Megasquirt vs ME221
 

I am in the market for a standalone. I have narrowed my search to these two; however, I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with both units. If so which would you recommend?

what car and what setup will you run?

Lol.

ms.

every last time.

Dann

Why would that matter? The answer is Megasquirt.

Anyone doing a miata build in modern times should just go MS.

The only people who have an excuse for running a non MS ecu are the people who built their cars like 20 years ago when MS wasn't a thing yet.

Two main reasons:
1) MS is good and has been good for a long time
2) MS is widely adopted and there's tons of info about making it work. If you have questions, you can just google up answers or start a thread here and get an answer in 10 minutes.

Almost no one has any experience with ME221 because it's mediocre even by the standards of 20 years ago, it's expensive and it's sold by only one vendor.

Also, pretty much every ECU that isn't the MS is going to have a very thin knowledge base. I only use a non-MS ecu because I went turbo in the early 2000s and my original setup still works and I know it well. So I can't be bothered spending a few months and over a thousand bucks switching to a new ECU and new sensors. But if you're starting off from scratch it's retarded not to go MS.

ME221 is a trash product sold by trash people. It's not even a contest.

just because if it's a 1.6 the choice of pnp ecu is wider and there might be something that fits his needs/budget :)

There is a Megasquirt that PNPs on 1.6 cars, you are correct.

I meant something ELSE other than the 2 he was asking about.

Y tho?

AND it's not trash?

Some people like the challenge of making trash work ALMOST like the half decent stuff.

those people are called masochists :likecat:

To those people i ask: Who hurt you?

and deserve respect like everyone else.

OP read this: https://www.miataturbo.net/hydra-58/...p-hydra-91029/

Good thread. Good times.

nope.
special Olympics and participation trophies are not awarded around here.

Good times indeed. I love giving it a read every now and then for a laugh.

Fun fact; it would appear that our good friend Matt has created another wonderful bespoke ECU for the Rocketeer V6 conversions, called the ME442R. "It's been about 5 years of hard work" to quote the man himself.

Jump to 7:00 for the good stuff:

Show me on this ECU where the bad engineer hurt you.

5 years of hard work for an ECU used on a swap that's been around for 2 or less.

The math checks out.

Slightly off topic, but why on earth would anyone go through the trouble and expenses to fit a V6, plus aftermarket intake, exhaust and ECU only to make 230hp at the crank?

Ask this guy: https://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=675023

YES.

he's including the years of megasquirt development he ripped off :)

Ruin my joke again and i'll never lovingly jam pieces of fried breaded cheese into your mouth with my bare fingers again.

:bowrofl: sari bae

Wonder what do people smoke these days.

Well that was a fun read. Even more fun when I realized that FM doesn't even sell that ecu anymore.

The Rocketeer kit to do that is about £7200 ($9200 USD), plus finding a used Jag v6.. :rofl:

Unless you have information that isn't publicly available, it's £6k/$8k (plus the AJ 3.0).

As to the appeal, it's (allegedly) a turnkey kit.

£5995 + 20% local sales tax, from their online shop... Other locations may have different amounts of sales tax..

Whoops, forgot about the VAT bullshit you blokes have to deal with. Soz.

so you deleted Alex_me posts for no reason?

his post:

No, he was banned for being a known cat rapist and non-buoyant douche canoe.



Also for promoting a product and not being a vendor.

And I get downvoted for having an FM221 and liking it? This place sometimes, man, and me a "Proud Supporter" and everything.

That is a little harsh. It is okay for people to like things that I do not like. I would not want everyone to be trying to stand in line for the same things I want.

Why is the ME221 even an option over a adaptronic or AEM or Haltech or others? We all know MS is top choice as it is great and well educated. It's hilarious you would even consider a ME221 over any other option.

Not cool dude. I was very impressed by the service provided by everyone @ Trackspeed. Guess what, I also I'm very impressed by the service provided by FM. I have owned Miatas since 2001, and made my first FM parts purchase in 2002. I'm still a satisfied FM customer, same as I'm a satisfied Trackspeed customer.

I do not agree that FM should have vested themselves in the FM221, but it's not like they ask me if they should. On that one, I voted with my wallet and got an MS3.

The Cardells and the rest of the FM peeps are not trash. Frankly, that's a below the belt punch, in my book.

Fairly certain he was aiming that at ME, not FM. Context matters.

Dann

Here's something I posted back in 2013 about MS and other choices for a Miata, it could give the OP an idea about what I feel about engine management comparisons...
(Bold edits are what I added this time around)

******
I found a great deal on an almost new supercharger setup when I decided to boost my car back in late 2008.
(For the record, I had always wanted a supercharger back then - it's a personal preference, not because one form of FI is better than the other)

Well, the whole setup arrived, and it had a powercard system for engine management.
I proceeded to tune the powercards to the best of my ability, and made some horrendous mistakes along the way. Trial and error gave me fairly decent running car eventually.

