Megasquirt and Megashift shopping list

[MogLite]

I’ve tried to pick Nigel’s brains for a project of mine – he suggest I post up here first – so here goes.

Firstly a disclaimer – this isn’t a Land Rover, or even a 4x4 project, but I’ve spent plenty of time on here in the past with a Camel Discovery, an Ibex and a weird home brew rock-crawler – Moglite. So I’ve earned my stripes here, but this will be an engine for a Hot Rod.

I’ve got a Lexus V8 - 1UZ-FE engine and gearbox and I want to Megasquirt it.

The engine currently has a dodgy factory ECU, and down the line I want/need/wish to add NOS or a supercharger, so Megasquirt will be the way forward.

I’m trying at this stage to make sure I buy the right stuff

Things I know are limited to:

• There is already a crank position sender – albeit 12 tooth
• The Lexus MAF is huge, ugly and restrictive, I would like to ditch this and run a MAP sensor
• The Lexus runs twin distributors, and it is very tidy install, I want to keep this, and don’t want to run coil-packs
• There is also an ECU for the auto trans. I want to retain the Lexus auto trans, so I’m looking at the GPIO stuff to drive the autobox !!!
• There are maps and wiring diagrams available for this engine so I won’t be breaking new ground

The engine is still in an old LS400 which is road legal until September, so I want to Megasquirt the engine, test drive, and know it is good, and then I can pull it out and put it to one side, knowing it is all good.

So I’m looking at buying

• A fully built MS2
• A built relay board
• A DB37 cable to link them together
• MAP sensor
• Air temperature sensor

Where it gets very sketchy for me is the GPIO control for the gearbox.

Is the GPIO built into the MS2 – or do I still need to buy it – if so where from ?

I think I need an MS2 – over a MS1 as the MS2 will cope with the 12 tooth wheel Lexus has kindly installed.

Also I think only MS2 has the GPIO functionality

Am I on the right tracks ?

Can anbody chime in before I spend a bunch of money on electronics I have little understanding of ;-)

All the best

Andy

[FridgeFreezer]

Bloody hell, long time no see! And then you pop up with an intriguing project too.

Let me have a dig in my shed for MS2 bits, I might be able to help you.

I believe MegaShift / the GPIO board are separate units to the Megasquirt, possibly using the CANbus capability of the MS2 to communicate, beyond that I'm a bit out of the loop with developments.

[MogLite]

I do like to do intrigue

There is another plan that I'd forgotten about - and that is to manual shift the box

Seems there are two solenoids for shift pattern and one for lock-up, and wiring those up, may be a bit beyond me, but is probably easier than the GPIO option.

I'd be happy shifting through the gears on steering wheel buttons or something similar.

As far as I understand it - the original shifter stays for control of Park, reverse, drive and neutral.

So I think that means I can stick with the tried and trusted MS1

MS1 I don't believe will support my 12 tooth crank wheel, but I'm not sure, if it doesn't adding a 36 tooth one won't be too tricky.

Andy

[TheRecklessEngineer]

I suppose there wouldn't be anything stopping you from creating a small device in place of the gearbox ECU, connected to MS via serial/CAN bus/whatever to read the appropriate data.

Could be an interesting project for someone who develops embedded systems...

[Cheesy]

You will have to find out where the coil ignitors are in the stock system, either in the coils, separate or in the ECU. Assuming there are two coils you will need to build an additional ignition output circuit, and if the stock system had ignitors in the ECU you will need to find separate ignitors or BIP373s etc. Also do these engines have a crank trigger as well?

There should be a heap of info on these engines in the MSextra forums

[Bowie69]

Igniters are on the wings, separate units.

You can buy off the shelf a 36 triggerwheel that fits in place of the old one, and then you can use the existing 've sensor.

You can do it with the stock crank sensor and the cam sensors as well, but a bit more complex than a 36 tooth wheel.

GPIO is perfectly suited to the box with megashift, but you could do as you say and manually control it, especially if you have the older box with cable-regulated pressure rather than solenoid.

[Bowie69]

Iirc the triggerwheel needs to be 100mm, bu basically the same size as what is in there. Cut the middle out of both wheels and weld the new outer to the old inner and refit.

[elbekko]

I don't think it's as easy as just controlling the solenoids on/off, IIRC they need PWM modulation to not jerk the car around too much.

Have a search on Google for the guy that built his own controller for a ZF5 in his BMW.

[Bowie69]

PWM is only needed for boxes with the oil pressure solenoid, with this set to 'on' (i.e. 12V) yes it woudl jerk around a fair bit, but some have done it this way even so.... with a cable operated box there are no PWM requirements.

