We have spark! (MegaSquirt)

[ixtlann]

Non spark issue ms! Holy v6 batman! Just intime for ems pro guys engine to pop the ring lands. No rest for the wicked as they say. Can any one determine why these other ppl have crank trigger issues?

[Gimpster]

It's a common hit/miss thing it seems.

Some people need to use a pullup resistor on the SMT6's and the like too. I needed to put one on mine, but never got around to it (sold the SMT6). I'd end up with a bunch of random misfires from it jumping all around.

It's not a big deal or anything.... you just gotta play it by ear. I might have the same issues soon too, I havent revved it past 3-4k yet.

[Mrdosedriver717]

go rev that thing! I want to know if its workin for you!

[scooterman]

i also have spark yay. going on a 5sfte though.

YouTube - testing megasquirt w/ EDIS ignition

[Gimpster]

Woohoo More squirters...

Mrdosedriver717, I'll be revving here soon... spring is about come and my car is almost back together! I have a feeling I'll be adding a resistor or pot like you did though. I used to get goofy high-RPM datalogs from my old piggyback.

[singleslammer]

ooooo, sweet!

[Mrdosedriver717]

well that resistor didnt fix mine entirely. I am only revving about 6k right now. But due to a really bad glitch and serious detonation i now have a blown motor. BE CAREFUL!



on another note...you are running a 1mz correct? How are you (or have you even tried yet) running a 6 cop setup? I tried to put the 3 coils on the rear valve cover and its a no go as they dont line up to bolt down. Do you have different valve covers? or are you going to modify them to work? or did another toyota engine origionally come with a 6 cop?

[Gimpster]

Whoa, do tell more on the glitch. I'd like to avoid tearing apart my motor this season if possible. I'm sorry to hear your motor died though

From reading the msextra forums, I know theres a few other people out there running the stock toyota 36-2 crank trigger wheel out there. I wonder if the ems-pro has some major VR sensor drama or what? When I was idling the other day i turned on the tooth logger in MegaTunix and it looked great, just like your old screenshots.

My 1995 Avalon 1MZ came with the 6 cop. The rear valve cover has holes for them to bolt down to. They have to be the smaller style coil though, because the big one with the lug on it physically can't fit in that area (not to mention you'd have a live spark lug arcing everywhere).

I plan on running two of the 3 coil style igniters in batch fire. Right now I'm running the 3 style like you have running.

[Mrdosedriver717]

well with the potientometer on there it was still having problems. I took it out and drove it and under load at about 6k rpm it glitched again and caused the timing to drop out or something. When it came back it sparked way advanced and cause detonation and boom! Lots of blue smoke and now i have like 30psi in one of the cylinders and the rest are at like 120 or so. Should all be around 180-200

How does that work if you are running the 3 cop ingitor with a 6 cop setup? Just piggyback the wiring?

Running two 3 cop ignitors with the 6cop coils sounds like the best setup.

I plan on trying to put a differant vr sensor in there to clear up the glitch. I went to the parts store and found one from a 95 Dodge carivan that looks like it might just bolt right into the stock location. If that doenst work i am gonna pick up an aftermarket triggerwheel and sensor from electromotive or diyautotune.com and fab it up.

[MikeV]

Originally Posted by Mrdosedriver717

well with the potientometer on there it was still having problems. I took it out and drove it and under load at about 6k rpm it glitched again and caused the timing to drop out or something.

Ouch. That hurts.
But you're asking a lot of the MS' non-adaptive VR circuitry to reliably discern VR signals from 300-6K+ rpm.
Basically, at the MS you're seeing

• the generated VR signal, that increases in frequency with rpm increases, PLUS
• EMI, which may also increase as RPM increases (especially if it's coming from spark plug wires), PLUS
• Crosstalk from the other VR sensor(s), which may also increase with RPM

In a non-adaptive system, if you've got it set with enough sensitivity to synch at cranking speed, at some point (dependent on noise, crosstalk, etc) it's going to be overloaded and will never be able to reliably sense zero-crossings.
If I'm not mistaken, EDIS is an early example of an adaptive system.

[Gimpster]

Crosstalk was a concern of mine, and I have my cam sensor unplugged "just in case". The cam & crank VR sensors do share a common ground.

---

Mrdosedriver717,

I'm running the 3 style coils right now + plug wires. I don't think the igniter would be too happy with 6 coils hanging off it, so I went to a junker Camry and pulled these + plug wires off for testing.

Right now I'm running a 330ohm pull-ups from the LED's -> Igniter. To run another igniter you just double up your resistors (two 330's per output -> one to each igniter). Not sure how that would work out on your ems pro though, not sure how they handle the ignition outputs.

I'll update my wiring diagram soon to reflect that.

I also need to add a DB15 or 25 connector to my MS case, the DB37 is fully populated right now.

[Brad Bedell]

I had to separate the grounds on my Crank and Cam sensor signals in the yellow car. Around 3500-3800 RPM with the Autronic, it would start misfiring and get worse as RPMs increased...

Thanks for sharing all your work on this. It's been a good read and quite informative so far.

[Gimpster]

WELL, update time. Spring cometh, and a fires been lit under my ass to drive it

Finally got things together this weekend and worked out a few more kinks. Car starts pretty well now and purrs pretty nicely. I'm actually quite stunned how well it idles with no IAC. Holds a pretty steady 1000 RPM.