Yes, the powercard system was adequate, even fine - at pretty low boost settings. One disclaimer to this end is this: I installed a pretty extensive port water injection system as a precaution.

Later, in my quest for more boost and power, I started looking into a standalone engine management solution, meaning, the stock ECU would be taken out of the car, and a new, "customizable" ECU would be installed and tuned correctly.

Let me emphasize one thing here: my engine did not blow up. Not even once, not even a tiny bit.
But, there comes a time when you just know you have outgrown an entry level system with inherent limitations.
God knows what EGTs I was running for instance. Or, how much I was wasting in terms of power, or gas mileage...
And, I was no longer running 6 psi of boost. I went up to 8, then 10, then 12 , all the way up to 16.5 eventually.

I pulled the trigger for an MSII right around the time I was at 10 psi.

Just shot an email to Reverant, and asked for help. A Paypal payment accompanied my email.
Reverant is an amazing source, a very unerstanding guy, a great vendor, and an overall electronics god. Praise be with Rev... Really.

Meanwhile, I was absolutely terrified with the idea of installing a standalone in my car. That thing could send my engine to outer space if I got it wrong. I had no idea whatsoever about anything related to MS and tuning an engine from scratch.

So, the box arrived at my doorstep, and I promptly placed it on the top shelf of my bookcase, and left it there for the next month or so. I looked at it everyday, and tried to muster the guts to actually install it in my beloved car.

After tons of reading and begging for help on this forum, I went out to my car and just installed the thing.
I turned the key, and Booom.. The car fired up and settled into a nice idle. That was a great moment.
Rev sends you a form, you fill it out, and then he loads/sets all the basics in the MS for you.
The rest was an incredibly steep learning curve. I just kept playing around with ALL the settings. I would first save the tune to my PC inside the house (to keep it safe) and then just have at it whenever I found some time.
That led to some incredible discoveries. With the MS, you have TOTAL control over how your car behaves. It can be a sweet kitty cat, a hound dog, or a fierce beast, or a combination of all those. I achieved a very sweet balance where I get great MPG on steady cruise, and a shrieking monster that lunges at anything that could be ahead of it coming out of turn 14 on the F1 track in Istanbul.
The whole learning bit took maybe a year. I took my time.
Rev ran to my rescue when I had problems.
The coolest thing about MS is Autotune. It's not a cure for cancer, or stupidity, but it really does wonders to your ability to understand and actually accomplish the magic that is called tuning.

So, your budget may dictate brand X at this very moment. Does not matter. Just know that you will drive a better car that responds better to your inputs with a proper standalone. And that, you will eventually end up with an MS sometime down the line. Deciding when that "sometime" is going to be is up to you.
But, I would make that real soon if I were you.
Don't turn your driving into a struggle. Get an MS, and just enjoy the hell out of it.

******

For the record, my opinion has not changed at all since I posted this 5 years ago.

It would be, if I had punched FM at all, which I didn't.

FM announced via email that they were ceasing sales of the FM221 on May 3rd. I made my comment on August 5th. I also specifically stated ME221, not FM221.

IOW, when I made my statement, FM didn't sell ME221 boxes.

I stand by the statement on the date I made it. Specifically, the individuals at Motorsport Electronics and M-Tech have proven themselves to be unscrupulous, lying shitheels, undeserving of a single dime of this community's money. As someone who has had his product designs ripped off on multiple occasions, I have a deep-seeded hatred towards people who do that, and as such, I wouldn't piss on ME if they were on fire.

ME sells ME221.

FM sold FM221.

ME sold ME221 very slightly tweaked to FM to be sold as FM221.

Everyone who sells/sold ME221 is trash.

My apologies for the misunderstading. Carry on!
Understood. I honestly thought that it was simply a marketing change, I wasn't aware that the products were actually different.

PS: Please keep giving me negative cats, aiming for -1,000, as I HATE those sand box pooping stinkers!

It would seem most people calling the ME chips 'trash' are American and also had no experience with them.
Assuming you're the kind who don't like 'change' and stick to what you know?

It's not change at all. It's a ripoff of what we've been using for years produced by someone with a long history of ripping off the product we've been using for years. That's the problem.

You didn't read the thread, did you?

Not all change is good...

Just spotted the Rocketeer video linked above - Rocketeer have since had a rather large falling out with ME and are no longer supplying their ECUs as part of their kits.

Fix'd (and that's half-true, take Rocketeer as an example)

Most people who have a problem with the ME are actually bothered by the immoral and possibly illegal activities of its progenitor. Although a few have pointed to its comparative lesser quality and more limited functionality. I assume you either don't know about the shady dealings, don't care, or are receiving compensation yourself. If you simply own one and are trying to justify having given your money to thieves for an inferior product by saying everyone else is out to get you, I feel bad for you. But it is still not nice to represent it as a good choice for others.

:laugh:

The answer is of course to build a speeduino.
🤣😅😂