barf Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Yowzer: MS2 is excellent but its not a turn-key solution like the Link and drive-thru tune is, support is from the community instead of a company, quite different worlds. fuel: yes MS2extra does boost control (PWM valve control) and has programmable outputs that can switch something (VTEC, rice cooker, etc) when RPM or MAP or coolant or Throttle sensor etc exceed a stipulated value. actually have a MS2 project coming up with side-draught style fuel injection manifold and throttle body injection is no problem for MS either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slacker.cam Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Good points have been made here so far with regards to not needing dual maps and the benefits of the later model links (and megasquirts) for injector resolution - and therefore idle quality. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is who's going to tune the car? This is a important consideration as if you plan on getting the car tuned on a dyno then the quicker the dyno operator can get the results you want the less cash you're going to shell out for his sercives. Therefore if you go with a link (which pretty much any tuning shop in NZ should have experience with) you will probably spend less on tuning than if you go with a megasquirt (or other less common ECU) as unless the tuner has used them before you will effectively be paying for him to get up to speed with the software. Some tuners may not even tune ECU brands that they aren't familiar with? If you plan on road tuning like Fred did then all of this is out the window however I do see megasquirt as more of a learning tool than a plug and play ECU. I would suggest not going down the MS route unless you are comfortable with busting out the soldering iron and reading large amounts of information to get everything up and running. If you want to just get an ECU in there, wire it up and get it tuned then my vote is definitely with Link - especially the G4's. There are plenty of other good quality ECUs that are common in NZ but I have no experience with them so I wont make any comments on those... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikuni Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 How does tuning go with early Links? As far as I'm aware, any Link from G3 onwards is plug in compatible with a PC, where as I was under the impression that the early links are either hand controller only, or require a harness to allow them to be plugged into a PC. This would be a further cost and aside from anything else, the tuning would be far more difficult than with the later models. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UTERUS Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Early link requires a serial link, which is an intreface between the ecu and and computer. rot808 bought one, can't remember how much it was. Fuck, wheres ezy10s when you need him Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0R10N Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Fuck, wheres ezy10s when you need him lol he was in the process of wiring up the V5 in my track car, but I think he went out of town for a few days? V5 can use PC link tuning software and an appropriate cable, anything earlier than that needs the fiddly hand controller. in summary, it's worth upgrading any early G1 LEM to V5 spec just for the PC tuning ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barf Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 so what does a link setup typically cost all up including installation, and tune? im curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Doohan Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 How does tuning go with early Links? As far as I'm aware, any Link from G3 onwards is plug in compatible with a PC, where as I was under the impression that the early links are either hand controller only, or require a harness to allow them to be plugged into a PC. This would be a further cost and aside from anything else, the tuning would be far more difficult than with the later models. v3 lems can be made laptop compat ... anything eailier is controller only all plus's are laptopable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UTERUS Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Wayne, can you shed some light on the tuning side of the earlier (v5/v10-v14) links comapred to the g3/g4? How much more difficult/time consuming is the earlier stuff? Is the V14 really that much worse than a g3? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishtailfred Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 by the time you order the kit, get the stimulator + extras + cable etc a MS-II v3.0 or v3.57 is going to be about $600-700 anyway. Well, I put mine together the hard way, supplying all my own components and rolled in under 300 bucks. I also built my own stim, from scratch on prooto board. If you are super careful, you don't even really need a stim. Wire looms can be built on the cheap too. I wouldn't recommend the above route, but it's possible, and I did it, and it worked well for me. will MS-I support an rpm switch output like VTEC/MIVEC (basically I want to control the 3rd valve solenoid)? Yes, it will afaik. also would a MS-II be able to do boost control? Even ms1 can do this, but only open loop works well. MS2 can do closed loop well, provided the PID algorithm isn't broken anymore, I think they fixed it after being told for literally a year that it was broken and denying it the whole time. I haven't answered ms questions for ages... I try to avoid it in favour of spending time making FreeEMS work better. I hope the above helps. There is heaps of documentation on msextra.com if you need more info on ms. Ignore the megamanual for everything but the basics, a twisted bitter old man called lance runs that and entirely ignores the presence of msextra - which is always what you want to run. Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishtailfred Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is who's going to tune the car? This is a important consideration Good call, Cam. Yeah, I just assume everyone will do their own tune and do it on the street. I really can't see any reason not to. Even in an insanely quick car you can street tune. Granted, it may be terrifying, but it's still possible. Still, if you are pussy, and CBF doing the tuning yourself, then everything Cam said is true. however I do see megasquirt as more of a learning tool than a plug and play ECU. Disagree. It is whatever you want it to be, really. The more you learn/know, the more you will get out of it. That is true of any ECU, though. Plug and play ms boxes, with support, from a company, are available. I would suggest not going down the MS route unless you are comfortable with busting out the soldering iron and reading large amounts of information to get everything up and running. +1, but doing something else says you're lazy or in a hell of a hurry. If you want to just get an ECU in there, wire it up and get it tuned then my vote is definitely with Link - especially the G4's. Fair call. The G4 stuff and vipec stuff are one and the same too. I have a mate in LA running twin vipecs on his private custom plane and he loves them, and their internal architecture. Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowzer Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 Alright, sweet. Yeah would be keen for some DIY stz, but not on this engine. Have a timeframe I wanna try and stick to and would like to avoid fucking anything up. Duel maps is deff not a necessity, but just liked the idea. One tweaked right up for 98 high boost, other a lot softer for shit fuel for when I'm in the middle of nowhere where only mud and sand is available. Link sounds like the way. Still a few months down the track at this stage though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cletus Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Anybody had any good or bad experience with microtech? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0R10N Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I had a Microtech MT-8 sitting in the corner of my room for about five years. no one in NZ could re-flash it for the B6T (it was originally set up for a rotary of some description) and all of the shops basically told me to send it back to Microtech in Aus for servicing. but when I approached MT Aus they pretty much told me the MT-8 was no longer supported and that I would either a) be stuck using it on whatever engine it was set up for originally, or need to buy a brand new LTX-10 which was their current product at the time. so I sold it to some guy on Trademe who was gonna use it in a FC3S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishtailfred Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Yeah would be keen for some DIY stz, but not on this engine. Have a timeframe I wanna try and stick to and would like to avoid fucking anything up. My ms arrived in the post and was fully built less than 24 hours later. Then it lived under my bed for a few years. Then one day I ripped it out, and 48 hours later it was running the truck. Granted, I just spent another 2 days redoing that wiring, but doing it properly the first time would have taken the same amount of time. It's not at all hard, don't be afraid of it. See if you can find someone who has done it before close to you and feed them beer/food. If you were in JAFA land I'd give you a hand Duel maps is deff not a necessity, but just liked the idea. One tweaked right up for 98 high boost, other a lot softer for shit fuel for when I'm in the middle of nowhere where only mud and sand is available. Yep, this is valid reasoning. However adjustable boost levels and a knock sensor with a good algorithm will take care of shit fuel just fine too. Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowzer Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 Whipped up a kitset ignition system awhile ago, yet to put it to use as the engine I'm gonna run it on is still in pieces. Slapping electronic stz together is pretty simple. Will look into it some more I think. Was looking more into links just coz of ease of use / lazy etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Doohan Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Wayne, can you shed some light on the tuning side of the earlier (v5/v10-v14) links comapred to the g3/g4?How much more difficult/time consuming is the earlier stuff? Is the V14 really that much worse than a g3? g4 is miles ahead .. for speed if you use thehotkeys g1 takes ages ... comapartively ... but thats why we do fixed charges ... so it dont matter if you have a megasquirt a motec a microtech of a g4 link ... i dont give a shit ... you still pay the same base tune price and get the same level of basetune personally there all easy to tune ... some just take longer .. but not that much what you save in tuning time you loose in all the extra shit you now have to setup just my point of view... i may be wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowzer Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 So what's a ballpark figure for a good tune? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eke_zetec_RWD Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 shit yea, ma old v5 is just like fuel and timing and accel inrich then bam done, and ma g4 is like sooo much shit to change to improve the tune. good tho!! g4 is around 1800 to buy. wire it up and tune varys depending on lots of things. as long as the car runs well when you take to dyno tune prob around 3 to $400. also the good thing about the g4 is it runs nearly any motor. good resale value. and is a proven out of the box ecu. link have spent 1000's of hours designing its software in nz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vvega Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 we charge 600 for a base tune ... but that is for a car that drives (as best it can) like factory and makes about 90 % of what it can make it dont matter if i do it in 3 hours or it takes me 20 hours ... your car dont leave till im happy with the tune ... and youve paid your 600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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