i dont recall having to use a Tach Out jumper. I just used this "Route 4 (yellow/blue) to 5 (black/white) (connects ECU directly to tachometer at gauge cluster)" at the old ignitor connector.

Which version of the mspnp pro are you using. That will determine where your tach output is.

Megasquirt Support Forum (MSEXTRA) ? Tach output mspnp pro (View topic)

I just put together a build with a VVT in a '90-'93 using a pnppro. I jumped the wires per this thread, and I had to put a jumper in the ms to get tach signal.

Don't go installing jumpers willy nilly. Thats how you blow stuff up. I'm guessing the jumper is for a tach pullup. Some setups may need it others may not.

Ok, so I jumpered J5, which should have been for 95.5 & later, but it gave me tach signal, so I thought I was good.

It looks like I should have got the connector for "connector 3" and repinned tach out from pin 2D?

I HAVE been having intermittent starting issues that I haven't been able to nail down. Perhaps related? I wonder if I've fried anything...

**EDIT**

This wiring setup works. I got my tune working, and my starting issues are gone.


OK, so shame on me for giving poor advice. I wired the igniter per the instructions in this thread, with the black/white wire (5) to the blue/yellow wire (4). When I first started the car, I got no rpm signal in the dash. I then added the jumper for tach out on pin 4I, and it gave me RPM signal in the dash.
The MS instructions state:" J5: Tach Out on Connector J3, Pin 4I (1995.5+ Miata Only)
When this jumper is installed, the signal TACHOUT will be transmitted on pin 4I on the main ECU connector (J3). This should only be used on 95.5 1.8L Miatas."

So I did that. I am sending TACHOUT though the black/white wire (ECU pin 2I) to the blue/yellow wire.

many questions:
1) Is this jacked & wrong?
2) Why did I get no RPM signal without the jumper, but did get RPM signal with the jumper?
3) Could this be the culprit driving my intermittent no-start issue?
4) If I've fried something, where should I start looking?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c3c270606c.png
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...36ee3fb430.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e1e53e717f.png

lets back up here. you are mixing years with this. the ignitor is on a 90-93 car and you are jumping wires like its a 95.5 and newer??

That's correct. I'm using a 9093 PNPPRO in a 9093 car. I swapped in a VVT motor and GM D585 coils. I got no RPM signal without the jumper, and do get RPM signal with the jumper in place.

Hey guys, I'm neck deep in a 04 VVT swap into my 90 NA. There's a few things I'm looking for help with or want clarity on for where I am with it right now.

1) I have a 94-97 alternator, what pulley and belt combo do I run? Ive got the 01-05 pulleys on it now and am not running power steering or A/C

2) I have a 90-93 fuel pressure regulator with a modified 99-00 fuel rail. Am I better off to go with an adjustable fuel pressure regulator?

3) I purchased VVTuner and assoc. wiring from DIYPNP to run with my original 1.6 ECU. Can anyone tell me what exactly I need to keep from the 1.6 for this? Just CAS and TPS? I didnt seem to see a lot of info about VVTuner while skimming through the thread

4) I dont have the VVT coils and and wires. What should I do? It says the 1.6 coils capable as per flyinmiata instructions..? Will I need to reroute VVT oil feed to do so?
Would the Fab9 COP be a good investment? https://fab9tuning.com/fab9tuning-pl...onversion-kit/

5) Can I get more info on the VVT oil feed that runs from the back of the engine interfering with the coils?

6) VTCS system butterflys on the intake manifold. Chop and JB weld over them?

1- Use the stock belt for that. should work just fine. so long as everything is matched up as multirib belts.
2- stock fpr will be fine. if you are boosting the engine, then why not get an adjustable
3- i believe you need to run the VVT cam and crank sensor to the VVT controller? Does it not give you any info in the install instructions?
4-Fab 9 is NEVER a good investment
5- Leave it alone
6- getting rid of them seems to be a good idea. im sure there is a solid writeup on it somewhere.

I apologize for how much of a layman I am a bout to be, but I have read over so many forums and threads attempting to gather info to get going on s vvt swap and am still super confused.