I got a fair way to designing this, got the engine squirted on MS'nEDIS, but never tried the auto box.

[MogLite]

I'm too old for messing about with electronics - but I did find a neat albeit spendy solution that dispenses with the very Japanese shifter, and puts microswitches into the shifter for control of the solenoids.

http://radesignsproducts.com/Winters_Shifter_Kits.php

I like that - better get saving up - better get a new job

So I'm not thinking - do I go MS1 and change my trigger wheel to a 36:1

Or go MS2 and program it for the factory 12 tooth and cam sensor ?

Is it gin and tonic time ?

Andy

[Bowie69]

36,and EDIS, it is basically the same setup as all of niges stuff then.

[FridgeFreezer]

So is it really as simple as needing 3 switched lines that change in a certain combo to engage/disengage solenoids?

If Americans can manage it with 3 microswitches and a couple of brackets it must be more than doable. Probably with lego. Or a 3D printed cam. Or, being very fancy indeed, a small microcontroller and 10 lines of code. Although lego would be proper boss.

Do you have the info on what needs to be switched & in what pattern? Just a table of selected gear Vs switch pattern would be fine.

Engine-wise, MS1 can read various trigger wheels, if you're sticking with the stock dizzy a V3 board running MS1-Extra will have a SINGLE coil driver in it. Who was it on here that had a Megasquirted 1UZ-FE?

[Bowie69]

Me

I MS'n'EDIS'd it though, hence I know about the triggerwheel fitting above.

And yes, the GPIO can do the box quite happily, it just involves a lot more tuning, as it is a road-going vehicle it is probably worth it TBH, to have that fully automatic 'Drive' mode. You need a road speed sensor, which is already fitted to the box as it happens....

Shift pattern is:

Changing gear is pretty easy, solenoid pattern is:

Gear

Solenoid 1

Solenoid 2

1

On

Off

2

On

On

3

Off

On

4

Off

Off

It's actually the same as the very commonly Megashifted GM boxes.

Then a third solenoid is lockup, I think, I found this last bit in an old email of mine, think it is correct

*edit* well that table didn't work, but you can still read it I think?

Also need a temperature sender.

This is a good start page: http://www.msgpio.com/manuals/mshift/newtrans.html

[Bowie69]

Oh, and an old post of mine: http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=68222

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Just to add

Great to see you back Andy Moglite

Nice project too, looking forward to this build thread

N

[landroversforever]

Almost off topic, but what's the hotrod based on?

[Bowie69]

Pretty sure it is this one:

[MogLite]

Almost off topic, but what's the hotrod based on?

Lots of good info - I need to sit down in a darkened room to contemplate most of it :-)

As for the hot-rod part. It will be a Scimitar chassis.

They've got decent suspension/steering/axle and are cheap.

If I avoid cutting the chassis at all - I can avoid BIVA/SVA/HIV whatever it is called now, and the later SE6 chassis give a good wheelbase to work with.

Body....will be a way off, current favourite is a GRP Model A pickup

I'm off to fire up the new welder

[FridgeFreezer]

Far too shiny, I vote rat-rod all the way!

Looks like Bowie has done all the work for you. I hate to suggest it but you could, if push came to shove, control that box from an Ardunio. Although practically anything else would be better - the micropython board would be stupidly easy to sling in there, an MSP430 or STM32 Discovery board would also do the job with a bit more programming.

[Bowie69]

And the GPIO board with Megashift will also do it quite simply too

[MogLite]

And the GPIO board with Megashift will also do it quite simply too

Did you actually do the Megashift on the Toyota box ?

If so - I'll deffo follow your lead :-)

A bit of tuning wouldn't worry me, but having a basic file to start from would be a great help.

Andy

[Bowie69]

Never got to actually doing it, but had it well planned. As above, the shifting etc is the same as the popular GM (4l80 or something?) boxes, so you can take some lead from that.

If you have a good hunt for megashift on youtube and also on some BMW forums you should find the other info I had, including on how to Megashift a ZF HP24....

If you have questions do fire them at the thread, or start another, happy to help, would be interesting for me as well to see it come to fruition

[Bowie69]

Oh, A340 is the box number you want to be searching for.... Volvo, Jeep, Toyota used it to name some

[Bowie69]

Oh, and with a bit of thought, for off roaders, you can lock up the TC when in low first for awesome engine braking

And paddle shifters...

http://brickspeed.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=952

[Bowie69]

Another thread of mine I found: http://www.devon4x4.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&catid=16&id=89391&Itemid=106&view=topic&limitstart=140