patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

So I'm having pure hell with MS2 right now. I had it wired up in parallel with the stock ECU MS ran spark timing, and fans. Worked fine. Then I pulled it out and wired up an input for my nitrous system and the problems began. First my 5V regulator for my panel meter randomly went up in smoke as soon as I started the car after reinstalling MS2. Dunno why, but I turned the key on and it just fried. Weird. Note the regulator thingy is a LM7805 IIRC and is 100% seperate from MS2.

So I unhooked the burned up power supply thing and cranked the car and it ran fine on MS2. Shut it off, reloaded the new MSQ with the adjustments for nitrous control, and got a config error in MT. All the guages were wrong. Tach showed 65,XXX RPMs, 0*F, etc. Talked to Chad and following his advice, I reflashed my firmware and put in a new MSQ. Ok, so then it fires up and runs. But there are problems.

First the fans run all the time. MS is supposed to turn them on above 180, but they run constantly even though the engine is cold. Settings in outport are correct. So I set the on value for the fans to be 0, hit burn, and my motor starts running extemely rough, like it's waaaaay too advanced. So I put the value so that the fans do not run. Motor starts running good again but fans stay on.

So now I turn on A/C. Car is good. Then I turn A/C off. Car is good. I switch spark from MS to Stock, and car is good. Then I turn on A/C... Car again goes to running extremely rough like timing's too advanced. Simultaneously fan relay begins "clicking" on and off, and it's pulsing speed changes with RPM linearly.

Also my wideband readout on megatune is weird. It's sits at 12.1 and doesn't hardly change. If I rev the engine and let it fall, it will blink to 14.X then back to 12.1. I did a datalog and the wideband signal changes like a square wave every couple seconds.

So now MS2 is sitting in my room, and I'm running on the stock ECU with no front O2 sensor. The car barely cranks (took 10 tries a minute ago and I'm afraid to shut it off away from home), has about 1/3 as much power (not exaggerating at all). The car bucks and misses and feels like it looses 2 cylinders when I hit the gas. The car shakes at idle. It takes about 3 seconds to go from idle to 6K still not exaggerating at all. Cruising it's smooth, but weak.

And I'm in a parking lot using someone's wireless internet, and my car is now overheating with the A/C on at idle. Entire cooling system is brand new factory **** with <1K miles on it. Damnit, today is just not my day.

Plan is to build a new wiring harness for MS2 to run standalone as the piggyback harness I have is a mess and it sucks laying on my back to get to it.

disturbedfan121

iTrader: (5)

lesson here is dont get nitrous lol

that sucks man i have no suggestions but hope everything works out ok for ya

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

If Arga or AbeFM could comment your help is apreciated. Gotta go.

klaumich

I know how that sucks, I'm stuck with the same problem here. Haven't yet figures out what the acutal problem is. I would consider my soldering skills good, so I guess the board is fine. Plus I am getting totally weird problems in MT. When I try to fetch values from the ECU it gives out the correct value the first time I hit it, when I continue to hit the button a couple tims (don't ask why I am doing such debugging tests ;-) ) I get different values each time .... so what's up with that ?

Have you yet figured out any solution or news to your problem ? I would be interessted in any topics about having my MS2Extra run in my '91 NA/SC

Greetz from germany,
Clemens

magnamx-5

iTrader: (7)

Keep up the good fight Pat i am still not out of the woods with my ebc situation. :(

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Well I'm making a hub to mount a 36-1 trigger wheel infront of my SC pulley right now. I have a ford EDIS4 system that's going in. I'm tired of fighting MS to make it spark. This system is proven. MS will simply control the advance curve.

My problem turned out to be loose wiring. I tried reinstalling the MS, and it ran shitty still. Then started wiggling plugs under the dash and BAM!, it cleared up for a second. So I had the factory wiring plug, then a patch harness pluged into it, then MS spliced into that, then wired to a plug that plugs into the stock ECU's plug...

