Tuning Megasquirt

sowen · Post by **sowen** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:30 am

A little advice/opinion wanted please, I've been fitting a Megasquirt system to my SD1 V8 over the past few months, it now runs, has an acceptable idle and drives ok up and down the road. I'm still reading and re-reading the tuning instructions with TunerStudio that came supplied with my ecu.

Is it worth registering TunerStudio and upgrading to the autotune stuff that they offer? I can continue to spend all my evenings and weekends staring at a laptop randomly changing settings hoping I eventually hit the nail on the head, or take advantage of the software available and get it heading in the right direction quicker?

I don't want to go to a pro or rolling road as I continually change, adapt and modify things, and have at least one other project that could benefit from going fully mappable efi

DaveEFI · Post by **DaveEFI** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:37 am

IMHO very worth having autotune and the logging facilities. But I've never had Lite, so don't know what I'd miss most.

Warm up autotune which was added fairly recently I found particularly useful.

Other thing is new facilities are being added all the time, often after requests from users. And this can only really happen if money comes in.

SimpleSimon · Post by **SimpleSimon** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 11:21 am

DaveEFI wrote:IMHO very worth having autotune and the logging facilities. But I've never had Lite, so don't know what I'd miss most.

Warm up autotune which was added fairly recently I found particularly useful.

Other thing is new facilities are being added all the time, often after requests from users. And this can only really happen if money comes in.

Got to agree with Dave on this

its a cracking bit of software and makes MS all the better

SuperV8 · Post by **SuperV8** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 11:36 am

The autotune worked great for me, in one drive it transformed my engine, I would recommend it.

Tom.

Spongo · Post by **Spongo** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:59 pm

Yup deffo register its a cracking piece of software and does what it says on the tin, you do need to get the car running reasonably well first but it certainly makes the tweeking all the easier and you get updates etc and new stuff thrown in.

Quagmire · Post by **Quagmire** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:05 pm

Another happy customer here, definitely worth the money!

Ian Anderson · Post by **Ian Anderson** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:08 pm

Question here

I would look at MS etc but was always told that you spend ages putting the right numbers ito buckets to make the thing run right

So is this not a problem of the past
Plug in the computer - go for a run up holl down dale traffic lights hot engine / cold engine motorway, blast etc and it sorts out the tuning?

So it will guarantee no melted pistons, reasonable economy and power?

Thanks
Ian

kiwicar · Post by **kiwicar** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:29 pm

Hi
no this is for the tuning of the MS after you have ticked all the boxes, set up the tach signal conditioning, selected all the options and debugged it.
best regards
Mike

DaveEFI · Post by **DaveEFI** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:48 pm

Ian Anderson wrote:Question here

I would look at MS etc but was always told that you spend ages putting the right numbers ito buckets to make the thing run right

So is this not a problem of the past
Plug in the computer - go for a run up holl down dale traffic lights hot engine / cold engine motorway, blast etc and it sorts out the tuning?

So it will guarantee no melted pistons, reasonable economy and power?

Thanks
Ian

There are tools in TunerStudio to calculate basic AFR and VE tables, based on the figures you enter for engine size, BHP, torque etc. There is also one for 'required fuel' which is a constant based on engine size and actual injector flow. Between those, you'll normally end up with an engine which runs. They tend to err on the rich side to avoid piston damage.

I've found it pretty quick and easy to get an engine running well. Tuning it also for best economy takes rather longer.

sowen · Post by **sowen** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:26 pm

Cool, so it does appear to be a good idea to register

I've only done a gentle drive round the local area, and it pulled ok, but I have to be very gentle where I live being in the centre of a residential area and the main road is often used as a racetrack

so no more than a light dab of the go pedal to roll around.

A few more local runs out on the back roads should confirm the basics are there, then I guess it would be ready to try out the autotune to refine it a bit more

SuperV8 · Post by **SuperV8** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 8:01 am

The auto tuning section - VE Analyze live - relies on values that YOU input for the AFR table, it basically looks up the AFR at that instant in time / load / rpm and adjusts the fuel (VE) to try to correct the AFR. When you're driving the more time you spend at a particular load/rpm site the more accurate the adjustments.
It can tune for economy, just depends on what AFR values you enter. I didn't find it so useful for higher load tuning as I just couldn't spend enough time in that area of the map (end up going too fast!) If you could find a really long hill that might help!

There is also warm up enrichment auto which I haven't used yet but looks to be quite handy.

Tom.

DaveEFI · Post by **DaveEFI** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 8:54 am

I've used the warmup autotune and it's very good.

sowen · Post by **sowen** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:50 pm

SuperV8 wrote:The auto tuning section - VE Analyze live - relies on values that YOU input for the AFR table, it basically looks up the AFR at that instant in time / load / rpm and adjusts the fuel (VE) to try to correct the AFR. When you're driving the more time you spend at a particular load/rpm site the more accurate the adjustments.
It can tune for economy, just depends on what AFR values you enter. I didn't find it so useful for higher load tuning as I just couldn't spend enough time in that area of the map (end up going too fast!) If you could find a really long hill that might help!

There is also warm up enrichment auto which I haven't used yet but looks to be quite handy.

Tom.

Interesting point about holding the rpm/load steady, makes sense to let the afr readings settle to sort itself out.

Amongst my bag of tricks I have a reasonable length runway possibly at my disposal if I ask politely

Cobratone · Post by **Cobratone** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:51 pm

As said above, Autotune is good but ONLY if you have a good AFR table as it tunes to match that. Spend some time getting that right and autotune will be your best friend

cammmy · Post by **cammmy** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:06 pm

How can you dial in the timing properly without a dyno? Wouldn't it be worth getting a good base on the dyno? Then your tweaks/mods wouldn't require as much to account for.