hrk

iTrader: (6)

Hi,

I have raced a Miata based locost for couple of years and added little somthing each year to the car. Originally I built the car with all original wiring harness and now the heat from turbo and engine in general has compromised parts of the wiring. In addition there are several wires which I am not using.
The car was built for occasional street use, but I don't think I need that ability anymore, like driving lights, door switches, radio and ac controls etc. All I need is working brake lights and an engine management and power supply for DL-1 data system and gauges. Currently the car has Emanage Ultimate with Tullos electronic boost controller. Works ok, but I have had to do field repairs to original wiring after some extra heat from leaking wastegate connection had melteed wires and caused electrical problems. I would be facing rewiring the engine bay to be reliable this year if I was using this setup.
Car had 208 hp at 9 psi with GT 2560 ball bearing turbo and separate Tial 38 mm wastegate. There was RX-7 intercooler and 460 cc injectors. The boost was kept moderate for reliability reasons, the races typically are 20-40 minutes long and there are enduros which take up to three hours. There will be red flag situations where the car has to be stopped from full boost and the engine looses the airflow from speed, car can idle to let the turbo cool down if the fan is up to it.
I am looking for reliable, sustainable power with as few as possible quirks which can go wrong.

Currently I am looking into MS system with display and getting all new wiring.

1. How readable and usable is the 3"x5" touchscreen display unit from DIY autotune?

2. What options would be recommended in rugged turbocharged stand-alone MS system in a -96 Miata 1.8 motor.
- Knock sensing, is it dependable and worth having?
- Electronic Boost control, is it dependable? Not good experience with Tullos, At last three races I was running 7 psi boost on wastegate spring only.
- I will get coil on plug soon, do I need to know this now to spec for future sequential ignition and injection?

3. Please confirm that it makes sense to use MS Relay board to make this as simple as possible. Next race is Feb 8th and this needs to be installed by then. I was thinking of ordering the whole package assembled with all the connecting wiring.

Thanks
hrk

cjernigan

iTrader: (13)

I haven't seen the touchscreen myself but from what i can tell it is very readable and if you had a small hood to keep the sun directly off the face it would be great. Apparently with the new firmware you'll be able to edit things in the megasquirt with the touchscreen as well as display and datalog everything while in car.
I'm running the knocksense knock sensing but i haven't dyno tuned my car yet to i leave it off for now. It can be difficult to get it adjusted perfect so that there is no noise received. That is part of the reason the FM knock sensor mount is recommended. If you have a '99+ motor you can use the stock knock sensor that came with it. Not sure if the earlier block has the threaded hole for the NB sensor or not. I know partsgroup has a NB sensor for $15 and it works with the knocksense. When i messed with it initially it was working just fine. I got it adjusted where it wouldn't activate while I revved it to redline out of boost. Then i went on a datalogged run, you could see the dip in the ignition and I also had tapped my coolant line. So when the KS see's a knock event it throws a spike high on the coolant line increasing your AFR for a brief second. It's not needed and I was just trying it out to see how it worked.
EBC is a must and it's only wire to run from the MS, the solenoid will need 12v though. There are quite a few people running open loop BC right now and i haven't heard of anyone having problems. Except the occasional guy who cut's his solenoid wire accidentally.

COP will be a great way to go. Allowing for larger plugs gaps at more boost is always a good thing. Though MSI will not do sequential fuel/ignition, there will be a MSII unit later that will.

I don't see the point in the relay board for you. Unless you didn't retain any of the stock relays? You will need all the same relays the miata used for things like the fuel pump and Fans. None of use use the relay board in our miata's though, we just reuse the ones in the car. So the relay board will help you out if you need three relays easily installed but there aren't enough relays for you to hook up everything.

elesjuan

iTrader: (11)

I planned on using the relay board because I had it. Got it almost fully installed and decided it was A waste of time, and would complicate things.

From what I understand you want your ignition coils and megasquirt to both power up at the same time. If using the factory miata wiring, then adding another relay into the mix there would be a delay between coils and Megasquirt.. A relay would be triggering a relay, its redundant and not necessary. Was really much easier to just make the boomslang harness and literally plug it in.

You know this cjer, just throwing it out there for my $0.02 that I've learned. Have done a lot of things twice on this project because I wasn't paying attention to specifics or wanted to do something different.

240_to_miata

iTrader: (2)

the touchscreen is real cool and real easy to use... my friend is the builder/designer and i saw it from the begining stages. it is pretty well priced for wat it does

hrk

iTrader: (6)

Thank you very much for your answers.
I can see the limitations of relay board being able to drive fuel pump, fast idle and ECu Power only. I would need at least fan added to that.

Again, the main reason to go to MS would be to replace all hardened factory harness to increase reliability. I have another miata harness to donate the factory fuseboxes and relay boards if I choose to go that way.
Touchscreen would be nice if I could save a few gauges.

Knocksensing sounds to be the similar to other experiences, needs tuning to week out the noise.

Thanks and keep them coming, I think I'll go and see the parts in person next week.

hrk