Why is Adaptronic better than Megasquirt?

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Old 01-03-2014, 03:46 AM
  #101  
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I really like my Adaptronic Select. I used to have an E420C and it was way more advanced than the MegaSquirt at the time, but these days the E420C is getting a bit long in the tooth (can't do flex fuel for example).

I can't speak for everywhere but in Australia the Adaptronic has really good support and my tuner only touches cars that have a MoTeC or Adaptronic, I think that says a lot.

If you like to nerd it up and play with the algorithms and **** then the MegaSquirt may fit the bill, but I'm not too keen on contributing to something with such a shitty license dictating what hardware you need to run your own code on.
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Old 01-03-2014, 04:01 AM
  #102  
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Table size does not = table resolution.

Have a read of this:
Megasquirt MSEXTRA / MS3EFI • Table resolution and size (View topic)

Granted it's from the MS forum, but it should help imporove your knowledge. Unless there is a large change in engine VE a breakpoint in the table is pretty pointless.

Just take a look at concealers map. load 62.8 to 78.2 at 3000rpm.

You have a change there of exactly 1. There is no reason whatsoever to have a breakpoint in the middle, it's a linear change and the cells are interpolated in-between. You could halve the number of breakpoints in that table and the car would drive 100% exactly the same.

It just makes life more difficult.

Now if concealers car ran to 15000rpm and make 30+psi of boost I could see the need for all those breakpoints. But on an MX5? Pointless.
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Old 01-03-2014, 09:35 AM
  #103  
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Originally Posted by triple88a
That people are cheap. Take a look at how many people pick the MS because its cheap.. For gods sake theres people on this forum that have specifically looked for MS1 because they dont wanna penny up for an MS2..
What about the rest of us that run MS3x and MS3pro?
Even the diypnp and mspnp2 are 600+ so I wouldn't exactly call those people cheap either.
Originally Posted by timk
I really like my Adaptronic Select. I used to have an E420C and it was way more advanced than the MegaSquirt at the time, but these days the E420C is getting a bit long in the tooth (can't do flex fuel for example).

I can't speak for everywhere but in Australia the Adaptronic has really good support and my tuner only touches cars that have a MoTeC or Adaptronic, I think that says a lot.

If you like to nerd it up and play with the algorithms and **** then the MegaSquirt may fit the bill, but I'm not too keen on contributing to something with such a shitty license dictating what hardware you need to run your own code on.
This means absolutely nothing, sorry. There is literally nothing the adaptronic offers over the ms3, and I'm talking about your fancy new "select" too, the e420 is outdated already compared to current MS'
Originally Posted by richyvrlimited
Table size does not = table resolution.

Have a read of this:
Megasquirt MSEXTRA / MS3EFI • Table resolution and size (View topic)

Granted it's from the MS forum, but it should help imporove your knowledge. Unless there is a large change in engine VE a breakpoint in the table is pretty pointless.

Just take a look at concealers map. load 62.8 to 78.2 at 3000rpm.

You have a change there of exactly 1. There is no reason whatsoever to have a breakpoint in the middle, it's a linear change and the cells are interpolated in-between. You could halve the number of breakpoints in that table and the car would drive 100% exactly the same.

It just makes life more difficult.

Now if concealers car ran to 15000rpm and make 30+psi of boost I could see the need for all those breakpoints. But on an MX5? Pointless.
This man speaks the TRUTH

I've tuned my fair share of modern and very powerful OEM Ecu's, and none of them have 250rpm or 35kpa breakpoints. Those cars run smooth as butter, precise as a scalpel, and make big power to boot.
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Old 01-03-2014, 09:46 AM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by richyvrlimited
Table size does not = table resolution.

Have a read of this:
Megasquirt MSEXTRA / MS3EFI • Table resolution and size (View topic)

Granted it's from the MS forum, but it should help imporove your knowledge. Unless there is a large change in engine VE a breakpoint in the table is pretty pointless.

Just take a look at concealers map. load 62.8 to 78.2 at 3000rpm.

