Why is Adaptronic better than Megasquirt?
 

All right, I didn't see anything like this mentioned in the 4 or so pages in this subforum.

What are the benefits of Adaptronic over Megasquirt?

Adaptronic is more expensive.

It has been discussed quite a few times, but not in this sub-section I think.

Basically IMO: ms is not pnp for 99+ nb's. Adaptronic is. That is one of the biggest things. Adaptronic has launch control and boost by gear, can operate the vics, fuel/spark autotune, datalogging, etc etc etc. Just get the tiny "wari" file and go through the whole setup and check it out. Its really good.
The pnp install on 99+ cars is probably the reason most of us got it though. If you have an earlier year miata just go with the cheaper ms. just my .02

Don't forget the autotuning feature Vlad. To me, that's really a deal breaker between both.

So fuel/spark autotune is a major advantage of Adaptronics for NBs.

Megasquirt can only do fuel autotune then?

I don't know much about the MS but as far as I can tell; it can't autotune fuel either.

Don't forget the Adaptronic does sequential fuel and ignition if you want it to.

This is the thread where most of us decided that the Adaptronic is what we wanted. Its not a direct comparison but most of the details of what the Adaptronic can do are mentioned.

Its not better for the average person. Just more expensive.

So the average person doesn't need autotune then?

N/M
Going to read the thread TurboRoach posted.

No. Get yourself megalog viewer, get two logs, and youre done.

If you dont have a knock sensor, then autotune on spark wont help you. Therefore it doesnt matter which ecu you use.

What about factory NB knock sensor? Does this count?
From my limited L98 tuning experience, knock sensors were worthless compared to valvetrain clatter. Maybe technology has advanced since then.

Thats what I'm using in my 92. The adaptronic does some filtering to pick out the frequencies where knock occurs.

I personally cannot comment on the knock sensors in the NB. However I will say that no one here should be tuning to the limit using a factory knock sensor. So how much it will actually help you is pretty subjective.

There is no comparison in between the amount of time you would spend tuning an adaptronic vs a MS by hand. I don't even have to look at a map or have a laptop plugged in with the adaptronic. Not to mention with tuning by hand you have to track down the correct cell to get it right. Then ontop of that interpolation can give you a serious challenge. Do you bring the row below it up, or the row above it up? Tuning with a log is a pain in the neck.

In the beginning there were some kinks with installs, some people mis-read instructions, and other times the instructions just wern't that great. Now though there isn't any reason that you shouldn't be able to literally pop this ECU in and go driving. We have some great tuning maps, and there are alot of hardworking community members here that have shored up all the rough edges.

The Adaptronic is the easiest to install engine management solution. Especially if you are using either stock injectors or the 600cc Deatschwerks injectors as those maps have been tuned in by experienced users. That means all your going to have to do is change very minor things in the maps to make it work perfectly for your vehicle.

^ id love to continue this wonderful argument but I know u already have ur hands lubed up and are about to vigorously jerk off your product, so I will just bow out of this one.

:giggle:

Travis gets excited about the stuff he sells. If he didn't why bother selling them?

Anyway back to the OP.

The adaptronic is more expensive but for a 2000 like yours I think its the only pnp ecu. If you were planning on making your own harness you can save some $$ and get just the ecu that puts it a little closer to the price of a built MS (Thats what myself, y8s, & a couple of others did.). If not though you either have to get a boomslang harness or have someone make you one for the MS. The adaptronic (pnp) for the 99/00 only requires extending a couple of wires for the map sensor. Also if you need to pass emissions, it looks like most of the bugs for passing the OBDII codes have been worked out.

I bought the adaptronic because:
1) I got in on the group buy and got a killer deal :D
2) Sequential Fuel (makes it easier to pass emissions)
3) My A/C works
4) Traction control
5) VVT control (I was considering swapping in an 01+ motor)

Lets be fair here: there is no pnp ms. PERIOD! for the na guys ms might be a cheaper solution. For us nb guys its not. And dont try to tell me how easy it is to get ms to work in parallel with an nb: I've seen too many people fail and am way too electronically stupid to try it.

