Thanks that's all I wanted to know.

(I wish I could have taken the forced induction route back when I had the automatic but lost patience and bought the car a second time so that's that)

 

Anyone out there???

 

Still here. Just not much news right now. The ignition code is written. Just waiting on a trigger wheel and sensor so it can be bench tested. Might take a couple of weeks.

 

Thanks for the update RG. I have been out of town a bunch lately so havent been able to keep up with the board. Glad to hear about the ignition code being written.

 

Looks like a few projects I made @ ITT 5 years ago.

I am wasting too much of my free time, I should break out my o-scope and start dicking around some.

 

just wanted everyone to know that the MS project along with its creators are still alive and well. RG will be back in houston shortly and I hope we can finish the project before sevenstock.

Nothing like taking a metal box with wires sticking out of it to the airport for fun

 

Hello??? How goes it fellas?

 

Yeh, it's been a week since sevenstock what are you waiting for?

 

We had it with us out there but never had a chance to install it. The harness just needs to be plugged into a car so we can tune it. We "might" have a chance to work on it Sunday but don't know yet.

 

Okay you Renesis pioneers...

How about taking 5 minutes --- or 15 if RG does it --- to summarize where this multi month project is, might entail etc.?

I do not understand most of the technical details but do understand you are working on a way to take control over the combustion variables of the 8 and avoid annoying the intrusive OEM ECU. Is that a fair layman's summary? If it is, what will this device look like, cost and potentially deliver?

 

Look: like a rectangular box with a bunch of wires coming out of it. Cost: at a minimum the megasquirt PCB, more if you need a kit or assembly. Deliver: full control of fuel and ignition in a roll-your-own solution.

I don't want to speak for the guys who are actually doing this, but last I heard one of the megasquirt guys completed the code for the timing wheel and needed a sample to verify its correctness. RG has already run a Renesis on the megasquirt controling fuel, but not spark.

 

Man this sounds like another great alternative for this stupid blue box in my glove box right now. Let me know what the results of this MS application are on our 8s. I'd love to not have the factory computer 'correct' my personal tune

 

Cost for this realistically is about $300 for the ecu and parts and another $200 for the harness. Then you still have to build it and wire it all up yourself. It's definitely not a plug and play but more for the person who has the ability and wants to do it themselves. It isn't hard. It's just time consuming.

It will give you full control over fuel at the moment but ignition is very close. The code is just being tested right now. This will allow you to tune it around any mod that you have qhether it be for naturally aspirated use or any forced induction. It basically does what the Mazsport ecu does. Each has it's advantage and drawbacks. The Megasquirt ecu will work with the stock knock sensor and also has configurable ouputs for a shift light, nitrous control, boost control. These outputs can be used for other things if none of those are desired such as VDI and auxiliary port activation. Use your imagination. Since this ties into the stock harness in the same manner as the Mazsport ecu does, the stock ecu can not undo anything. This is a standalone. It is not a piggyback.

The maps are smaller than the Mazsport ecu at 12X12 as opposed to 16X16 or the FCON at 32X32. This is a disadvantage but at moderate boost levels it really doesn't matter. It isn't a product that we are ever going to offer for sale. All of the parts can already be purchased and assembled by anyone wanting to try. We are just going to be able to tell others how to integrate it in. There may be some things about it that people won't be as happy with but for thats what you get for the price. Obviously not everyone will want to build their own ecu and this is understandable. That's what the Mazsport and other alternatives are for. Nothing's free.

 

How is the ignition portion coming along, has anyone tuned an 8 yet?

 

Ken finally has the parts to test the code. He's been working more on getting the rotary code for the RX-7's transferred over to the MSII software. We haven't played with the ecu in the RX-8 in a few weeks. We talked about it today and want to at least try to get it running again this weekend sometime if time allows. We're slowly working on it. We only progressed really quickly at first because I already had the ecu, Alan already had the car, and all it needed to get working with fuel only was the assembly of the wiring. We haven't been in that much of a hurry because we are waiting on the ignition code. We can play with fuel only and will probably do that a bit but we aren't going to dyno it this way.