I'm looking to swap an 04 engine into my 95, something that I really have not seen many people do (it seems that everyone is swapping into a 1.6, obd2 1.8, or an nb1). In addition I have seen so many conflicting points on pretty much all aspects of the swap regarding wiring, namely the route of engine management. my most pertinent concern is oem ecu vs pnp. I am aware that this thread was created under the assumption that you are employing a pnp, but I also have not seen any mention of the VVTuner and how that plays into things. Other threads on other forums have lead me to believe that my stock 95 ecu will suffice for the swap, and even diyautotune has told me that the VVTuner will work with a stock ecu if a place the NA CAS on the exahust cam. The issue is I don't have enough funds to comfortably pick up all the hardware to drop in a pnp, nor do I have the time to have my car down for an extended period of time (I'm leaving off for college in 3 and a half months). I want to do this swap properly so that I have a good reliable car that will run without having to tinker constantly. I am not going to be tracking the car, just a weekend cruise sort of thing, so I really do not want or need that extra power and efficiency that the pnp offers, I'm really trying to avoid that if I can.

I apologize for how much of a layman I am about to be, but I have read over so many forums and threads attempting to gather info to get going on s vvt swap and am still super confused.

I'm looking to swap an 04 engine into my 95, something that I really have not seen many people do (it seems that everyone is swapping into a 1.6, obd2 1.8, or an nb1). In addition I have seen so many conflicting points on pretty much all aspects of the swap regarding wiring, namely the route of engine management. My most pertinent concern is oem ecu vs pnp. I am aware that this thread was created under the assumption that you are running a pnp, but I also have not seen any mention of the VVTuner and how that plays into things. Other threads on other forums have lead me to believe that my stock 95 ecu will suffice for the swap, and even diyautotune has told me that the VVTuner will work with a stock ecu if I place the NA CAS on the exahust cam. The issue is I don't have enough funds to comfortably pick up all the hardware to drop in a pnp, nor do I have the time to have my car down for an extended period of time (I'm leaving off for college in 3 and a half months). I want to do this swap properly so that I have a good reliable car that will run without having to tinker constantly. I am not going to be tracking the car, just a weekend cruise sort of thing, so I really do not want or need that extra power and efficiency that the pnp offers, I'm really trying to avoid that if I can.

Your OEM ECU will not run a VVT motor properly. not even with a VVTuner. VVTuner is for MS2 users or 99-00 guys who want a VVT head. You are neither of those.

If you want to continue discussion, please do it in another thread - this thread is specifically for standalone users swapping VVT motors into NA chassis.

Then why bother at all?

That is the exact reason I asked; if the standalone is something that is required to make the swap proper then I would prefer not to do the swap. Rather, save up until I could be in a position where I could do the swap completely. I was under the impression that the swap could be done with the 95 ecu, so I wanted to verify before I was neck deep in a project that would not work to the level I thought it would. I appreciate the feedback and I'll be back when I have the required materials in hand.

Hey fellas. Got a 90 car, with a straitified MSPNP (came with the car). Their PNP is basically a microsquirt. I just finished swapping the car and harness, and I'm not getting crank/cam signal. However, in their ECU, I only see 99-00 and 4G63 nothing for 01+. So just to clarify, I need to get the VVT Tuner? And once I do that, which trigger settings do I select?

Miata 99-00 *should* run the car. But it wont be able to control the VVT.

Hmm strange. One other thing I was not able to do was the actual crank sensor wiring. The reason being is on my VVT harness, the connector was busted. I have the connector on the sensor side, but not the other end. I just jammed pins into it.

So from the crank sensor, I have Red/Blue/Black. Red has the W/R, Black has the Black/Blue, and Blue has the signal wire. I checked all of that, and it should be right, don't understand why I don't have anything in my trigger logs whatsoever.

This may or may not help your situation, but I swapped a 99 engine into my 93 initially using the 93 computer, using the old CAS. I later switched to a diypnp (microsquirt), but still kept the CAS (4G63). When I later swapped to a VVT motor, I kept the CAS to keep things simple, and used a an extra output to trigger the VVT on/off, like VTEC. I eventually added the Vvtuner, and ran the cam and crank sensor solely to the vvtuner and kept the CAS connected to the diypnp. I've had issues with the cam sensor heat soaking in traffic which made the vvt go crazy at idle, so for reliability purposes, I plan on keeping the CAS in place to run the engine, and use the hall sensors just for vvt control so if I do have an issue, I can just unplug the vvt solenoid and the car will still run ok and won't leave me stranded.

Dear Fellow enigne swappers :P,

I've been test driving my VVT(from a british 2003 wreck) swapped 91 and I came across the famous engine stall issue. After doing quite some searching on various forums.
This is what I've been doing:
- driving for about 15 minutes or so. Then I got on a long road where I was cruising at 70km/h. Suddenly the engine dies.
- towed it home
- replaced crank position sensor.
- Went driving again
- same thing happened
- pushed it home ( luckely it was on the way home :P)
- replaced cam position sensor
- and as of yesterday the same god damn thing happened again.