New setup will be a 12' wiring harness that plugs into MS and the wires go to the sensors. No additional plugs between MS and the things it controls.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Crankwheels have much awesomeness in them. Though I'm curious as to why you would involve EDIS? I found the "stock" VR input circuit to be perfectly satisfactory, and have had basically zero problems since migrating to that setup.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Why?! WHY?!?! WHY YOU ASK!!? I want my **** to work! I fought and FOUGHT MS2 to make spark. For 2 weeks I tried 15 (actual number, not exaggerating) input circuits to try to get MS2 to read my factory sensors. Finally I got it running, but had intermittent misses where RPMs would drop to "0" for a split second. Also took a while to crank because it took 2-3 seconds to "sync" and get a RPM reading. I'm tired of the B.S. Always afraid of burning stuff and frying coils.

This setup Ford designed is proven reliable and trouble free. That's all I want in my ignition system. Running .035 or .050 gap doesn't make me sleep better at night or enjoy my car any more. But having a car that's slow to start and has intermittent ignition problems gets old fast. And then there's burning coils up from flashing firmware. That's all a thing of the past with EDIS. Anywho...





Hub is two pieces of 1/2" plate with a piece of 2.5" pipe between them. Haven't drilled the holes in the adapter yet since it's supposed to be 50* before or after TDC.

compy

[QUOTE=patsmx5;276755]This setup Ford designed is proven reliable and trouble free. [QUOTE]

Duckie_uk

iTrader: (1)

Soon as my megasquirt is finished im gonne get me a crankwheel. Yours looks great but please tell me you are going to balance that whole assembly when you're done. Otherwise I predict your girlfreind will be spending more and more time sitting on the rocker cover with her eyes crossed!

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Funny, but if Ford ever made something reliable, it was their ignition systems. Their 6 wire CDI boxes from the 60's and 70's up to 87 were bullit proof. Their TFI system that replaced that was also fine. Then their EDIS setup comes out and it's proven reliable as well. Can't say that about too many of Ford's products, but they can make spark.

I modded the MS today for the EDIS to work. It was GREAT to tear out all the old BS that for it to read the factory sensors. My MS looks clean inside for the first time ever. Not a million wires and circuits on bread board anymore.

Wasn't planning on balancing the assembly. I'm gonna grind down the pertruding welds though. I turned and machined the sucker in a lathe. It's round within .001 except for the welds.

magnamx-5

iTrader: (7)

i would atleast check the balance pat couldnt hurt to see if you are close, if you plan on spinning big rpms with that might as well make sure it will stay stable.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Well I'm all for checking it. How do I do that? Send it off to be balanced? It will spin the speed the crank turns, so say 7K max.

Duckie_uk

iTrader: (1)

Mount the whole thing on some threaded stock (that is ***** on straight) put it on your lathe and support the other end with the tail stock then spin that bad boy up and see how the rod deflects. Just an idea, it may be a very creative suicide attempt and you may end up with a 36-1 hole in your wall/roof/head. Just be glad you arn't using Joes crank wheel!

rb26dett

Pat, with all due respect, you need to change the thread title to "I hate hacked wiring looms". That is almost certainly your problem. OEM looms suck for MS use. The ground schemes are not compatible for a start, and the power feeds are often sub standard for what ms wants/needs. If you are getting random stuff happening when you burn data, I would check your serial stuff for frequency match. The ms2 serial frequency is accurate and solid but many usb and laptop adapters are not. Some PCMCIA ones are excellent. Perhaps try one of those. I don't think it's right to bag MS2 like that (rich coming from me?) as at the end of the day it's a pretty damn good system for what it is and when the wiring is right fires first time and runs smooth as silk. Wiring is critical though. It always is regardless of grounding scheme. Good luck getting it sorted.

LOL @ girlfriend on rocker comment, and I agree, get it balanced, it's cheap enough.

The MS2 control on my fe3t with 36-1 wheel is nothing short of excellent. I was running an early alpha code too. I bet it's even better now. I can't see it getting worse than it was as an early alpha.

Fred.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Well, I've had hell making MS2 read my stock sensors. Fuel hasn't really been the problem (more on this later). Took me 15 input circuits to find one that MS would read to fire up on the stock sensors. After that I've had problems. Sometimes it randomly drops to "0" RPM's for a split second. It's slow to sync and start. I know for a fact that the EDIS setup will work exactly as designed if I don't change it. My goal will be to install the setup exactly how it was installed by Ford but let MS control the timing curve instead of a Ford ECU.

