Micracharge Runs on standalone!

[micracharge]

After a couple of months building my ECU and loom, I can now officially confirm that the CG13DE will run on a Bowling & Grippo Megasquirt V3 standalone engine management system with all of the stock sensors AND the stock distributor and ignition system.

Finally the dream of cost effective standalone management is within the grasp of the micra owners! In a few days I will rebuild the loom to fit into the car properly (was fired up on my test loom) and then the process of tuning will begin.

All I can say is this... YAY!

 

[K11SS]

thank u so much for all ur hard work the micra charge great news

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

yeah im seriously thinking of using one of these for my own project. cant wait to see this finished, can i get a ride in it when its finished?

mike

 

[micracharge]

Mike : No worries, your welcome to take a ride once its all done. The first big step was the Megasquirt control, now its just the small matter of getting the charger on! (EEEK)

A few nasty pictures for the interested, I am still rebuilding the loom to an acceptable and useable state for a road car. Waiting on some new DB37 connectors so hopefully by this weekend I can finish the final assembly and get it running on the car again and not have to remove it - the first step was just to make sure it would run so I didnt spend any time making the loom nice... just functional!

One of the pictures below shows the top of my airbox with a Delphi open element air temp sensor, this is essential to the installation. Anyways, more pics soon.

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

ah jesus i hate electrics, how difficult it is to build the magasquirt and apart from the air temp sensor can you use the standard sensors? or do you have to get a wide band lambda etc

 

[micracharge]

Thats ok Mike, I am sure we can come to an arrangement on a pre-setup MegaSquirt loom and control box

 

[Ed]

Dan was there already information available on the stock CAS that you used to configure the MS with? Good going btw I love doing stuff like that

 

[micracharge]

Ed, there was a little information around about Nissan optical triggers, but none for the CG so I had to read how the Megasquirt actually works with the reading and go from there, in order to make it work there are three required modifications, one physical, two electrical.

Once I am finished I can bring it up to yours so you can take a look if your interested.

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

yeah sounds like a plan, what kind of alterations can you make with the megasquirt then? is it just ignition and fuel?

 

[micracharge]

yeah sounds like a plan, what kind of alterations can you make with the megasquirt then? is it just ignition and fuel?

"Just" ignition and fuel? What else does your engine have then?

Umm, it can do PWM or IAC idle control, Narrow or Wideband feedback control, ignition trims for air temp etc, full warmup functions, you name it. Its also the first after market I have seen that uses X-Tau enrichment techniques, as well as blended MAF/MAP and Alpha-N/MAP based fuelling.

And for the future, who knows - its a community project and people are working on new firmware as we speak, Anti-lag, traction, boost control etc.

 

[Alienfish360]

How much is the megasquirt system?

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

"Just" ignition and fuel? What else does your engine have then?

Umm, it can do PWM or IAC idle control, Narrow or Wideband feedback control, ignition trims for air temp etc, full warmup functions, you name it. Its also the first after market I have seen that uses X-Tau enrichment techniques, as well as blended MAF/MAP and Alpha-N/MAP based fuelling.

And for the future, who knows - its a community project and people are working on new firmware as we speak, Anti-lag, traction, boost control etc.

lol i just thought it might be a bit basic but obviously not, sounds like its got more than enough for what i need it for

 

[Ed]

Ed, there was a little information around about Nissan optical triggers, but none for the CG so I had to read how the Megasquirt actually works with the reading and go from there, in order to make it work there are three required modifications, one physical, two electrical.

Once I am finished I can bring it up to yours so you can take a look if your interested.

That would be great

I was looking at the CG Cas in some detail recently. I don't know if you saw? http://www.micra.org.uk/t12658-p4-cg13-rev-limiter-removal-by-distributor-modifications.html and the following few pages. Its a simple enough unit.

 

[micracharge]

How much is the megasquirt system?

The latest incarnation of Megasquirt is a V3 mainboard, while older V2.2 boards are available the V3 is the way forwards. A complete V3 system from the US works out at about $340 shipped, including the air temp sensor, I opted for open-element type but cheaper ones are available. Factor in a customs charge and basically you need to budget yourself about £260-300 UK by the time a few loose ends are tied up.

Getting the system is one thing, then of-course you need to build it and wire it into the car. But it is still a lot cheaper and vastly superior to a PowerFC conversion job, and is growing and evolving all of the time. Whereas PowerFC is the opposite, they are stopping a large number of their applications including RNN14, S13, S14 and ECR33 to name but a few.

In short, IMHO its the best features for price system available, totally MAP sensor based too so no issue with AFMs anymore. Feel free to PM me if you have a project in mind Alienfish.

 

[micracharge]

Good thread on the CAS Ed, thats pretty much what I got into trying to figure out how I could make the Megasquirt trigger from it.

Heres another image for those interested, the wiring harness starting to go into final stages ready to go into the car tomorrow (Sunday), hopefully by tomrrow evening the loom will be installed permenently.

More news as I comes

 

[Ed]

Looking good indeed! Would I be guessing right that the mod you had to make to the CAS was to cover up the smaller square hole? I believe the MS doesnt need a sync pulse as its a batch fired ecu, and naturally will distribute the spark with the distributor... Also im possibly guessing that the MS has its own ignition driver? in which case your probably not using the one in the CAS unit either?

Ed

 

[micracharge]

Quite right, the little square hole would "potentially" cause a mis-trigger. The Megasquirt does have the capability to drive a coil directly (when building the unit you choose to install the high-current ignition driver circuit) so I figured I might as well do so, if any issues occur I will be going straight to EDIS anyways, but I wanted to see if all the stock Nissan stuff would work out.

So inside the dizzy the single small is covered and the wiring for the transistor is totally removed from the harness and it is disconnected internally. Allan made mention that you had been looking at the ol' Megasquirt boxes last time he came down to work - take my word for it, its great value.

There is on the horizon an update to the Megasquirt injector control, using cam phase and allowing full sequential, as of now I am batch firing 1&4 and 2&3 as pairs. Interestingly though injector timing really is of little or no significance in a performance application, which I found hard to believe initially, but they present a very good arguement as to why sequential really is just an emissions thing more than anything.

 

[Ed]

I did take a look at the MS quite a while ago. I didnt get too far since at the time it was fuel only not ignition. You could do ignition with changes but I needed something with the smallest amount of playing about. I may give it another look for the ST sometime in the new year. I agree with you on the full sequential for emissions only. Nice work however, and I'd definately be interested in taking a look when its going

 

[banksy]

just wanted to say a big bravo to you engineers out there. you guys are soldiers doing this shizz, not just in micra territory. very proffessional, ak ak ak, commendable