Help needed: Megasquirt on a Yamaha R6
Turbo Mini Forums

Hi all,
I'm on the formula student team at uni and we're running Megasquirt on a Yamaha Fazer/ R6 engine.

Trouble is, I'm new this year to the team and the guys who set up the Megasquirt left ages ago.

Last year's team didn't get a running car so i'm left with no information about how it is set up and am not sure where to start. There is so much info on the megasquirt website I don't know what to read. Am i best off starting over completely and checking wiring then moving on to a basic settings and then tuning it?

The other problem is we can't take it out on test drives very easily since it isn't road legal.

The engine turns over and tries to start but just coughs and that's all.

Was wondering if anyone has some simple things to check to get it running or if there are any experienced guys near Cambridge who fancy helping out some students?

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

Well, first off you need to work out what version of Megasquirt you have and if it does fuel only or spark and fuel.

The original Megamanual is the best place to start.

http://www.megamanual.com/mtabcon.htm

But you may have the Extra code loaded up.

Do you have a laptop with Megatune on it and a suitable lead? If you can save the .msq file from the 'squirt then we could have a look.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Yep as Paul says get a laptop connected to it, for you a normal PC may be easier? then you'll have a 232 port and wont have to mess around with USB dongles.

Yeah i've had it connected to my laptop. It's getting all the signals. I have a copy of the msq. How can i get it to you?
I've been shown the following, which is what we have:

Engine - 2005 Yamaha R6

Engine Management System - MegaSquirt Extra (www.msextra.com) based around a tweaked v3.0 board (details to follow) - MSnS

Electronic package - stock R6 injectors, stock R6 inductive crank angle sensor with modified trigger wheel, AB Electronics throttle position sensor, GM/Vauxhall/Opel/Saab intake air temperature sensor, GM/Vauxhall/Opel/Saab engine coolant temperature sensor, Yamaha R1 ignition coils.

Essentially the engine has been converted from CDI coil-on-plug to an inductive wasted-spark ignition (due to the cost of engine management systems capable of running CDI COP and the lower rev limits we anticipate running at). R1 coils chosen for cost and availability more than anything else.

No coil-on-plug means no need for cam synch. (hence simpler, less costly system that's easier to set up and maintain) MSnS has no problem detecting the stock crank angle sensor straight out the box (disclaimer - cranking speeds only thus far), but the pickup wheel needs modifying to a "4-1" wheel by filing off one tooth in order to provide a sync position for MSnS. It also requires moving relative to the crankshaft such that the teeth are detected at 60 degrees BTDC for the relevant cylinders - welding on a new indexing blob 38 degrees from the original and then removing the original works fine.

As far as the rest of the ignition goes, MSnS fires the R1 coilpakcs no bother. Current dwell is 5.5ms whilst cranking and 3.5ms otherwise, but this will be tweaked via the tried and tested mehtod of reducing dwell until it misses under load, increasing dwell until the coild become too hot to touch at high rpm/load, then setting the actual dwell in the middle of these two values. Sounds unscientific, is unscientific, but has been used by countless others to good effect in the past.

Throttle positon sensor - boring, works straight out the box and is auto-adjusting with the MSnS software.

GM coolant/intake air temperature sensors are the recommended ones for use with MSnS, and should require no calibration. Our experience says that they've got very wide tolerances though, and should be individually calibrated against a known temperature reference. More accurate at higher temperatures, less accurate at UK outdoor and indoor room temperatures.

Injectors - are high impedance as far as MSnS is concerned and work ok thus far. We are concerned about idle pulsewidths with such huge injectors (MSnS can only control these to the nearest 0.1ms) and so run them in pairs as you would a coil - "wasted injectors". Time will tell whether this is an issue or not. They can be switched to batch-fire as a four, or a hybrid sequential at lower revs/loads to get it to idle then batched at higher rpms/loads for responsiveness or delivery capability.

Oxygen sensor - there is currently a narrowband 4-wire heated Bosch sensor in the exhaust manifold, which will be used as an intital tuning aid for low-load/rpm/learning. Eventually this will be switched for a wideband and may or may not be installed on the final vehicle after mapping is complete.

Other titbits - Dell Latitude D410 running XP with a USB-Serial adapter works fine with MSnS, but you need to disable buffering on the serial port (head into device manager) in order to communicate with the MSnS reliably in realtime. Having flattened the battery cranking and with datalogging built into the MSnS software, we could see what MSnS can do in terms of battery voltage. Officially it should get 12V, but in reality if it's 7V or greater, MSnS couldn't care less which is good news. (certain ECUs are picky about battery voltage during cranking - ask Loughborough about their FS UK experiences with a DTA)

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

Sounds like you should start with modifying the trigger wheel as suggested.