Agreed that OEM wiring is not good for MS2. That's why I'm going standalone and using a harness from DIY Autotune. I will 100% eliminate the factory engine's wiring and start over.

rb26dett

I agree with the move away from the OEM sensors BTW, generic wheels get a LOT of testing. Special case wheels only get the testing from brave dudes like you and Abe. Besides which, your OEM setups suck anyway (as do the earlier ones) for accuracy under dynamic conditions. But that's another story. So, misses etc could be bad code or wiring etc. But moving to a 36-1 is just better in every respect. I'd still control it directly and have EDIS as a fall back though.

You should try to remember that EDIS was a "hack" (a good hack) for the days when ms did not do ignition. A hangover if you like. I personally won't be supporting EDIS at all as it is a two fingers up to my code if someone uses it IMO.

You are right that even MS2 probably doesn't provide as accurate or reliable an ignition as EDIS though. I'd still take the MS2 direct setup if it were me though.

BTW, I'm a hypocrite on the balancing thing. I didn't balance my 36-1 either :-) 7500 was fine though ;-)

Fred.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Well, I'm letting EDIS do it for sure. I couldn't do it any other way now after fighting MS for so many hours to have a half assed ignition system that skipped out when it felt like it. EDIS is proven reliable. Maybe it's not as precise as MS is or maybe it's more complicated and does the same thing, but that's not important to me. Reliablility and consistant fast starting are.

Got any good advice or links on how I should go about building my new wiring harness the "right" way? Could you explain proper ground sceemes? My old standalone harness had a few extra grounds and all, but it was a mess. If we were fishing with an open face reel, my Wiring harness was a birds nest. I want to do this once and do it right. My plan is to have the 12' harness plug into MS2 and the wires go straight to the sensors. No plugs under the dash, etc. I have the GM coolant sensor and AIT sensors going in w/pigtails. I'll use the factory throttle body and knock sensors. I have an LC1.

I'm thinking of mounting the MS either in the trunk, or behind the passengers side seat for easy accessibility. Leaning toward the later. I'm considering mounting the EDIS module say 1 ft next to the MS2. I see no reason to put it under the hood if it's not necessary. Less heat is probably a good thing.

RdSnake

Ive been running MSII with EDIS on my 1.6L for a year now and the system is very reliable. One good fringe benefit of EDIS is multi spark capability at idle.
Finally, this combo is starting to get the attention that it deserves.

rb26dett

I would place a small sum of money that EDIS has better spark accuracy than any MS. Though, I could be wrong. Either way, fast starting : sure. Reliability : only as good as your wiring job. And yes, it's just more parts to do the same thing when you no longer need to.
I'll do my best.
Extra = bad. Good = good.
Do you like fishing? Me too :-)
Sounds pretty good. Beware of the LC-1 being noisy though.
The latter, or even in the dash or kick panel somewhere. I was going to put mine above the trans tunnel in the middle, but now I'm thinking behind the seats is a good move too. (currently it's on the floor :-) )
Voltage drop from ignitor (EDIS) to coil, noise on VR signal to EDIS, noise radiated from ignitor lines. On the other hand, if you put it in the bay (where IMO it belongs) you could have more noise on the EDIS to MS connection, but that is less likely.

Grounding :

one rule : avoid loops

Secondly, because it's hard to avoid loops with MS without grounding everything TO the MS, if you want it mint, you want to run oversized cable to the ms for power and ground and ground everything TO the MS. Except the LC1. The LC-1 has two grounds which they say to put together. I say ground the signal one where the MS grounds (head, block, battery post ONLY) or to the MS and the second one where ever you like that isn't the MS. If you say use the dash for grounding and ground ms and both lc1 wires there, you are ASKING for noise. Bruce says "noise is all your fault" I think that's rubbish, but some aspect of it surely is. No need to make it hard for you with wiring though. But I digress.

no loops :

each sensor grounds at the ms ONLY.

power :

if you are running low Z, run twin power feeds, and maybe mod your board to avoid sharing power and ground with the drivers and CPU.

Bruce put out a grounding document and video at the megameet that surfaced a few months/weeks ago. I have a thread on it, but it's not overly MS friendly, so not sure if I should post it here. You can find it in "non-free" on my site, but beware, I rant a little in there...

Best of luck.

Fred.