You have a change there of exactly 1. There is no reason whatsoever to have a breakpoint in the middle, it's a linear change and the cells are interpolated in-between. You could halve the number of breakpoints in that table and the car would drive 100% exactly the same.

It just makes life more difficult.

Now if concealers car ran to 15000rpm and make 30+psi of boost I could see the need for all those breakpoints. But on an MX5? Pointless.


I've gone on record before saying that ECUs such as this and the Hydra i had on this car previously are completely unnecessary on Miatas. I'm in agreement with everything you've said.


The fact of the matter is that i don't tune this car myself, have no ambition to do so, never will, and my tuner also happens to be my Haltech dealer.

Even if i were to do the tuning myself, i still feel that Haltech has a couple unique advantages for me specifically, but i'd be hard pressed to NOT go with Megasquirt at that point.

This is the second car i've used a PS1000 on. The first is a car that if i ever get off my *** and put another motor in it, will be spinning 11,000rpms, so the extra "unnecessary" size/resolution is welcome. It was just a logical step to put the same ECU on a second car, otherwise i'd end up with 4 cars running 3 different tuning solutions, and that just sounds annoying.

It's also more reasonably priced than you'd think, and flex fuel is easy mode. (The other reason i went with it.)
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:04 AM
  #105  
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Originally Posted by concealer404

The fact of the matter is that i don't tune this car myself, have no ambition to do so, never will, and my tuner also happens to be my Haltech dealer.
Even if i were to do the tuning myself, i still feel that Haltech has a couple unique advantages for me specifically, but i'd be hard pressed to NOT go with Megasquirt at that point.
This is a very big thing, and one most people don't realize: this way he not only makes money off you twice, but also gets to tune something he is super familiar with and knows he can do a good job.

This is a big reason many tuners won't touch megasquirt, and mandate a specific ecu they know: There are so many variations of MS, so many different ways to set it up, and so many different routes to take setting up one to work properly, and these tuners don't want to waste days or possibly even weeks learning all this crap.

Its just a matter of "sticking to what you know", and not as much one product being better than the other.

IMO
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:10 AM
  #106  
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For the record, he did say he was up to tuning a Megasquirt car for me, but it was worth MY money to get HIS best.

This guy isn't getting rich off of me, though. Never seen anyone charge so little for tuning this good.
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:10 AM
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Originally Posted by 18psi
This means absolutely nothing, sorry. There is literally nothing the adaptronic offers over the ms3, and I'm talking about your fancy new "select" too, the e420 is outdated already compared to current MS'
To be fair the e1280s looks on paper to be amazingly powerful and does have a few + points over and above a MS3 + MS3x combo.

I like the feature where you can code in the tuning software any available or combination of variables you want, that's not yet currently available on MS - but it is mooted to be appearing at some point in the future.

It's not something I'd ever understand let alone use though.

Here in the UK, the support seems to be pretty good, one guy's ECU completely burnt out and they replaced it FOC with the updated select version.

Concealer, I wasn't having a dig at you/your ECU, was just using it as an example.
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:11 AM
  #108  
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Originally Posted by richyvrlimited

Concealer, I wasn't having a dig at you/your ECU, was just using it as an example.

Oh i know. Not even mad.
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:21 AM
  #109  
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Originally Posted by timk
I can't speak for everywhere but in Australia the Adaptronic has really good support and my tuner only touches cars that have a MoTeC or Adaptronic, I think that says a lot.
It says they are primadonna fucksticks who can't bother to learn other systems.

I've run all of the following on my miata with turbo:
Electromotive Tec3
Hydra EMS
Adaptronic 420C
Megasquirt 3X

And guess which one I found easiest to get tuned and which had the best support when I needed it? MS.

Now the car ran great on all four because I am a decent home tuner who can figure things out (unlike timk's counterclockwise toilet crew). There were some features not present on the earlier systems (VVT) or that were harder to tune on some (boost) and only the Hydra really ever did a decent job of alternator control (sort of), but over time, the only one that has expanded its capabilities to meet or exceed the requirements of a fully functional turbo miata built in 2001 was the MS3X.