My tach isn't working aswell :P
I'm running a megasquirt PNPPRO for the 90-93 miata from DIYautotune with the 01-05 basemap.
Any ideas what might be causing these problems?

Kind Regards,
Cedric

You replaced the crank sensor on the crank pulley? I believe it's the cam sensor on the back of the intake cam that's notorious for overheating and dieing.

Yes I did replace both sensors. And it only happens when it gets to hot I guess. Cooling it down with frozen water didn't help :P. Is there any fix for this.

Wackbards, weren't you the one also having issues with the tach output ? I believe it had something to do with the jumper? Is your tach working now ?

Kind Regards,
Cedric

I had a bad cam sensor, and a bad tune, both of which are resolved now. I did wire it and jumper the pnppro as documented in my post a few posts up in this thread. I have tach signal.

The bad tune, was it the basemap ? and are you on Rising or Falling edge now ?

Thank you for your responses.

My map wasn't a base map, and my tune issues were just bad cranking fueling. I don't remember if it's set to rising or falling edge. None of those should make your car die suddenly when hot. That sounds like cam sensor failure that lots of people have experienced.

Thank you for your answere. I'll try and fix my tach problem now.
Just a quick side not/question: I noticed that my oil pressure keeps going to max on accel. And after driving lets say 10 minutes it goes until a little bit before 6kg/cm3. On cruising its at 4kg/cm3.
I use the 1.6 oil pressure sensor. Is it normal for a 1.8 to have higher oilpressure ?

Kind Regards,
Cedric

Ok so I installed the jumper. In test mode I have a working tachometer but when I try to start the car it does nothing. Also the fuel pump does not prime and the composite logger only shows signals for 2 engine cycles or so.
This is really strange. Any ideas why this is happening?

Kind Regards,
Cedric

Have you looked into the main relay?

Main relay will cause the fuel pump not to prime, but it also powers virtually everything in the engine. So if possible, I'd check for power at the injectors, and see if anything changes.

Ok so I figured out quite a lot of problems. The sensors have been behaving absolutely superb recently without ever having the need to pull over and replace them with my spare ones.
The reason why the fuel pump didn't prime is because the wires on the ecu connector for the Cam angle sensor and the cranck angle sensor weren't making a good enough connection ( when the engine ran, I played with the wires, wiggeling the around, and noticed that as soon as I even slightly touched the cam and crank sensor wires the engine hikkuped or stalled.) so I put on new pins and it now works great.
I can now drive for 20 minutes on the highway without a problem.

Another issue was that the engine wouldn't turn of when I turned the key to the off position. The previous owner jumped a wire from the 12v wire of the ecu to the engine relay under the driver side dash. After removing that the engine would shut off as normal.

Thank you sooo much for helping me. It's a pleasure to be in this community.

Kind Regards,
Cedric

It's always a mess when others have made unknown modifications to a harness. Good work figuring it out.

Can I just drop the entire front sub-frame with engine, transmission and steering rack from an NB2 and plop it into an NA shell?
I don't have a problem re-wiring what's needed, but are there any mechanical issues I would be facing?
Also: If I swap over the rear sub-frame, can I reuse my NB exhaust? I understand I'll need different headers, but my midpipe and exhaust should fit- correct?

No on reusing the exhaust. At least not without major modification. The body and hang points are completely different between the NA and NB.

I thought the muffler part is just suspended from the rear subframe. May be wrong though.

Can anybody verify this is acceptable for a VVT head on a NA8 block? My DIYPNP was happy with just the CAS. Will megasquirt get any benefit from seeing cam and crank signal?

EDIT: I know it's redundant, I'm just worried about using the VVTuner's pass through mode or CAS simulation as I have seen reports of these features giving others problems.

Its acceptable but depending on how much power you're leaving on the table with a conservative spark map you could be leaving decent power on the table. You get spark scatter with the CAS which means you have to run less timing to avoid knocking, get rid of the scatter and you can run more timing.

Can I get you guys to give me a quick check through before I tear into my Miata and do something stupid. I'll outline everything I'm going to do to swap it. Literally everything. So if you don't see a step here, assume I'm an idiot, because I am.

