Megasquirt in a 40

[Sputnik40]

Damn, the last few posts have given me a headache.

At $700 the upgrade is just not big enough a difference for low budget rock crawling, and I'd venture would be the limited need of someone maxxing out a 2F's potential (rare) or someone who felt they could get a return on vastly improved fuel mileage. Nonetheless, the numbers are more like the facts that need to be posted here.

So perhaps there's another benefit? Are all the components listed basically applicable to (and better than) any system - meaning if one where to eventually upgrade to a LS1 (or excuse my ignorance) any other GM computer controlled fuel injection system? Technology wise - there will always be something better.

Agree about chasing and having them show up (ahem, like today) but then again - I would never ever brag about that - I'll stick to using the term chasing in the public forums . Unfortunately it is a higher priority on my list.

You're non-technical commentor

 

[joeyg1973]

Someone who felt they could get a return on vastly improved fuel mileage.

Oil just hit $100 a barrel and isn't going to come down anytime soon. I am looking for vastly improved fuel mileage on my lawn mower.

So perhaps there's another benefit? Are all the components listed basically applicable to (and better than) any system - meaning if one where to eventually upgrade to a LS1 (or excuse my ignorance) any other GM computer controlled fuel injection system? Technology wise - there will always be something better.

I don't know if technology on the IC engine is going to progress much beyond TPI and COP (Coil On Plug). The last major improvement is going to be Multi-Displacement, or turning on and off cylinders on demand. This requires TPI, COP, and electronically controlled hydrolic lifters. I think this is what the LS1 uses. From what I have read, TPI and COP don't buy you much over TBI and Distributorless coil packs. Malcb should be able to explain this better as he is doing TPI on his. But yes it can control most fuel injector or ignition system from the major manufacturers.

(ahem, like today)

Chicken soup and a knob shine? I take that back, I am not sorry to hear you are sick.

 

[joeyg1973]

That's certinaly another thread. With the cost of fuel in the US, I would just run a bit richer and use the fuel to cool the charge before I bothered with water/alcohol injection. Here in the UK it's probably a good idea to use water and save fuel, we are at about $9 a gallon if I have the conversion right (£1.05 a litre), when I fill up my car it about $120 for a tank. On top of that I pay $700 a year as a road tax to drive on the roads, (the FJ45's are old enough to escape emmisions based charging and are only $300).

With the low levels of boost I am planning I don't think I will need intercooling, I do have a huge intercooler if I need it.

While I realize that gas in other parts of the world is a whole lot more than here, it is still a big dent in the wallet at $3+ a gallon. Water/alcohol injection should increase your fuel mileage a good bit too from what I have read. If you think about it water turning to steam has a much larger energy charge than gas. It would take less fuel with a small water/alcohol charge to create the same amount of energy.

 

[joeyg1973]

Joey,

Forgot about you comment here. The M62 on the Merc is neat, as well as the magnetic clutch it has the bypass built in to the unit (otherwise when the supercharger stopped spinning no air would get past the rotors).

*Sigh* Brand new, no core charge, too bad I am not ready to go with this yet. eBay Motors: Mercedes SuperCharger (item 360007596413 end time Jan-20-08 03:27:12 PST)

 

[Sputnik40]

Oil just hit $100 a barrel and isn't going to come down anytime soon. I am looking for vastly improved fuel mileage on my lawn mower.

That is fawking funny but true....you don't want to know what it costs in diesel and tolls to go the three hours to our wheeling hole in North Florida - not to mention twice annual trips to SC and NC. I might be taking that $700 soon and investing in a Duramax programmer to save money.

I'm done with this for a few days - way too much computer time of late - I'll check back in a few days. Thanks for the info.

 

[matt.mcinnes]

You might want to look into water/alcohol injection. It cools the compressed air as well as gives an added charge. I know that it was suggested to Mac in his buildup thread, but I still haven't read all of it because it might be longer than "War and Peace", so I don't know if he decided to go with that or an intercooler and why he choose what he did.

If you can find the calcs for the m90 and m62 I would love to see them.

I built my own intercooler posted in another thread to keep war and peace to a minimum

https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-seri...home-brew-air-water-laminova-intercooler.html

 

[joeyg1973]

Joey,


I considered welding the 36-1 wheel - few quick tacks and some short runs, didn't really fancy drilling and bolting or welding. Then I started thinking about the supercharger and decided I would drill out the rivets that hold the V pulley on, get a flat belt drive pulley (not toothed) machined up... ...The 36-1 would mount on the flat belt pulley.

