Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 13:54:59 -0500
Reply-To: pdooley <psdooley@VERIZON.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: pdooley <psdooley@VERIZON.NET>
Subject: Re: Megasquirt....RE: Boxer electronics options?
In-Reply-To: <ac1f198b0902021032ka9007cbg7bf8b09d3e954867@mail.gmail.com>
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Jim, that sounds like a great project to keep these olds van going in the
future. No distributor? Must be using a VR sensor and coil packs. That's
a nice setup for reliability.
Regarding MS, most people I have talked to who don't like MS are turned off
by the cheesy DB37 interface plug or the goofy name.
Most all the problems with reliability and robustness are unfortunately the
result of poor implementation and installation by the user or tuning shop.
For every MS horror story there is a long term success story to offset it.
Such is the way with the human element involved so heavily in the MS
project.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jim Akiba
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 1:32 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Megasquirt....RE: Boxer electronics options?
For a teaser, on the engine management front, we've started initial
work on doing a modular engine management setup based on our existing
abilities to both tune and build new harnesses. The story goes
something like this, you buy the ECU, new custom modular harness,
handheld datalogger/reflasher for your existing boxer for $900-$1500.
You get modern engine management capability, datalogging, overheat
warnings, e85 capability, a 10-15% bump in output and gains in fuel
efficiency. You lose the distributor, old injectors and sensors and
replace them with modern versions that work with the EMS. Then if you
ever decide to do an engine conversion, you simply buy the engine
portion of the harness for the zetec for instance(which is the modular
part), and keep the ECU itself, the reflasher and main harness and
other bits you already own, reflash and go. Likewise, if you decide to
go subie, you'd simply pickup that version of the engine harness,
reflash and go. Modular, total control, and much more robust in terms
of electronics than aftermarket standalone units and nothing to learn
since we setup the tunes for you. Megasquirt is a great project, but
it still does not compare to factory equipment in terms of reliability
and robustness. So exploit the OEMS for what they are good for, and
tailor it to match what we need to do.
Jim Akiba
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