Megasquirt PNP Pro repair
 

Does anyone know who repairs megasquirts? I have a MSPNP Pro for my 1990 Miata controlling a turbo vvt engine. I was driving around doing some autotune. Everything was fine for quite a while, then as I was almost getting home, I made a right turn and my head lights turned off then back on, then all of a sudden the car stumbled and turned off. Smoke started to come from the Megasquirt. I turned off the key and noticed that my headlights would not work anymore as well as my emergency lights, although the cluster still blinked the indicators very quickly like when there is a short on the headlights. Anyways the main problem after examining the ECU is that I burnt some things on there and some traces (I think that's what they're called) got damaged also. I hadn't connected the tach out cable coming out the ecu to anything and the wiring was exposed. Since the ECU wasn't bolted down yet I wonder if this cable could have touch the chassis and shorted it out? I'm kind of bummed out since I had just recently finished my vvt swap and was getting some tuning done. :cry:

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The only person I have heard of that will repair these things is PFTuning which is Peter Florence. He's in one of the Carolina's. But I hear he is incredibly difficult to get in touch with. You might try the facebook page.

Obviously DIYAutotune but I believe they don't repair as much as replace, if you know what I mean. Call them, they charge an hourly rate plus parts. Who knows, might be under warranty.

And one of the site big wigs (jsmcortina) at MSForums says he repairs in his sig. Might be worth a shot although he is across the pond. Welcome - James Murray Engineering

Whatever the case I highly doubt the tach out touching ground or otherwise would be the culprit to your ecu failure. And I would definitely rule it out of causing the headlights to turn off and whatnot. I really do feel for you so check your wiring before putting another $1000 ecu back in the car.

I always thought Jsmcortina really helped on ms extra building, don't know if he was involved with the production of the pnp pro.
I'd start with talking to Matt Cramer hopefully he could help you or point you in the right direction, although that board does look pretty fubared

You need to go through DIYAutoTune.

you need to figure out what dumped all the voltage to ground else your burn up the next one too.

Yes, this thing looks like it's been hit with 18 volts... and the voltage has been kept that high for a long time.

We can repair the damage in the pictures - it's a two layer board, so there's little risk of damaging other traces than the cooked ones. Email us at support@diyautotune.com.

Email sent. Thanks for the quick reply. I really want to get this fixed. Its an expensive piece of hardware!

As much as I hate wiring,it looks like I'm going to have to start hunting down what could have caused this. I recently stripped almost the entire car to put in some sound deadening so the dash with all its wiring had been disconnected recently and I did my engine swap also so the engine bay wiring was also modified a bit. Nothing too crazy though. I just spliced in to the CAS plug to get +12V for the EBC and I spliced into the injector wiring for +12V that the crank and cam sensors need. I grounded those sensors to the back of the manifold. One thing I did notice and it should've raised a red flag was that my battery kept getting drained within hours. I assumed it was because the car had not been turned on for a while so I kept jumping it and continued. But like a good friend told me before, "assumption is the mother of all f**k ups". One more thing is that my radio did not power on with the key in either ACC or RUN. I'm pretty sure I wired it correctly, but I could be wrong, I'd have to check it out today after work. That wouldn't cause a ECU to burn up like that though would it? Also I am getting my +12V and ground for the AFR gauge straight from the ECU and I did not have an inline fuse. Just throwing some things out there while everything is fresh in my head. I literally just finished wiring and putting in the engine less than a week ago. Thanks again guys for the replies.

-David

Let me ask you a question... what alternator are you using? If you are using the VVT alternator, you will need some sort of voltage regulator.

Yes I was using the VVT engine alternator, but I thought that was okay to use since the MSPNP Pro can control it. At least that is what I'm pretty sure I had read. I didn't change any of the alternator control settings in tunerstudio though, left whatever was on the base map for 01-05.

Neither wire from the alternator (from an NA6 at least) is a control signal from the ECU. So if you PnP-ed the harness, it won't work. Get an NA alternator with a ribbed pulley, or one of the junkyard alternatives.

I think AFM is onto something. If you did not rewire the alternator when you swapped on the VVT one the MSPro will not properly control it. I would go the easy route that he suggested and find a 94-97 alternator and swap that over. I am assuming OP is already using the ribbed water pump pulley since it was probably on the vvt motor he got.

So what you are saying is that the VVT alternator is not really plug n play with the MSPNP Pro? How does the Alternator Control work then? I should've ran some type of signal wire from the Alternator to the ECU aside from the stock plugs that already connect to it? I have a NA 1.8 alternator already that I can try using, but I just thought that the VVT alternator would be fine with the newer MSPNP Pro.

If it was the alternator, would that cause my battery to drain within hours? Because that is something I first noticed.

:likecat: For sixth sense

Darn that really sucks if that was it, because I have a 94-97 Alternator on my extra VVT engine in the garage. I did not rewire anything for the alternator, just plugged it in because I had not read much about rewiting it, just thought it would work. I did read that people were using the older NA alternator, but I assumed it was because they were not using a MS Pro so they couldn't control it.

yes. the MS is ready to handle voltage regulation, but it wasnt wired up to do it.

Much like with sequential injection, you can't use any features of the ECU that the harness doesn't support without extra wires. Unlike with sequential fuel, running wires to control an NB alternator with an ECU is a bad idea. Use the NA8 one if you have it.