Malcb,

I know that you are already going with the dual hall sensors in the distributor, but I was bored tonight and that usually means I get destructive. I wound up drilling out the rivets on the crank pulley. The rivets are really soft steel and it only took me about an hour to get them out. Turns out it is 3 pieces, a flange that mounts to the crank, the pulley mounts in front of that, and the harmonic balancer mounts behind it. You might want to reconsider the 36 - 1 toothed wheel, it looks like mounting it to that flange would be a cake walk. I will take some pictures shortly after I am done letting the parts soak in some white vinegar to get the grease and rust off.

Joe

 

[malcb]

Malcb,

You might want to reconsider the 36 - 1 toothed wheel, it looks like mounting it to that flange would be a cake walk. I will take some pictures shortly after I am done letting the parts soak in some white vinegar to get the grease and rust off.

Joe

You have to break a few eggs to make a cake!

I thought it would come apart OK and I am still going to take one apart but the idea is to bolt on drive for a flat ribbed belt through the holes the rivets were through. When I do it I might make provision for a trigger wheel at the same time just to add options.

 

[joeyg1973]

You have to break a few eggs to make a cake!

I thought it would come apart OK and I am still going to take one apart but the idea is to bolt on drive for a flat ribbed belt through the holes the rivets were through. When I do it I might make provision for a trigger wheel at the same time just to add options.

I would take it apart and weld some bolts on the back side of the harmonic balancer now in preparation for the change. It's a bitch to get the crank nut and the pulley off. It would be a lot easier to undo six bolts, take off the old pulley and put on a new one. I will have to take pictures at a later date as all three parts are now at the machine shop to be balanced.

Joe

 

[workingdog]

I looked in to MS for a long time and in the end abandoned it for lack of support. If you need help you go to a forum like this and hope you get lucky. I tried to ask a few questions on the forum and only got some prefunctory, dismisses answers. I had this bad feeling that if I ran into trouble with the installation I could be stuck for a long time. MS is really a hobby system designed by guys for guys that like to assemble their own computers. I would not recommend it for anyone looking for a "simple" solution.

It is really, really great for taking something like a 2F and making it run a lot better, but then if you want better mileage and more power...there are other solutions.

Just my 2 cents.

Peter

 

[joeyg1973]

I looked in to MS for a long time and in the end abandoned it for lack of support. If you need help you go to a forum like this and hope you get lucky. I tried to ask a few questions on the forum and only got some prefunctory, dismisses answers. I had this bad feeling that if I ran into trouble with the installation I could be stuck for a long time. MS is really a hobby system designed by guys for guys that like to assemble their own computers. I would not recommend it for anyone looking for a "simple" solution.

It is really, really great for taking something like a 2F and making it run a lot better, but then if you want better mileage and more power...there are other solutions.

Just my 2 cents.

Peter

This is the reason I started this thread. I admit cruiserheads are a lot more helpful then the tech crowd. I work in IT and there is a phrase: RTFM. Which stands for Read The Fxxxing Manual. We are also very accustomed to figuring things out for ourselves with little to know guidance. It's just the nature of the job. Well that and a good deal of folks in IT are pricks who have borderline messiah complexes and no social skills. Since you didn't get a satisfactory answer I suspect that it was either already documented somewhere and they felt you didn't search hard enough for it or the questions were so cruiser specific, that nobody knew. At some point I expect that there will be more comprehensive instructions as well as preset MS datamaps so that it does become very easy to get a base install going.

Hmmm perhaps I may finally have a use for my coolsideofthepillow.net domain name. Perhaps I should start up wiki/forum website for megasquirt in a LC sight. Then you would have a place to put instructions specific to an LC via the wiki. Anybody got a server they could host it on for free.99? What do you all think?

 

[joeyg1973]

Excellent article for the naive:

Megasquirt EFI - Car Craft Magazine

 

[malcb]

I would take it apart and weld some bolts on the back side of the harmonic balancer now in preparation for the change. It's a ***** to get the crank nut and the pulley off. It would be a lot easier to undo six bolts, take off the old pulley and put on a new one. I will have to take pictures at a later date as all three parts are now at the machine shop to be balanced.

Joe

Crank nut is a ***** and a **** X2 but the engine is out so not so bad in the case, dropping some weld on the bolt heads is an idea, I would have put the bolts in from the front, weld will prevent damage from one coming loose, need to check clearance to put the SC belt pulley on with the engine in and studs sticking out.

Thanks,

Malcolm

 

[joeyg1973]

Crank nut is a ***** and a **** X2 but the engine is out so not so bad in the case, dropping some weld on the bolt heads is an idea, I would have put the bolts in from the front, weld will prevent damage from one coming loose, need to check clearance to put the SC belt pulley on with the engine in and studs sticking out.

Thanks,

Malcolm

The reason I suggest welding the bolts to the back of the balancer is because once the balancer and pulley combo is on, you will not be able to get access to the back of those bolts after it is on the crank.