So if MS is not available to us and can not be used in this comparison, we have NOTHING cheaper than the adaptronic available to us. Period

Must have Adaptronic Jealousy. :giggle:

I uploaded a comparison project we worked on where users of MS and Hydra kicked in a feature comparison against the Adaptronic.

You might want to update the pricing on that spreadsheet. :D

Done!

I added a section for the early models too.

I'd personally rather have the adaptronic.

Thats not excitement. Thats him doing something I have already said vendors should not do. Let people decide and debate amongst themselves which product is superior, when, and why. If he is confident in his product he has nothing to fear.

The best reason to get it, for the PNP, the rest of the features most can do without.

Please please dont go there, take the professional high road.

Calm down Sam. That was just in response to: :giggle: Which I think by all accounts my response was a laugh it off. Its just the Internets.

I was watching the thread for several days without saying anything, but someone who had never used an Adaptronic was just posting mis-information. You basically said they were the same in reliability, features, and performance when its just not the truth. There are big differences, and when do the differences matter? Would you use a link instead of an MS? Since your at a link maybe you would just downgrade to a powercard, or a J&S knock gaurd a twist of the CAS and an RRFPR. There are certainly people in each category that are looking up and down and judging what level of control is appropriate for them. Some may never use it, and some may fully utilize it.

I am all for people debating, but I have to stick up for my own product to some degree. I had the option of retailing any standalone on the market, and I picked this one: it didn't pick me. I believe it represents the finest motorsport engine management hardware for the money, and there are alot of people on this forum that think the same because they are running it.

+1

And........ I live in Europe and did not buy it from Travis but from my local retailer. Its a great product wich can control allmost anything you possibly want to control.

PNP is very nice.
I hooked it up, uploaded the ecufile, after that is was cranking and driving.

I didnt post any mis-information.

I never said anything about their reliability, which would be identical.
Features.I just stipulated that auto-tune might not be as useful as everyone thinks it is.
Performance? Do you mean which makes more power? It shouldnt matter, as long as you got fuel and air it doesnt matter which ECU you use.

Adaptronic is certainly the superior ECU, it would be ignorant for me to argue otherwise, but you also have to weigh the pro's and see if it justifys spending extra. Furthermore, I even said, if its an NB theres no reason not to spend money for it. If its an NA, then you gotta think harder.

I get the joke now, my bad.

I only know what I've seen on the forums, but the MS ECU's do seem to randomly go out, and users continue having problems with them years after the install. 2 years after my install the only thing I've had to worry about was whether or not to turn on my slow converge autotune or just straight closed loop.

In performance I'm talking about more how the two ECU's actually allow the car to perform better. Boost by gear, and traction control are serious advantages. On top of that the auto tune allows you to basically tune your car as if every trip to the dairy mart was a part throttle dyno tuning session without actually having to do ANYTHING at all. It evaluates the AFR and changes the map for you to suit the AFR you dialed in on the table without your laptop ever being hooked up. I'm always kind of excited to see what the ECU has done to my fuel map, and you should see my logs. My AFR's are usaully within .1 of the target. Its really beautiful :giggle:.

I think autotune is the best thing since sliced bread. Get in your car turn the ignition on, and drive your car. Let the ECU do the hardwork while you enjoy the reason you bought a Miata.

I swear that is a feature in Megasquirt, hence the name diyautotune.com of the vendor.

I can see pnp being the big plus. Datalogging on MS is easy anyway. There's no need to hand tune every row, it does the whole table for you. I would be interested in process power differences.

I looked over the whole website for autotune information. :dunno:

As near as I can tell, they are diyautotune because you build the MS yourself (DIY) and tune your auto.