MSnS have been superceded by MS1/Extra I believe. But you may wish to stick with what you have for now.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Ok, looks like you've got a good understanding of how things should work :)

first thing i would do is check the MS has a solid signal from the crank sensor, I'd do a datalog in megatune (alt&L) you can then open this in excel and see if the signal has dropped to zero while cranking.

Also its worth mentioning I had massive issues getting my engine running on MS the first time, in the end I reburnt the code and it fired up straight away.

All the above but which board (PCB desciption, ie, 2.2, 3.0) is it and which version of the CPU (MS1 or MS2 daughterboard) and finally which version of the code.

But from the notes left for you, getting a proper crank sensor seems the best place to start.

And as Joe suggests, once you know what hardware you have, you would be best burning the latest appropriate version of the code.

The msq's can really only be sent by email unless you want to print it out as a text file and post it up which is a nightmare to go through.......

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Thanks for the help guys.

The crank sensor has been done. It is modified to 4 - 1. It picks up an rpm of about 400 when cranking (sounds about right?) but i'll do a data log to check for drop outs.

The PCB is version 3 (is that what you wanted Rod?) The CPU looks like:



How do I know which code I want?

Cheers
Dan

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

looks like the code version might be written on the chip.

400 rpm sounds about right, you just need to check it stays steady and dosen't drop out

That's an MS1 CPU on a v 3.0 board.

Most of the recent development work on the code has been for the MS2 CPU (actually a daughterboard that plugs into the same socket) so I'm now lost as to what you can do...

You need the MS1-Extra forums.

Sorry, but all my experience is with the MS2.......

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I don't think that there is any reason why you cannot run MS1/Extra code on that board.

You have two ignition drivers on the Board by the looks of it.

Best have a read of this:

http://www.msextra.com/doc/ms1extra/MS_Ext...tion_Manual.htm

Now you know what you have, then it may be best to post on the MS1/Extra forum.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

i run the ms1-extra on my car, ought to be capable enough for your needs, but am a bit "out of the loop" these days as my ms1-extra-HIRES install works so well i havnt had the urge to seek any firmware upgrades or that . its a pretty stable and mature platform these days, if a little limited.

as your jumping in at the deep end i would change as little as possible and try get her running first :) would be very handy to find out what firmware you have so you can setup megatune appropriately and start logging and tweeking from there :)

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

I am in the same boat as you Denis. I have ms1-extra, but it is a version I am happy with rather than the latest and greatest. Unfortunately not knowing the firmware version is a pain. When you plug in and try to connect if it is wrong I seem to remember it gives you an error and hints at the version you have installed.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
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A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

Hi guys,
sorry to bring this up again but just can't get the car started.

I imagine it has to be something blindingly obvious that i'm missing...

since it wouldn't work with the old code i've started from scratch.

I've burnt the latest MS1/Extra code to the ecu. and set up for a 4 cylinder 600cc engine using wasted spark and a 4 -1 wheel decoder. I've checked the wheel is set right as per the megasquirt extra web manual.

The unit is giving me spark, fuel and picks up the teeth on the crank timing wheel.

The fault I have is that there isn't even so much as a cough.

Any suggestions (no matter how obvious) welcome.

Dan

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

When you say it is giving you spark, fuel and picks up the timing wheel, whilst the timing wheel is obvious on your PC, have you physically checked for spark and fuel, ie, a plug out and an injector out - but be careful as you could set it alight.......

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

have you had a strobe on it? is the spark in roughly the right place?


I had a massive issue getting mine to run, something was screwey with the fueling, i got mine to run by sticking a blow torch up the plenum proving it was fuel, i supose your on ITB's with no airbox?

in the end reburning the code saw it spring into life straight away.

Edited by Joe C on 21st May, 2010.

yeah grounded plugs and saw spark and pulled off the injector rail and all are firing fuel.

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

mini13:

haven't got a strobe but going to put an oscilloscope linked to the crank wheel sensor and an inductive clamp on the plug on Monday to check that.

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

Got to be timing then as Joe says.

I also took a few attempts the very first time as I had mis-understood the wheel position and had a few settings wrong in the msq (but I did get a few coughs and bangs while trying).

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

ok its worth sticking a bit of gas in there then, to see if it fires.

Check your cranking pulse width (that was my second problem) and re-check your reqd-fuel calculations, both may be too small to get it started initially. Or too large, are the plugs getting damp at all ???

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Edited by dan187 on 21st May, 2010.

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo

the old fuel wont help,

but it should start tho yeah?

1275 N/A Sprite, 998 T2 Turbo Mayfair
1275 EFi Turbo