Sclippy96

I have a 1995 with a MSPNP2 v1.2 which has worked pretty darn well for me since I got it a few years back.

I had never updated the firmware so it is still running version 3.2.1, I was having cold start issues and was going to work on some of the cold start settings in tunerstudio v2.6.04.

I plugged in my FTDI usb adapter and turned the key to the on position, the car wasn't running yet... tunerstudio recognized the ecu as it usually does and it opened the screen to notify me that my open project had different settings from those loaded on the controller(ECU), so I selected "load from controller" to keep the current settings from the ECU.

At that exact moment things went haywire, and tunerstudio did some things I have never seen before. I noticed that numbers on the gauges in the open dash in the backround went off the charts high like a 56,000 rpm number for example and then an error message appeared which I am sorry to say I didn't screengrab. It was saying something like that tunerstudio lost connection with ECU, but not the normal message I have seen before. Ever since this moment I have been unable to establish any connection with the MSPNP2 and it appears that both the tune and firmware have been either corrupted or wiped out.

I have had connectivity issues in the past related to inferior serial to usb adapters, and this is not from that. I had went ahead and bought the correct FTDI one from efi analytics, I also have a serial to expresscard adapter which has worked fine in the past too.

Nothing works now, the car wont start and it's obvious that there is no tune loaded on it when i crank it, and I cannot establish any sort of connection with the MSPNP2 thru various computers and adapters.

I have troubleshot with this guide: Megasquirt Serial Setup
I able to get loopback in miniterminal with test A, which should mean that my serial adapter is indeed working.
Test B fails, I cannot get firmware loopback from MSPNP2 when it is powered on.
I have not tried "test C" yet to see if I get loopback thru the CPU socket as I don't want to void any potential warranty since this is a MSPNP2

From what I can gather it seems as though there is no firmware/corrupted firmware loaded on my MSPNP2 now. I also tried to update the firmware from 3.2.1 to 3.3.2 but the firmware program cannot establish a connection with the MSPNP2 now either.

I get 2 green lights on the ECU when it is powered on, I am hoping this is a good sign that the ECU isn't bricked. Unfortunately this car was recently pressed into service as a daily driver as it's my only car now, it has a turbo and big injectors so switching back to the stock ECU would be problematic for me.

Any ideas? Do I need to change a jumper inside the MSPNP2 v1.2 to be able to re-establish serial connection for a fresh firmware load? I am fairly computer savvy, but this one has me stumped.

Sclippy96

Found some insight here: https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...-issues-71528/

I made sure I didn't have any hidden locked up COMM ports, just to rule that out. It looks like my best bet might be cracking the case open to move the boot jumper on C14, unplugging the ignition coils then seeing if I can re-establish connection with the key on. If so I will be able to load up firmware 3.3.2 and un-brick my ECU. What confuses me is the documentation I found emphasizes that I do not need to move that bootjumper to load in new firmware, this leads me to believe the boot jumper is specifically there for situations like mine where the tune and/or firmware got completely corrupted and nothing else works.

Matt Cramer

Yep, the boot jumper is only needed when the firmware is seriously corrupted or has a tune error that throws the code into a loop. One example with an earlier firmware - I think the newest checks for this - is the zero tooth trigger glitch that happens if you set up a trigger wheel where the number of teeth and the number of missing teeth are equal. Putting the boot jumper in place prevents the code from loading this error section.

Sclippy96

I opened the case but I don't have any spare jumpers available, is it ok to "borrow" a jumper from another position to use on the bootjumper position, or will this mess things up? I was going to pull one of the jumpers from the knocksense position to use but want to make sure that isn't going to screw things up worse than they are.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

Got a spare/extra unused video card or something for a desktop computer? Pull/Borrow a jumper from it.

Just an idea.

Sclippy96

Woot! I borrowed the jumper from the clutch switch to use on the boot jumper and was successful in loading in the latest firmware version 3.3.3 on my MSPNP2 v1.2. I then downloaded the .MSQ file named "1994 Miata 1.8 turbo tuner map" from MegaSquirtPNP by DIYAutoTune.com

I started a new project inside tunerstudio and was able to autodetect the firmware seen here:


Next I loaded in the .MSQ file but I got a message telling me the signatures dont match:


If I load it anyways I will get a few warnings about mismatches:


Am I supposed to ignore these warnings? Or did I make a mistake by not loading the firmware that matches the .msq file exactly? When I go through all the tables everything seems set up and ready for me to plug the coil back in and try to fire this thing up, I just want to make sure it's ok to ignore the 31 warnings I get from the mismatch from the .msq file compared to the firmware before I try to fire this thing back up.

Sclippy96

I cannot get the car to start, it's acting if theres no spark now... I will need to check for that next. I think I may have blown out the coil pack when I reloaded the firmware. I couldn't get the two plugs that go into the coil unplugged, nor could I locate a "coil fuse" anywhere. I did find a guide here: MegaSquirtPNP by DIYAutoTune.com

Which points to this connector to unplug to disable the coils:




But now I am skeptical this grey connector is the correct one to unplug because its clearly going to the 4 injectors instead of the coils when I follow it up the line with my fingers.

I also think a big contributing factor to my cold starting issues is my starter might be going bad, no matter how much juice I have on the battery it will only spin for about 1.5- 2 seconds before stopping on it's own. When the car is warm this is enough time to get the engine to catch but cold it has no chance. If I did blow the coils this will give me an excuse to install GM D585 coils instead I suppose.

I am stoked the MSPNP2 is back up running now though.