The V8 Owners Forum -

Maybe as silly question, so I take it that the standard LR Thor Motronic coils that sit at the back of the engine are not compatible with MS3X?

And Dave I have found the online support for MS is atrocious - if you had not been providing me advice along the way I would have got no where - i do appreciate many of my questions were very basic but that is to be expected - and I very much appreciate the advice and information you have provided me.

If you google MS reviews, the product itself is rated highly but the support and documentation for the uninitiated is criticized greatly - the main issue with the documentation is that information is scattered over different publications and is hard to find - not my comments but those online and I tend to agree. The documents need a good technical writer to go over them to sort it all out.

Garry

The Thor coils are wasted spark - so similar to EDIS ones. And passive.

With MS, you either pay someone to do things for you, or read up about it yourself.

It's a bit like playing the piano. Just buying one doesn't mean you'll be able to play it. Frustrating as that may be.

I'd agree the MS instructions can be frustrating finding the answer you need - even although it will almost certainly be there. But easily understood given it has to cover all possible choices. To write an individual guide for every car etc would be near impossible. But they're not scattered everywhere. They're all under manuals on the MSExtra site. Unless you'd bought a PNP version where you'd expect the supplier to provide what's needed.

Most of the commercial aftermarket ECUs don't even provide a full schematic. Good luck if you have problems there - except by sending it back to the makers.

Jim Murray (who also is involved in the software design) re-wrote/updated the Extra manuals not long ago. The big problem being what is a logical layout of a document to one may not be to another. And it's not something which pays well.

DaveEFI wrote:
Most of the commercial aftermarket ECUs don't even provide a full schematic. Good luck if you have problems there - except by sending it back to the makers.

It's so terrible having things fixed for free under warranty !! ( in the extremely rare case that is even needed )

Do all electronic goods you buy come with schematics so you can DIY them ? lol

Well, MS was designed from the off with DIY in mind. Many other products don't want to tell you their 'design secrets'.

Bit like a car. You surely don't want a decent workshop manual for it? Just pay a dealer to fix it if things go wrong.

DaveEFI wrote:Well, MS was designed from the off with DIY in mind. Many other products don't want to tell you their 'design secrets'.

Bit like a car. You surely don't want a decent workshop manual for it? Just pay a dealer to fix it if things go wrong.

So you can DIY absolutely every single last part on your car ?

You make your own crank, rods, block, or machine them all yourself ? You make your own wiring, right from bare copper ore from the ground, and wherever the PVC coating comes from ?

Not really like a car with no workshop manual. And dealers are probably the last place you'd ever go to get a car repaired ! So an utterly insane comparison.

Not really Steve.
A schematic for an electronic device is more akin to the wiring diagram for a car.
Having a wiring diagram for a car doesn't mean you have to make an actual component - it is just a major aid to fault finding, as well as explaining how individual parts of a circuit work.

I doubt any of the aftermarket ECU companies actually make any of the components they use, other than perhaps the PCB. They simply assemble them from propitiatory parts to their design.

The thing with MS that should you ever have a failure, a half competent electronics tech should be able to fix it for you - if you can't do this sort of thing yourself. That may or may not be important to you - but is for me with something designed for DIY installation.

Does MS fail that often then Dave. In all my years I have only had one ECU failure and that was on an MR2 where the caps needed to be replaced (common problem) but I did not need a schematic to perform the repair

MS on its on is pretty reliable. The main problem is sloppy installation - not following the wiring diagram carefully, and making wrong connections. Which can't really happen on a production car ECU with a factory made wiring harness.

I repair them as a sort of paying hobby. But of course usually see only the ECU, rather than the full installation.

Very few indeed develop a fault after working well. Most I see are damaged during installation. Or bought used as being all good, but ain't. About half are no fault found.

Dave I don't know if it helps but I am running a ms3x sequential on my rover fitted in my spit and I am using vw golf coil packs ( x2 ) which are mounted on brackets on the heads. The coil packs are driven directly from the megasquirt, the packs are only about £30 each new on ebay or around £60 from euro car parts and there are places on the internet which sell the connectors ( to go to the ecu ) for £5- £10 each.

DSC00387a by karl stroud, on Flickr

Thanks for that Karl. Ideally, I was thinking of a separate single coil per plug that could be mounted as close to each plug as possible, to cut down on the spaghetti even more.

But that does look better than wasted spark wiring.

Presumably those coil packs have a single driver per coil ?

That could be a quite neat solution for sure, as it would eliminate any need for wires to cross from one bank to the other.

I'm after coils with the high curent drivers built in - hence the misspelt active title. Ones which can be driven directly from a logic etc output. But that type can also be used for wasted spark if you don't want to bother with sequential.

DaveEFI wrote:I'm after coils with the high curent drivers built in - hence the misspelt active title. Ones which can be driven directly from a logic etc output. But that type can also be used for wasted spark if you don't want to bother with sequential.

If your ecu cannot drive inductive coils directly, just add an amplifier before the coils, unless of course you can find coils with them built in, which is always a neater solution.

No idea what those VW coils are.

Passive coils normally only have two connections to the primary. Active power, signal and ground.
You could add high curent drivers to passive coils, but one thing I want is to cut down on such things.

Find out what those VW coils are, or just buy LS coils.

LS coils are tried and tested the world over though and readily available. Plus fairly compact.