmer. It also starts fine when warm. There is a trough when you squeeze the throttle open when the revs drop, engine stumbles then picks up and will then rev cleanly.

Earlier in the saga I did try to get some lambda sensor readings and later discovered I was using the wrong sensors, did start off with 0 volts rose to 0.5 volts then dropped off to 0 again when the engine was up to temp.

Now I have the residual volts and no changed when the sensor is plugged in and the engine gets warm.

I have had the complete engine loom off the land rover on more than one occasion and tested every pin from the db37 plug to the sensors and also for cross feed to every other sensor/plug etc. I am going to try and have another look at the land rover this weekend with my friend to see if we can see anything that we have over looked and again check and write down all the wiring.

Now I havn’t done any exact calculations but at the moment I estimate on my recent trips that 15litres of fuel will get you 30 miles at best and at no point have I been over 50 miles an hour so not been ragging it.

So now I have a land rover that starts and runs after 2-3 attempts, it sounds almost as though it is knocking when cold, if you touch the throttle it bogs and splutters before picking up sometimes with a cough and splutter in the exhaust, if allowed to idle for a 20-30 seconds then you can drive off if you are gentle with the throttle to savage and it will bog and cough splutter and bang. When warm it sounds ok, but still has the poor throttle response, with fuel consumption on a 5mile trip that you can see how much the fuel gauge has moved.

I don’t want to use my vehicle long term with out a lambda sensor working as I do not want holes in my pistons or moving liners, I want to be able to tune my land rover for the optimum that’s why I have gone for a stand alone fuel injection management and not just a it will do attitude. If I wanted a bucket to poor fuel into my engine I would and could have reverted back to the carb but unfortunately I have sold it along with the manifold.

Glenn

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Jeebus, that was quite a block of text, let's see if we can pick the bones out of it... :blink:

John sent me a copy of the tried and tested which I put on and then Niges map. Did easy therm calcs for sensors and then we were ready for starting.

If you've downloaded the 029v file that's linked on here (and probably what I sent) then you should not need to do easytherm on it, it should just go straight in. I'd try using it as-is rather than run easytherm on it.

File: msns-extra_029V_RV8.s19

In desperation I then decided to take ½ the system out of the equation and to just run fuel and run the ignition with the distributor. Megasquirt is supposed to be able to do this, changed the settings to allow this and it ran a bit better than before but not right, sometimes it would start and run some times not, no logic but very frustrating. About this time I changed the sensors to the GM temp sensor and rover v8 water temp sensor. Changed the details on the ecu and no better.

Just to be clear: You started with an ECU with coil drivers in, then tried it on the dizzy. What mods were done to revert the tach circuit? Did you check that it's not getting spurious TACH signals, as RV8's are very bad for this (the RPM jumps to ~20,000 intermittently due to interference) which is the origin of the "Dave" capacitor on the board (take a bow, TSD :P )

After people yelling at me to ditch the coil direct drivers I then converted to Edis8.

Again, can you detail the mods done / show a picture of the board?

Everyone said you will plug it in and it will start, well it didn’t it was not a lot better than before.

Which points to problems being elsewhere.

I don’t want to use my vehicle long term with out a lambda sensor working as I do not want holes in my pistons or moving liners, I want to be able to tune my land rover for the optimum that’s why I have gone for a stand alone fuel injection management and not just a it will do attitude.

There's clearly something not right with your setup - if you can post datalogs & MSQ file (or mail them to me and I'll post them) then we can help you get to the bottom of it.

In the meantime, I'm sure you've been over it anyway but it's worth revisiting the basics:

- All sensors earthed back to the ECU, then the ECU really well earthed.

- Check polarity of VR sensor (maybe try a Ford one too in case the Alfa one is a bit wide of what EDIS expects)

- Check that all sensor readings are within the realms of sanity and do what they should when they should

Lambda sensor wise, just to prove/disprove things try running a temporary harness to it (4 wires) and see what you get both using a multimeter and then connected to the ECU.

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Ok

Few Easy things in ADDITION to the most exellent ideas above

Get engine warm (somehow :P:lol:) and then post up a pic of the 8 guages on the Megatune for all to see

Something in my mind says "Rich" so I would suggest changing the MAT sensor for the corectone not needing easytherm

mods etc

and also a new Rover CTS Sensor (genuine please)

Also, go into the ecu and on WUE note all the number vs temps, and then set all values to 100% and then start

from cold, does it start any better as it will now have no extar fuel, if it is hugely rich for some reason

then it may still be choked enough to start

Lastly

Set you engine to TDC and describe eaxctly where the VR Sensor is in relation to the trigger wheel, picture diagram

etc you tell us rather than us tell you and you say yes, describe - lets be sure, that incs you removing the Rocker

cover to ensure 100% TDC and not 180 out, ie both valves should be close then read VR / TW and tell us whats where

With the popping banging and misfiring the plusg are most likley toast, but a few sets in NGK BPR6ES nothing else

Post up re all of the above so far from you post...We will sort this I am sure :)

Nige

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Here goes with some answers to the questions so far,

The 029v file is the one that Nige put on along with a know good msq file. The land Rover before this was already running the Rover V8 Coolant temp sensor and the correct air temp sensor, so these do not need changing and so no easytherm calcs need to be done.