Autotune is in there, just no one uses it because of MLV. In Megatune its in the realtime VE table options. Not the friendliest, but its there. But, to qualify for the spreadsheet, I believe you need to at a minimum, enable / disable with the laptop.

http://www.megamanual.com/megatune.htm#autotune

--Alex

I'm still waiting for someone using an Adaptronic with a turbo setup to use the spark autotune and post up the map it creates.

Its my understanding that autotune with ms is a function of megatune and not part of the ecus firmware itself. Thus requiring you to have your laptop plugged in any time you wish to use it. Adaptronic on the other hand only requires a laptop to enable autotune and can perform the function independent of the laptop from then on.

Sam's jealous, it's about as simple as it gets.

While the MS gets the job done, it's not the most elegant/robust solution. Autotune in MS is a joke, KnocksenseMS is a joke, it's EBC code is a joke, the 215*F temperature cap is a joke, the temperature corrections are a finicky at best, the barometric corrections never worked right for me, etc etc etc.

Half the code is experimental, and B&G simply ignores the fact or any suggestions/requests for fixes.

Sam please wash the sand out of your vagina and actually use valid points and wit.

I don't have one, but I'm more than a little concerned with the number of MS threads that include the words "I reflashed the firmware" or the advice "reflash your firmware." Sam says the reliability is the same. I call bullshit on that one. But I'm just a guy reading threads and taking notes for a future buy into one ECU or the other. I don't have a dog in this hunt, but the number of goofy issues that have to be resolved in MS by posters on this forum has already gotten my attention. New posts arise daily.

New problems daily with Adaptronic? Notsomuch. Granted, there are fewer users of the Adaptronic, but lets call a spade a spade for the sake of intellectual honesty.

Just an observation.

the second I get all my OBDII cycles run and let a shop plug into the port, I'll do it I swear.

Its been forever, what are you waiting for?!?! I will hold your welder hostage until you test!

In fact I might have it tested before you do at this point. I already received my adaptronic last week and am going to put it in very soon. You should give that spare knock sensor to scott so I can pick it up from him when we meet up next week for lunch, I'm picking up a wb at the same time. I've got everything ready to bolt up to the maita. Just waiting on some bends and vbands to make the exhaust and charge pipes.

want to build me a civic exhaust for the knock sensor and extended welder loan? I can provide a template and most of it's straight anyway... :)

We could just do it at your place on a weekend. Once I start this new job (eventually, they are dragging their feet with approvals and clearance) I will have weekends off for good!!!

Alas, this is off topic. ADAPTRONIC FTW and i haven't even installed it yet

To be fair, a lot most MS users don't bother to read the manual. Imagine if there was no do-it-yourself MS, you don't see many MSPNP issues besides the random settings issues. It's easy to setup improperly but most of the kinks had been worked out long ago, I've been rocking my MS for a few years now and I don't really have many complaints, I'd just like better code for closed loop stuff.

Mine has been running for 2 years straight without incident and the last time I had to adjust my fuel table was around May of last year.

Boost by gear is unnecessary unless you are racing on the track. Pretty useless on a street driven car and people have managed to make it thus far without it. Same goes for traction control, if you know how to launch your car and modulate the throttle you dont need traction control.

As for auto tuning, it shouldnt need to constantly tune. You tune once and you are done. If the ECU is constantly re-tuning that means something is wrong with your car that the AFR's are fluctuating. Nice feature to have, but beyond the initial and final tune, its pretty worthless. Its a nice to have, not a need to have.

Its there and it works, not perfectly, but MLV is faster.

---------

Simple fact, if you can justify the additional price for features of the adaptronic then get it. If not, then a MS is more then enough.

Don't be Gary and start defending the vendors.

My points are valid, and as you can see I can argue reasons for and against it. I even said I would buy it if I could justify it. If you had bothered to read carefully you would have seen that.

The only thing you said was [paraphrasing]it doesn't matter what ECU you use as long as you can get a good AFR.[/paraphrasing] But it was a poor argument at best.

it really goes beyond features, the code is better, the processor is better, it's more robust, it's simply a better ECU. Do they both work? yes. Any reason to crap on it? not really. Am I going to sell my MS for one? no. you're arguing about trivial shit.