1. Swap over Water Pump, Pulley, and Alternator + belt. (I have a lose nose 1.6L). FM says this should work.
2. Use the motor mount brackets that came on my VVT with my 1.6L Hybrid motor mounts.
3. Fabricate a bracket to put my 1.6L coils on the VVT engine. (No wiring needed). Some trimming of rubber boot needed. Will eventually upgrade to LS2 coils.
4. Install FM throttle cable adapter bracket.
5. Use the 1.8L VTPS. Re-wire it in place of my current Bosch VTPS.
6. Use supplied 1.8L header until I throw on a RB header or turbo manifold.
7. Drill + tap and plug up oil drain for future turbo use.
8. Install 99-00 fuel rail + my 90-93 FPR. Route new 5/16 fuel line above intake manifold.
9. Run 1 +12V power wire to VVT solenoid and 1 wire to my Megasquirt VVT control.
10. Lengthen CAS.
11. Install 1.6L Coolant temp sensor.
12. Put 1.6L Oil Pressure sender onto VVT motor.
13. Drop in engine and have fun.

I tried not to miss a single thing no matter how big or small. Can anyone give that list a quick once over?

Extra info:
Car is a 91 NA Lose nose
MS3X ECU
Already wired for sequential injection
Motor going in is a 2003 VVT w/ VCTS manifold

1.8 flywheel is different isn't it? Clutch too?

Yes, but you either need to use the whole clutch, pressure plate + flywheel from the 1.6 car or the 1.8 car. As long as you use all three you are good.

Might as well upgrade to 1.8 or better injectors now, though with full ECU control the 1.6 ones will probably be fine.
Consider a coolant reroute while everything is out.
You say lengthen CAS, are you planning on installing it? You can run the ECU off of it but without running the leads for the crank sensor you will have zero VVT control.
Get a VICS intake manifold from a 99 as well if you have the budget for it, and run the wire for it also.
I'm a bad reader or something so even though I read the first post about 50 times in the months leading to my swap I still forgot to transfer the injector harness to the new engine and spent half a day trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with all these weird connectors before I realized I have to make them go away.
At the very least clean your engine bay thoroughly without engine or repaint it, and touch up top of subframe with spray paint if scratched up.
If you've never done a swap before, have plenty of time and a helper for actually taking out the old engine and putting in the new at the very least.

I assume this is directed to me? Yeah so I'll be swapping over my Flow Force 640cc injectors over so that should be covered.
just may pick up a coolant reroute while I'm at it. It would certainly be pretty easy to install while the engine is out that's for sure.
As for manifolds I found a VICS for $140 and Flat Tops can be had for about $300. I'm wondering if it's just worth it to go straight for the flat top. Regardless, I plan on using the VCTS for initial start-up and switching later. I guess it just needs a little bit of trimming to fit the fuel rail.
The CAS I plan on using the NB's sensor so I can use VVT. I will just be extending the OEM 4-wire harness, and splicing it to work with the NB sensors.
Oh I plan to give it a thorough cleaning when that engines out :)

Thanks for the help and thank you for your service!

Specifically came here looking for answer to this. I bought the FM 1.8 swap kit and already modified my coil to work on a 99 motor ( which turn out to have crank walk ).

FM site says their coil bracket is not compatible with VVT unless you relocate the feed line .. which doesn't seem that difficult IMO .. so for discussion sake lets assume I can do that and mount the modified 1.6 coil pack if needed.

The FM guide says verbatim "You must reuse your 1.6 coils, as the 1.8 coils aren’t compatible with the 1.6 electronics.", though I'm sure Andrew's wiring guide in the OP works as well.

To complicate things a bit further, I have a 1.6 COP setup I stumbled into from a part out car. Not sure any details on these ( brands / ect ) just know it worked well on a built 1.6 I drove for about 45 min home.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...515fdd61ff.png


Which method is preferable between the three ? Currently I'm leaning to going with the 1.6 modified coil setup for ease of install.

Second question ..

I also wanted to use the 1.8 TB + VTPS. However, I already have the 1.6 TB mounted to the intake manifold with the FM adapter. Would it be easier to try to get the car started first with that 1.6 setup first and then swap over to VTPS as a seperate projectafter car is running ?

I'm already going to try using the VVT wiring vs the 1.6 CAS to get the car to start initially. Worried about changing too many things at once and end up chasing my tail if it doesn't start.