Best visual explaination I can give you is this:

Pulley<->Flang<->Balancer




The flange is what is connected to the crank, the pulley and the balancer is attached to that. Once you place the flange and the balancer on the crank, you can't get access to the bolt heads on the back of the balancer without pulling the flange off first.

 

[carslutt]

good info! im doing a mega squirt set up on my vw with GSXR throtel bodies!..... im learning a lot from threads like this! keet up the good work!

 

[malcb]

The reason I suggest welding the bolts to the back of the balancer is

No argument from me, I was just saying I would pehaps tried for bolts in from the front and nuts on the back, that might well not work and would be a real PIA to tighten, tapping the new pulley and bolting it from the back then bolting the whole lot on the crank might have been an option but... if a bolt worked loose and got unscrewed it would be spinning around taking chunks out of the timing gear cover , bit of weld on the heads and nuts on the pully and cant go wrong like that.

Anyway now need to draw this up, bolt came off like it was hand tight then I made a DIY SST up and it won't pull off the shaft, HD DIY SST next or does anyone have an easy way to remove it.

 

[malcb]

good info! im doing a mega squirt set up on my vw with GSXR throtel bodies!..... im learning a lot from threads like this! keet up the good work!

Forget about the VW and get the FJ sorted.

I tought about throttle bodies on the 2F - then I woke up, actually I even thought about three TBI units from three small cars, still like that idea a little - sort of halfway house.

 

[joeyg1973]

No argument from me, I was just saying I would pehaps tried for bolts in from the front and nuts on the back, that might well not work and would be a real PIA to tighten, tapping the new pulley and bolting it from the back then bolting the whole lot on the crank might have been an option but... if a bolt worked loose and got unscrewed it would be spinning around taking chunks out of the timing gear cover , bit of weld on the heads and nuts on the pully and cant go wrong like that.

Anyway now need to draw this up, bolt came off like it was hand tight then I made a DIY SST up and it won't pull off the shaft, HD DIY SST next or does anyone have an easy way to remove it.

Believe it or not, I had to heat the pulley up around the crank, then wack it a few times with a BFH. Then I had to get crowbar as close to the centerline that I could and lean into it while turning screw on the pulley puller. Once it breaks free it is pretty easy to get it off from there with the pulley puller.


Welding the bolts to the back of the balancer facing out will mean you don't have to be concerned with the depth. If you put nuts back there, you would have to be concerned about the length of the bolt and the possiblity of having one too long tear open your timing gear cover. Don't bother tapping the new pulley, just make sure you drill an alignment hole for the alignment pin. The flange on the pulley side has a flat surface with a raised alignment ring in the center. Just machine the hole for the pulley a hair larger than this alignment ring. This alignment ring and pin is exactly the same on the balancer side of the flange. So basically you can't screw up the alignment with either and you don't need to worry about getting all six bolts lined up perfect. You just need to mount the pulley to the flange and put some nuts with some thread lock on the bolts from the balancer and tighten the whole thing down. I would also throw on some lock washers as well for good measure.

 

[joeyg1973]

That is fawking funny but true....you don't want to know what it costs in diesel and tolls to go the three hours to our wheeling hole in North Florida - not to mention twice annual trips to SC and NC. I might be taking that $700 soon and investing in a Duramax programmer to save money.

I'm done with this for a few days - way too much computer time of late - I'll check back in a few days. Thanks for the info.

Sputnik40, I just realized something. Your 40 is a trailer queen! *cough* loser *cough* Excuse me I seem to have a tickle in my throat. *cough* pick up your purse and go home woman *cough*. Wow this cough is unpredictable. You just need an EFI to let you putt putt around off trail. See I actually build my stuff to perform on the street and the trail as I like to drive my 40 all the time. So I need to be able to tune mine. You just need to putt putt around the trail. *cough* get back in the kitchen and make me a turkey pot pie *cough*

 

[malcb]

Best visual explaination I can give you is this:

Pulley<->Flang<->Balancer


The flange is what is connected to the crank, the pulley and the balancer is attached to that.

Had a few minutes spare and finally got back to the pulley - made a HD DIY puller and got it off. Found out why it was so hard - key is the nut was easy to get off, I think the pulley had somehow "picked up" the surface of the shaft a little.

Any way mine is off a '76 and seems to be only two parts, I ground the heads of the rivets off and punched them out (20 minutes) and found the balancer part is as joey described but the pulley and flange is a single part (although when it's clean I will check again and take some photos).

Doesn't alter the plan much, I will bolt the flat belt pulley on to the one part flange and v belt unit and the harmonic balance with bolts in from the engine side with a spot of weld to ensure they don't come loose and tear the timing gear cover up.