Its a good argument, in the end thats all that matters. The rest is sugar coating.

i autotuned the hydra for years.


see there's this thing about 3D maps. you're not in every cell just by driving the car once. and then you raise the boost. and then you change injectors.

that's why OEMs make their shit adaptive too.

oh and the adaptronic has a function that sets tuned cells to "tuned" and locks them in after it feels they're within the proper tolerance. they turn green

anyway I been driving my car for several days and the whole map is not green.

I am looking forward to hearing this success story. It's pretty much the only thing that I'm waiting on to dump my Hydra and make the switch myself.

Getting my new MAP sensor from Travis sometime next week. So far it starts and idles. Drove on the stock injectors. No complaints so far about the adaptronic, even though I've been having MAP sensor issues from day one, which has NOTHING to do with it.

Wait till auto-tune screws up and air-france's your engine, I would never trust a computer to think for me.

Yet you do it daily.

Irony you say? No, just a stupid generalization.

A computer can only be trusted to perform a repeating task over and over and taking into account reliable data, when your o2 sensor fails it better be smart enough to know. Does the adapatronic stop tuning when it detects that engine load and AFR dont make sense? What about when the knock sensor fails and it keeps advancing your spark?


If it is smart enough to know, I stand corrected.

If you use the serial port the adaptronic will stop tuning and switch to open loop if the sensor fails. I also have an LC-1 with a light put in to flash when its running incorrectly as well for backup.

As far as spark tuning the adaptive functions do have a programable maximum in, but knocksensors usaully don't fail. You have to have some common sense when using any piece of hardware. When you tune spark it would be good to understand what deto sounds like. If your car suddenly drops in power and begins surging your next instinct should not be to hammer down and "blow the carbon" out of it. It also only increases timing if it senses more torque is available by doing so. It is unlikely it would go all the way to the user set limit.

Before you decide what to do measure the actual backpressures with a boost gauge.

I didnt know the LC1 sends a error back through its serial cable that something is wrong. All I know is that it will just produce the same reading based on how you set it up.

you can set the sensitivity of the autotuning algorithm based on RPM and MAP stability and if it is not held steady in both for a specific amount of time, it wont tune the cell.

assuming load/afr values dont make sense means you're pretty fucked even without autotune doesn't it? I think that's irrelevant. ie if your 100% mechanically controlled injection loses a vac line and thinks you're at 100kPa when you're at 300kPa, does it matter if you can autotune or not?

the system is way more flexible than at least the Hydra in that regard. the hydra will go happily on autotuning when your car is at a CLT of 0C and screw up all your cells (think fighting a coolant enrichment of 20%). at least the Adaptronic has a temp window.

but lets keep this in perspective. no engine management can do it all on its own if you're a retard. suggesting that because the adaptronic doesn't have a sixth sense it's a POS is a little extreme.

pretty sure the megasquirt doesn't have the features you want either.

^ Nah, im not suggesting sixth sense, but everything you have mentioned so far I do not disagree with. If it does everything you say then that's freaking sweet, and I stand corrected.

As for the MS's features, I have no need for anything else beyond EBC which works, and launch control which I use as a valet switch.

Just to be clear when I mentioned traction control I wasn't talking about launch control. The Adaptronic has input for two speed sensors so it can do real traction control and you can adjust the slip angle on the fly. :D Handy when it rains 300 days a year.

One of the reasons I went MS back in 06 - is the serial protocol for this ECU open?

Jim

I think they use Modbus.
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but that may be only for extracting data and, unfortunately, disabled in beta firmware/software.

Just to be clear, when I mentioned traction control I meant learn how to drive.

The adaptronic destroys the MS-I for injector resolution (about 100 times faster), however the MS-II beats it slightly in both categories....

I would like to believe that the Adaptronic does not have a processor speed of 200Hz, yes?

Jim

that's what it rates its "main loop speed"