Need to order a new wideband, my DIY one ... in a word ... sucks. I'm able to free rev it to 5k with no issues, and the tooth logger looks good. Don't really want to rev it anymore until I get my wideband issues sorted, but I was just curious When the new wideband shows up, and I get to do some load tuning... we'll see if she wants to rev to redline. Otherwise it idles fine like I said, comes up to operating temp and the fans are cycling like always. So far, so good.

Attached is the timing map I'm using right now. It's actually the timing map from a early/mid 90's Acura Legend (Type 1 C32A, 170HP SOHC V6). I figured it's a V6 with somewhat similar charactoristics to the 1MZ, so what the hell. Seems to really like it so far, but obviously needs fine tuned on a dyno. I just thought it was a better starting point than Thwam and Mrdosedriver717's maps for force inducted V6.

Also attached is my current .msq. Figured I'd finally show it since the thing more/less is running okay. It's in .zip format.

Mrdosedriver717 (sorry, i don't know your first name!!), FWIW.... I have major issues when I tried to use your trigger setup. EVEN though I was able to get the timing to 10 BTDC right on the dot using the timing light. Using thawms setup, which is the same as the one the MSnS Extra spreadsheet reccomends, my car runs GREAT. Might be something to look into more...

EDIT: Are we sure the stock injectors on there (well... on my 95 Engine) are 265cc? I had to lean my reqfuel multiplier out significanly to make it idle w/o rich popping. Like about 25% .... Even with a rough VE table I wouldn't expect it to be that far out of wack. 265cc seems very large for a gimpy low-power V6 like the non-VVTi 1MZ. Sure these things aren't more like 200cc? Maybe I'm just totally confused in general. I just remember a long time ago someone posting up that 265cc figure. 25% would bring it right around 200cc, which seems more reasonable to me.

[Gimpster]

More updates!

My new AEM UEGO showed up last week, so I got that installed.

I'm now back to running 6 COP with the Avalon "smart igniter" ... so far so good. I said earlier I gave up on that igniter, but I figured I'd give it one more shot and I'm glad I did! More details on that another day though. It's so nice being back on the 6 coils, the 3 coils + wires look so ghetto to me.

It's been nice out lately, so I took the car out today for 2-3 hours and did some load cell tuning. It's tuning out very nicely, ... my cruise, idle and some low-> mid power cells are more/less tuned. The best I can do on the street anyway. Feels very nice on the midrange roll-in. I got cocky for a second and took it to the rev limiter slowly ... and it hit the limiter at 6500.

No VR signal/cutout issues yet to report

[Mrdosedriver717]

very nice! Glad to hear you got it to rev. So maybe its all in that ignitor. I will have to give that a try on my car when I get it all back together

[ZachAttack]

subscribing

[singleslammer]

How did you end up hooking up you o2? Did you just pipe the wideband into the MS?

I am doing my best to understand whats going on here.

How is your adapter harness looking now?

Is your Cam sensor still unplugged? Thats the only thing on my harness that is broken and if I dont have to fix it that would be sweet.

[Gimpster]

My cam sensor is unplugged, no need for it since I'm not using sequential ignition/injection right now. However the other day when I was driving around for awhile, it WAS plugged in. I forgot to unhook it again after doing some testing with the stock ECU. Didn't seem to bother the crank VR input any, but I unplugged it again just the same.

The analog out of my wideband is just piped into the o2 input on the megasquirt, no big deal there. I think I need to throw a cap in it though, seems a little iffy at times. I just glance over at the gauge to make sure it's sane. I used to have to do the same thing to my PLX w/DSMLink on my Eclipse. It settles the input down a little bit.

Adapter harness looks the same right now, couple more wires on it from when I took the pics (IAT, CLT). When I'm happy that no changed need to be made, I'll clip off the unused leads and use potting compound to seal it up nice and secure. I'm so happy I did that btw, it's really nice to be able to swap in the stock ECU with zero wiring changes.

BTW a lot more testing needs to be done with that smart igniter, ... so don't take that for solid yet. I might still do 2 x 3COP style igniters still. I kinda like the idea of controlling my dwell.

[singleslammer]

"I think I need to throw a cap in it though, seems a little iffy at times."

What does this mean. Are you applying a ceiling/floor in the MS to the AFR? will it shut the engine off if you hit the cap?

I dont think being able to slap the stock ECU will help people like me who are wanting to start with the MS and not bother with the stock unit at all.

I have a 98 harness and a 99 ecu that I was going to use for my engine in stock trim. I think this would maybe help with the above situation but the other ECU I have is the stock 95 unit. Can I use the plug from the 95 for the 98 harness?

or vice versa? 98 plug on the 95 harness? I would prefer option one since the 95 harness is slightly busted (crushed cam sensor plug).

I will be waiting with anticipation about the 6 cop setup

Thanks

[Gimpster]

The capacitor on the analog output of the wideband just helps with noise/spikes etc. The capacitor acts as a low pass filter, but maybe someone like Mitch could chime in on the technical specifics. I'm using standard 0.1uF 50V capacitor (I think I'm using Radio Shack part number 272-109A). This is one of those "YMMY" type deals. My analog input is pretty accurate, I just want to smooth it out a bit.

I shamelessly ripped this out of the PLX user manual, and edited to my needs. The AEM UEGO happens to also use white for it's analog out:



To your other points...

It's a lot easier to install a standalone in a car that you know runs right on the stock ECU. Double if it's a car you're having to tune from scratch. If it was like an AEM or a Hydra with a startup map ... might be a different story. So I would highly reccomend getting your swap running on one of the stock ECU's, even if it's with some emissions codes and whatnot.