 

Finally had a chance to play around today with the fuel only aspect of it. The first thing to do was to figure out why it wouldn't start. That was the last issue we had. Once again we couldn't get it to start. I started checking lots of different things. One very important things I found that had to be corrected was the ecu defaults cranking rpms to 300 rpm and the car was only cranking at 200 rpms. Changed the setting to 100 just to be safe. Still wouldn't start. Weird. Decided to put my foot to the floor and crank it over. It works! The first time we ever had it started it was running with the tps as an input. If you put your foot on it at all with tps, it doesn't start. However we are not using the tps anymore. We are map based. This changes things. Now we have to open the throttle to help it get the vacuum signal it is looking for. That is probably actually just a setting I have to go correct but at least we know it works. No more second guessing on the harness. It's fine.

Played with maps a little bit without the help of a wideband. I had Alan rev it up a bit and hold it at certain rpms and I tuned fuel trim by sound and feel until I liked it. Then I told him to hold another rpm and repeat the process. Did this a few times until I could see a general trend. Then I went through and setup a full scale map based on general trends and guessing. The map is still not set up to cover higher than 6500 rpm right now. Tune it narrow and then widen it later. It's safer this way. Got a pretty good map this way. The first time we took it for a drive, it worked surprisingly good.

I have the fuel injector transition point set to 4000 rpm's right now. This spot is going to take some work in the maps as I have only 2 stage injection instead of how the factory runs it in 3 stage mode. I have alot more fuel coming online at 4000 rpm so I really need to lean it at this point and above on the map. In reality it isn't any leaner. It's just the way it looks on the map. The transition point is very rough right now. It will take some creative setup work in the map and with the trims to get it smooth. I have no doubt I can do it. Just how long will it take me to figure it out?

Finally got the Canscan hooked up to watch the wideband. I setup the car to run around 13:1 a/f ratio at idle and low loads. Up high I didn't even look at it yet. It was getting dark so we'll have to play with that later. It's too early for me to determine a trend as far as what a/f it likes the best. As I played with the idle settings, the factory ecu would alter the timing a little bit and mess up the a/f and how smooth it was idling. We really need to get the ignition code done and on so the car can't fight us with timing. It actually wasn't too bad but I know it's going to ultimately hold us back in terms of power output if we leave the factory ecu to control this aspect. Still alot of work to go but at least the first Megasquirt powered RX-8 has driven around on public roads for a while.

Will update more as we learn more. It's slow going at this point though.

 

Something else to ponder is how the ECU may fight back against our changes with timing, as you could see it changing the timing when we were messing with the afr at idle. The ECU fighting back is not a big deal, we will have timing control soon enough, this was really more proof of concept that we got the fuel side working. at some points, the advance was going to like 40+ which is pretty high.

I was quite impressed with the drivability our first time out. just squirting around town, it felt pretty stock, other than the 4000rpm point.

We will continue to work out the best ful map we can whilest we wait for the timing control to be finished.

 

Any new updates yet guys? Thanks for all the great info.

 

nothing as of yet, since we got it driving without issue, we are waiting for the ignition control software to be finished. RG needs to order some more parts to update his MS for ignition control. He has been hella busy lately, as have I. I plan to really tackle this more over the holidays with my vacation time. We could try to dial in the AFR's, but I'm worried any work we do will get blurred by the ECU messing with the timing. We will fix that soon enough.

 

Brillo, where did you get that harness from?

Thanks,

Fabrice

 

got it from Canzoomer, he made it for me.

 

I have a stupid question that I've been wondering about for awhile....

If I understand correctly the first set of secondary injectors are kicking it at ~4250rpm, because that is when the Primary injectors max out. So would it be possible to have the Stock ECU remain in control of the Primary injectors, then wire the two set's of secondaries independently on the Megasquirt.

Thanks for all your hard work on this too! I enjoy reading this and hope to eventually build my own MS

 

While it could theoretically be wired up that way, we would have constant issues with the stock ecu trying to compensate with our tuning by altering the primary injector duty cycles. You either let the stock ecu stay in complete control or you completely take over when it comes to fuel/ignition. You don't try to combine them. They don't work well together which is also why despite what a very few people claim, piggyback ecu's don't work all that well on this car either.

 

Since I spent several hours rewiring it so it wouldn't short out, I would suggest that anyone purchase the extension harness from Rotary Performance. It is around $200, all the wires are already labeled, and they are all finished very nicely. Pay the extra $75 and make it easy. Don't risk shorting out something on the car or the ecu.

 

good point, RG basically rebuilt the thing.

The Rotary Performance harness appears to be a nice piece, and since its all labled that in and of it self is worth the extra cash.