That does really suck.

well it definitely sucks finding out after the damage has happened. Would that cause the MS to burn up like that? I guess it's probably not good if it was overcharging it. Because it was idling and then driving fine for about an hour before this shenanigans. Would this cause battery drain?

ugh man this really killed my day. I was trying to get it ready for the yearly Miata event at MRLS Oct 1st. Doesn't look like that's going to happen anymore. If it really is the alternator (I hope so because I really don't want to start hunting down cables) then I could possibly still be good. I have a MSPNP Gen 2 as well that I used to use to control the 1.6 engine, I can still wire up the VVT engine and use the 94-97 alternator this time, however I would have to do something different since it can't control VVT.

Just run full retard on the cam timing by putting in the MS2 and leaving VVT unplugged. This is what the VVT locks at if uncontrolled, and is also good for peak power. Should be just fine on track with some loss of midrange.

Maybe buy a new battery.

Looking back into the pinout here MegaSquirtPNP by DIYAutoTune.com I can see that connector 2 has pin 2I (alternator field) and pin 2K(alternator voltage ref), which are for controling the alternator I assume. I did not wire these up to anything

You are assuming correctly I would bet.

If you just want to get up and running, swap on your older 1.8 NA alternator and run the MS2. It will control the engine fine. VVT just will not be enabled. Then once you get your MSPro back then you can work on getting VVT working.

Good thing I was logging! Check this out...I think you guys are right. Alternator overcharging...

Thanks for the Cat!
I am running two VVT swaps with DIYPNP and VVTuner's in my cars at the moment. A '90 with a VVT motor in my Racecar and a VVT motor in my '99 daily. On the NA, I am running a NA8 (1.8) alternator. On the the '99 I am running a stock '99+ alternator, but I have the voltage regulator circuit built into the DIYPNP. You can use the MS2, and leave the VVT soleniod unplugged as stated. It stays at fully retarded, which only really affects the mid-range.

you could techincally wire up an on/off output.

I'm in the same boat - internally dead MS2 built by Reverant. Can't get in touch with Peter so far and nobody else is able/willing to repair.. Matt at DYI has been great with quick email replies, but they wouldn't touch Reverant-built stuff. Dimitris is not responding.

This is so frustrating. What to do? Buy a PnP and try to move the tune over? The problem should be fixable, the unit randomly reporting 18V and shuts down, while the actual input voltage is stead 12V (well, 13V or so) via voltmeter. R3 and R6 had been checked, R3 replaced just in case - no difference.

I feel ya man. Freakin sucks, but oh well not much more i can do now. I sent my mspnp pro to DIY autotune earlier today to get repaired. For the meantime I'm going to try and get it running on my mspnp gen 2 with the vvt disconnected.

I can send you my spark map that I use in my Racecar which is normally aspirated. It should get you in the ballpark. You will need to use Premium only, however. Also this map was good for 144whp on 93 octane.

yeah sure let me see it. not sure if you could just pm me or something?

You really should be using hardware alternator control. Every time you have a voltage spike you're a step closer to damaging your MS. As injector dead time is directly related to battery voltage, your AFR will change with battery voltage (unless set your dead time to voltage 100% correctly - but how do you find out?). IOW, switching on your headlights, A/C or even winding up your windows can cause voltage swings with a corresponding AFR swing.

unplug alternator, tune deadtime voltage curve at idle as the voltage drops :)

Trackspeed Engineering is now working as the US distributor for Reverant; they may be able to help.

Yesterday afternoon I swapped over to a NA 94-97 alternator, I also replaced my front headlights and all 4 turn signal bulbs. I plugged in my MSPNP2, and updated to the most current firmware. I am still not using a CAS on the exhaust cam or whatever the older way of running these engines was, should I have to since VVT will stay disconnected for now? The wiring stayed the same for the most part expect a few things. The signal wire for my crank sensor is now connected to 2E(white) on the main ECU harness and cam signal is connected to 2G(yellow/blue) on the same harness. I also connected INJ 1/3 to 2U(yellow) on the main ECU harness and INJ 2/4 to 2V(yellow/black) on the same harness, so now they should be wired in batchfire. It looks like my MTX-L wideband got fried when the ECU went, so I have another one on the way, should be here soon. I believe I have everything wired up correctly, can someone confirm this? Also is there a basemap that I can use to start the VVT engine? There is one for the MSPNP Pro, but I did not see one for the MSPNP2. Can I use the base map for a 99-00 or does someone here have a map I can use to compare and hopefully get me atleast started?

- NB sensors are fine
- Sensor wiring is correct, assuming you have 12V/GND/SIG pinout right at each NB sensor
- Use semi-sequential fuel with your wiring (sequential off is TBI)

At the very least, get your battery checked.

GND and 12V for the NB sensors did not change only wired the SIG wire to the trigger wires at the main ECU harness. I had a spare battery that I am using. Didn't even bother with my old one, pretty sure it's messed up.

What should my ignition settings look like? on the MSPNP pro I had Miata 99-05 as spark mode, but the MSPNP2 only has miata 99-00 . Should I use 99-00 or 4G63 which I think I used to use on my 1.6 when I had a CAS. Ignition input capture is falling edge. spark output is going high. and it is set as wasted spark for batch fire.

I spoke to them Matt. Their answer amounted to "hell, NO". They don't repair anything.

I'll have to send the unit back to Dimitris unless Peter replies early next weel. It's been 2 weeks of silence so far, so very little chance, I think Peter is busy with other pursuits at this time.

Minor typo in the INI file - I think the very latest firmware fixed it, but you'll use "Miata 99-00" here.

Your ECU came back and is on our solder tech's desk now.

That's great news Matt, thank for the update! Hoping to get it back soon to continue with my MS3 original tune.

I was able to get it to start and idle roughly on the MSPNP2 last Friday, but I didn't do much else since my MTX-L wideband also got fried and I did not want to tune blindly. I am receiving a replacement today and will try to get a good idle. I'm still trying to make it to MRLS this weekend.