Not sure about the coils since I'm still using NA8 coils on my VVT swap, but the tps is very easy to set up in tunerstudio. This vehicle does have a variable TPS. You should calibrate it properly from TunerStudio in the ‘Tools’ menu. Choose ‘Calibrate TPS’.
-Make sure the engine is off and the key is on
- With your foot off of the throttle, click the ‘Closed Throttle ADC Count – GET CURRENT’ Button.
- Put the throttle to the floor. With your foot fully depressing the throttle, click the ‘Full Throttle ADC Count – GET CURRENT’ Button.
-Click close.

Thanks. I think I'll use my NA6 coils as well then to keep things as simple as possible to just start it. Afterward we can wire in COP or NB1 plugs if needed.

NB2 coils are the only ones that will fit the narrower plug wells of the VVT valve cover without some work. If you don't mind razor blading plug wires it shouldn't be a problem to run remote coils. My homework has led me to understand Toyota COPS won't fit.

You can get an idea what will be needed in this video:

Yea, I just finished installing Toyota COP on my VVT swap. Ive been running 1.6 coils with most of the boots cut so they fit. The COP took milling out the holes and removing alot of the plastic and secure bracket from the Coils themselves. Heres what it looked like while I was finishing the wiringhttps://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b7d120e026.jpg

Silverstorm, could you post up a pic of where your NA8 coilpack is mounted ? I'm having a hard time finding a good spot for it because with the CAS in as well. Going step by step and just trying to get the car started with CAS before playing with VVT sensor wiring.

I had the same train of thought: Just get it running. Soooooo... I literally unbolted the coils from the mount and they're just sitting on the back of the head. The car runs like this but it does have a strange issue where it sounds like the coils aren't firing intermittently for about 30 seconds after start cold or hot.

If you are going to mount them like that put some insulator(i just cut pieces of rubber and zip tied it) around the connections on the coilpack. I had a few times where it would arc to the head and would loose spark to the plug, which was a terrifying find. Also secure them so they dont move as they will arc to any ground, even if you just use zipties. I ran mine like that for about 2000miles and didnt have too many issues

Cool thanks for the pic. I'll try that and insulate them well. Won't be driving around with it much. Mostly just want to get it going and then start work on VVT / turbo / E85 and then everything will go to Trackspeed for tuning. :)

Got everything hooked up and started it yesterday with my NA6 coil and CAS. Ignition timing was just set to 'middle-ish' so it wasn't running great.


I didn't set ignition timing afterward because it was kinda late at night already when I got back around to it and the car is LOUD ( no exhaust ).
I figured just leave the CAS alone and work on wiring up the VVT coils.

My donor harness is a 93, so .... pretty straight forward .. so I thought.

Step 1. Cut off the igniter and connector in one swoop, leaving enough wire to re-connect in case.

Step 2. Connect the wire on the harness side per Andrew's first post ( white -> brown / yellow & red -> brown & yellow/blue -> black/white ) with spade connectors in case I get it wrong I can switch.
One thing that did concern me here was the red / white wires was in a shielded sleeve. The wire shielding was twisted and grounded to that black wire. I had to cut open the shielding a bit more to expose enough of the red / white wire. I did accidentally nip some strands of shielding going to that black wire. Not sure how significant that is.

Step 3. Tape off the unused +12v ( blue ) and unused ground ( black ).

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...54551c4009.jpg

Step 4. Cut off the connector to the NA6 coil pack.

Step 5. Connect the wire on the harness side to the NB coil loom ( white -> brown ) ( red -> black / white ) ( blue -> black / white .. there's two of these .. I wired them both to the blue assume each one brings the juice to each coil ).

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e1522505e3.jpg

Surprise surprise car doesn't start again ...


It catches for a split second and die almost as if no gas .. but .. I didn't mess with gas except to add in 2 gallon of fresh 91. Checked for gas leak there was none. Fuel pump heard priming with key on. Made sure AFM plug is connected. I sprayed some starter fluid into the manifold and it seems to run for a split second longer. Wasn't able to try continuously spraying starter fluid while cranking because I was by myself. Any ideas ?

I'm kicking myself right now for not just saying f' it yesterday and just set the ignition timing at night.

Just did a bit more testing .. spark plug is firing. Plug is not wet but cylinder smell like gas. I've been playing with ignition timing via CAS for the past 15-20 min with making minute adjustments and attempting to start the car but its not really working.

Okay, after much research, I was able to find this thread ( https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...athread-80666/ ).
Pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing. VVT will start but will immediately die.