The Vacum hose comes off the back of the plenum next to where the idle control valve used to be and then has a T piece, one going to the fuel reg and the other to the ECU.

The ECU was moded for EDIS as per emails and detailed instructions from I think diyautotune in the states, it has also run Niges Land Rover perfectly with this mod carried out.

The Tacho output, fan switching, and dual table switching are not connected as I was trying to get the basics right and then add on the more complicated bits after.

I can try running the lambda on the multimeter on Sunday as I am having a go on the Landy then.

I will also recheck the position of the vr sensor to the toothed wheel and check again that it isn't 180 degrees out, I have in the past marked all 4 spark positions A,B,C,D and checked with a timing gun they were firing at the correct postion. So I dont have to read through everything again how many degrees BTDC should it be firing at idle on No1?

I will also try changing the warmup enrichment table to 100% on sunday to see if it will start and run. I will then also post a screen shot of the megatune page so that everyone can see what it is doing and whether it looks right.

Glenn

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Try disconnecting the vacuum line from the fuel regulator. Leave the fuel reg to atmosphere and blank the vac line so that the ECU is the only thing on that line.

Not sure what effect having vacuum on the regulator will be having on your fuel pressure. Not a happy effect I don't believe

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Your going off on a tagent again :lol:

Put the engine to TDC (ensure rockers both closed on number 1 and then describe where the trigger wheel is in relation to the VR sensor and the Gap, forget timing lights.

correct air temp sensor,

and

So I dont have to read through everything again how many degrees BTDC should it be firing at idle on No1?

Why correct ? what part number is it / what is it from ?

Forget BTDC etc do the above, keep things simple one at a time and don't assume anything

been there done that :lol:

You do not need lamnda connect to run a smooth engine esp with the ECU and program you have in it

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Try disconnecting the vacuum line from the fuel regulator. Leave the fuel reg to atmosphere and blank the vac line so that the ECU is the only thing on that line.

Not sure what effect having vacuum on the regulator will be having on your fuel pressure. Not a happy effect I don't believe

Um, what? That's how it's designed to run, and unless there's something very wrong with your regulator it won't be affecting the vacuum the ECU sees. Unplugging it will just mean you're overfuelling at idle, unless you want to re-map the car with it disconnected and run like that ongoingly.

Glenn - 1st line, you previous post you said you ran easytherm on the S19, now you're saying it doesn't need it. What I'm saying is if you were using the .s19 we're all using then you needn't have run easytherm in the 1st place. Anyway, if it was happy on Nige's I think we can assume it's not the .s19 for now and concentrate on tracking down the fault elsewhere.

This is the cheat sheet for VR sensor & trigger wheel position:

Trigger_wheel_setup.jpg

how many degrees BTDC should it be firing at idle on No1?

Whatever your ignition map says it should be :P although setting a fixed timing value in MegaTune can help when trying to get everything set up:

spark_settings.png

Set it to something like -5 or 0 and then adjust the trim to get the timing mark on the pulley bang on, then set it to -10 to use the values in your spark map.

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Ive never run NA engines with a vac line on the pressure regulator. I was always of the belief that the vac line was for forced induction engines to compensate for boost pressure and stop it going lean. Mine is mapped without the vac line on and the fuelling is absolutely stable throughout

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Ive never run NA engines with a vac line on the pressure regulator.

You can run either way if you're tuning it to suit, but the factory evidently felt it was worth putting there and it does no harm having it there, all it's doing is evening out the fuel pressure relative to the manifold vacuum.

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When I first set up the land rover I was running bosch water temp and air temp from the alfa twin spark engines, have dozens of them on the shelf. I did the easy therm calcs and updated the s19 file. When I couldn't get it to run properly I then put in a Rover v8 water temp sensor and bought the air temp sensor that Nige gave me the part number for. After installing these I then put the S19 file in for these sensors. Then Nige tested ecu and put on the firmware 029v and the msq for the same sensors that I had been told to install, so I believe they are correct as I have put in exactly what I was told to, but I will dig out the box with the part numbers on later.

Tomorrow I will check the VR sensor and toothed arrangement and photograph so all can see.

I am not getting lots of resets or spikes of the ecu, like some posts I have read that have problems with the earths and sensors etc, I did 5 miles the otherday and as I pulled into the drive I got a reset which I think was the usb lead moving slightly as the laptop moved, I did the 5 miles the otherway without any.

Glenn

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I think it is right to question the vac on the fuel reg and what difference it would make as I hadn't considered it could be done either way, I assumed as the 3.9 had one it needed to be connected.

All suggestions are helpful as I can then try to rule out what is up and hopefully others will be able to read the information and avoid or correct there installs with the help and advice offered.

Glenn

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Glenn,

Right now the biggest help you can give is to post up a datalog, even a few seconds worth, or even just a screenshot of the main or realtime screens so we can see what your various sensor readings are. The fact the ECU ran Nige's truck means it must work, the only difference is what's connected to it and there are only a few things that really matter.

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