Megasquirt 5sfe Options

[Arsaces]

Hey guys, I have come across someone who is willing to part with a megasquirt for cheap. I just need to finish assembling it and make a harness for my car. My question is, how exactly does a standalone ECU like that do all the same things that a stock ECU does?

Do I need to pull the stock ECU's program off of it's ROM and load that into the standalone? My main concern is: will I be throwing engine codes all the time by replacing with a standalone? I know that putting a megasquirt on a 5s without going turbo might seem like a waste, but if I get it cheap enough I see no reason not to go for it. I also know that I will need a wideband, which I should be able to pick up for like 200ish.

Is anyone running a megasquirt on a 5s currently who has any advice to impart?

Also, yes I did use the search function, most of what I found was dealing with 3s motors. I will be updating this thread as I learn more about how this works so that others in the future can learn from it.

Thank you,
Nate

This post has been edited by Arsaces: Mar 7, 2012 - 1:00 PM

[6strngs]

Blast from the past thread revival, sorry, I was searching megasquirt.

I gotta chime in and say that I think that adding a standalone as one of your first mods is actually a GREAT idea if you're planning on modifying a lot down the road because you now have the ability to tune for each mod that you do and can optimize everything you add. In the WRX community a way to program the ECU (the stock ecu's are re-flashable) is regarded as an absolute necessity before modifying anything else. Also, a standalone will always be better than a piggyback because a piggyback only tricks the stock ecu into doing things and will fight back every step of the way (i.e. using an SAFC to "trick" the ecu into pulling fuel also adds timing) whereas a standalone just sets fuel and timing to whatever you say. Yes, there is a steep learning curve with standalone's and especially megasquirt, but once you get everything dialed in it'll be better than just having a piggyback.

I was really searching for information on what it would take to install a megasquirt on the 5s and still keep all the creature comforts like A/C and what-not. I think a big reason why so many 5sfte set-ups have failed in the past, mine included, is from improper tuning. After owning many other cars and seeing how literally everyone else approaches tuning of a turbo, I can see that an SAFC or an emanage might be ok for a low 5-6 psi set-up but definitely should not be using it to tune the 200+ whp set-ups at all! I want to megasquirt my miata first, and then once I have the thing figured out, then try and put one on the celica

This post has been edited by 6strngs: Jul 31, 2013 - 1:42 PM