Did I notice a difference between the Hydra's 32x32 and the Adaptronic's whatever by whatever and the megasquirt's 16x16? Yeah. I could put the values in the MS where I needed them. This was most useful around idle (oh did I mention you get your own separate 4x4 table for that??) and VVT transitions. Otherwise I didn't notice a performance difference.

Having more cells does not equate to higher dyno numbers, higher reliability, or higher mpg UNLESS YOU INTEND TO TUNE THEM for that last 2%. I promise there are only maybe MAYBE 2 people on this site who come close to that. And they are likely going to spend a lot more on engine management than the rest of us--by an order of magnitude.

The only issue I'd say MS3x has (not MS3 pro) is mechanical reliability, but at this price point, that's pretty universal. My Adaptronic harness connectors were crappy as **** and coming apart too. But again, if you need that reliability, you have to shell out a lot more money.

You can get what you want (perceive to be best) but in the long run, you will likely want the thing that you can get most easily tuned by yourself or your local shops. If you intend to come to miataturbo.net for help, get what we run.
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Old 01-03-2014, 11:34 AM
  #110  
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This question is simple. Who will be tuning your car? If you're tuning yourself, MS3. If someone else is tuning it, get whatever they are most comfortable with.
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Old 01-03-2014, 10:07 PM
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Originally Posted by 18psi
What about the rest of us that run MS3x and MS3pro?
Even the diypnp and mspnp2 are 600+ so I wouldn't exactly call those people cheap either.
Compare apples to apples man... You cant compare brand new model (ms3) to a 4 year old 420c. Travis (the only miata adaptronic dealer) still wants ~1300 bucks for a 420c while MS2s are half that.

That said if i hadnt gotten lied to about "passing emissions with adaptronic" i would have definitely gone with MS2 for the support.
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Old 01-04-2014, 08:08 PM
  #112  
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Originally Posted by triple88a
Compare apples to apples man... You cant compare brand new model (ms3) to a 4 year old 420c. Travis (the only miata adaptronic dealer) still wants ~1300 bucks for a 420c while MS2s are half that.

That said if i hadnt gotten lied to about "passing emissions with adaptronic" i would have definitely gone with MS2 for the support.
MS3 was running engines in 2009. It went on sale to the public in 2010. I'd say you can totally compare the two products.
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Old 01-04-2014, 08:23 PM
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Ill sell my e420c with 99 harness if someone wants it.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:05 AM
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Originally Posted by y8s
MS3 was running engines in 2009. It went on sale to the public in 2010. I'd say you can totally compare the two products.
PNP MS3s still arent on the market for miatas unless i'm blind and cant see the listing on the diyautotune website.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:08 AM
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Originally Posted by triple88a
PNP MS3s still arent on the market for miatas unless i'm blind and cant see the listing on the diyautotune website.
Rev and Brain have been making pnp ms3's since I got one for my current car quite a while ago.

Since when was DIYautotune the only place to buy a megasquirt?

They're usually the 1st ones to stock components and like 1-2 years behind everyone else with PNP units.
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Old 01-05-2014, 04:17 AM
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Originally Posted by triple88a
PNP MS3s still arent on the market for miatas unless i'm blind and cant see the listing on the diyautotune website.
Basic MS3 for the 01-05 and MSM:



Basic MS3 for the 90-00:

Attached Thumbnails Why is Adaptronic better than Megasquirt?-basic_ms3_v21.jpg   Why is Adaptronic better than Megasquirt?-basic_ms3_v22_90_00.jpg  
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Old 01-05-2014, 05:09 AM
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Prices for pnps?
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Old 01-05-2014, 05:19 AM
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Will PM anyone interested. Prices change on a weekly basis due to exchange rates being all over the place. Also, all MS3 components have gone up in '14 (B&G increased their price).
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Old 01-19-2014, 02:00 AM
  #119  
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I ended up getting an Adaptronic unit as the only Miata shop I know said their mechanics have had nothing but problems with the MS stuff. I saw on Adaptronic's FB they are about to release some new firmware too;

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Old 01-19-2014, 05:40 AM
  #120  
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Hopefully the new firmware is better than V10. Had nothing but issues with that one.
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