Quotes from the other thread:

This would have been useful to me in the original post because I was under the assumption that I didn't NEED to wire in my MS3 before trying to take out the CAS and switch over to VVT wiring. Would have saved me quite a bit of time and frustration yesterday. I literally was going to either (1) put back the 93 wiring or (2) tow to a shop if I wasn't able to figure it out today. :)

Wired up my 01 throttle body for which included NB VTPS and IAC valve over the weekend. That turned out to be pretty easy ( as Savington said in the OP ) but the actual wiring direction took me quite a bit of Googling to find the info so figure I'll include here for others to reference.

Source:
https://forum.miata.net/vb/showpost.php?p=3119113&postcount=2
https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...2/#post1198162

Also wired up my NB coils. I had expected to need to make some changes in TS to my spark setting, so I found Braineack's settings. However, these proved unnecessary as my car started up just fine with "NA" settings. It seems to be more hesitant to rev than with the NA coil setup but started and idle the same. I did try Braineack's settings for fun and the car didn't start so I reverted it .. then moved on.

Next up was attempting to wire in the NB crank / cam sensors. This is my problem dejour. Car refused to start again after this. I'm using the OEM NB 4 teeth wheel and checked that the crank sensor is 1 credit card away from the teeth.

Here's what my log looks like .. does it look like my sensors are working ? Is there some settings I need to change in TS to set it from using CAS to using NB sensors ?
Let me know if you need the graphs to show different fields. There's a bunch of options and I'm not sure which one is helpful. This was the default.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ee60651423.png

Did you wire the NB sensors to MS through the CAS plug? If so I think you have to change some jumpers around in your MS. Yes you need to change settings in TS, couldn't tell you what since I haven't done it yet.

Thanks. I'm looking for settings to change now. My latest attempt was with ignition table.

Spark mode changed from 4G63 to Miata 99-0.
Ignition input capture changed from Rising Edge to Falling Edge.
Source ( https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...1/ ).

However, none of that work. My MS won't even grab a composite log and right now I'm not sure if that's a defective MS or if I have a wrong setting in there somewhere.

[rant]
What pisses me off the most about this situation is Reverant and MS Labs. I'm not normally a person to call out a business publicly but I feel like this is something that must be voiced. I've tried to be very very very patient with them.

Back in June, before sending a small fortune to a some random person in Greece, I made sure to ask if I needed future support, maps / ect, if he could provide it. Sure, no problem. Now I've ran into issues since 2 months ago ( August 5th ) and messaged him for support. Got one reply after 9 days ( and TWO follow up email from me ) saying he's on vacation and to reach him next week. Sure, no problem! Next week I reach out and again and have since never heard back from him. That was Aug 14th. Since then I've sent him maybe 4-5 emails begging for the promised 'support'. I've reached out on FB. The entire time I see his profile login into this forum daily so I know he get messages alerts. I see the FB chat I left him being read and ignored. I have gone as far as to request just a courtesy reply, even if it is to say that he's not going to help me, so I could set my expectation and no longer waste my time asking. Nothing. Dead silence for 6 weeks now. He's won. I've given up on his support.

As an MS noob, I can't explain to you guys how much I regret buying my MS from him vs spending a bit more for the DIY pro version where I can call them up for support or even going for Braineack's MS3X where he's at least been TRYING to help me ( a non customer ) with some of my issues.
[/rant]

Good news! After tinkering more with the settings ( timing ), I was able to get it to sputter to life though it still sounds like sh!t and back firing a lot. The better news is I was able to grab a composite log. Not sure why changing timing would affect that, but I'm not complaining.

Here's my spark setting & composite log if any of you MS experts wants to take a look and help ( please ? :bowdown: ) .

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c7e094edac.jpg

Is there an acceptable range of trigger angle / offset ? I'm able to get the car started ( though runs like crap ) with seemingly random values from 2 to 39 though adjusting that value it seems to have a random correlation to where the timing gun shows my mark.

Not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but your settings look the same as mine. I found that my timing gun only works correctly if I keep it at zero degrees and not try to compensate for the 10 degrees of offset. Mine is an MS3 rev unit with a Mk2.5 VVT engine in a '94 Mk1 car. Have the same problem with contacting Reverant, not happening, and I have bought 2 ECU's from him. Very disappointing.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...08bfadab5e.jpg

Thanks for posting that. After so many misfire / backfire cranking attempts, I decided to leave the tuning to those who knows better. I hooked the CAS back up and the car starts perfectly. Confirmation at least that timing is the only major issue right now. I'll drive it around with the CAS until I get an appointment with TSE.