I am really exposing me vulnerability with this thread. I am not only not an expert, I kind of feel like I am having the Buffalo Bills, or Vikings Super Bowl experience. I am still mulling over why I could not get the MS II ECU to communicate properly with the MSD ignition box enough to start. I have a plan to send the ECU along with the ECU and distributor back to Matt, and pay him to configure it to work.


I figure if he says it is good to go, this should work when hooked up. But, so should the old one have worked. Obviously there was something wrong. I finally got the ECU to register a crank RPM, so I knew that part of it was OK. And, I had it static timed a 10 BTDC and had chosen that in the menu for ignition in Tuner Studio. And I had selected the advised ignition configuration in tuner studio. And, yet it would not start. It would fire and misfire and try to start, but not start.

So, I have this learned experience of fear surrounding this project.

The only piece of the system that will be old is the relay box. Supposedly there is a connection from the ECU to pin S5 on the relay box, which is to fire whatever ignition system is employed. I do not know if this is good,since I did not build this relay box.

The MSD box fires when grounded and ungrounded, so that kind of points to something else, but I don't know if it would fire repeatedly as in starting the car.

And I suppose there could have been some weird mismatch between the ECU timing and the distributor timing that put the timing off by enough to keep it from starting. But I don;t know what that would have been.

Here is one very specific question. How can I check the relay box to make sure there is a connection from S5 to whatever pin is supposed to be sending the ignition signal? What kind of signal is S-5 supposed to put out for an HEI ignition?

I will send this all off in a few weeks. Matt said to call for an RMA when this is ready to go. But, I want to do some thinking in advance. Is there anybody within half a day's drive of Maryland who is MEga Squirt fluent who would be also willing to help a pathetic wannabe EFI guy get his set-up configured and running? The thing is, getting this engine set up with the turbo to really run well depends on getting timing controlled by the ECU.

Any advice is appreciated.

Sam

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Use a multimeter set to resistance and unplug the relay cable. Put one probe on pin 36 of the DB37 connector and the other on S5. The resistance should be 0 to 2 ohms.
A 0 to 5 volt square wave. Be advised this is NOT the signal that would run an MSD box correctly.
You might want to PM Peter Florance on MSExtra.com; he's in Virginia. He is the guy we send our hardest warranty repair jobs to.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Sam, refresh my memory - do you have the version 2.2 board or the v3.0 board?

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It's a Slant thing. Even I don't understand.

1974 Duster, EFI /6 soon to be turbo...

Get that Monkay! Get that nasty thing!!

Matt, correct me here if I am wrong, but I think it is the v.3 board.


Matt, I will absolutely contact Peter. Thanks.
Sam

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The one you bought is a V3.57 - basically, a machine assembled V3.0.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Sam, nothing below intended to insult your intelligence:

Reference this page: http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/msd6a.htm in the Mega manual,

Starting from the beginning, how are you getting your input to the MS box? Your options are a Hall sensor, the variable reluctor sensor, or negative post on the coil. I guess points are another option.

To control ignition, you cannot use the negative post of the coil for input.

I'm assuming you have locked the advance on the distributor and set the static timing reference TDC - on the compression stroke . Now you are set to pick up the input, whatever the source, and use the white wire on the MSD box, via pin 36 though S5 on the relay board, and trigger the ignition. Take a look at the ignition settings in Megatune/ TunerStudio on the page I linked.

Your cranking/firing description sounds like a distributor 180 degrees out, hence the italics above.

You need to know how the MS box is configured for input. I'm not up on the 3.57 but on the 3.0 there are jumpers to set based on whether you are using Hall, VR, etc. input. Is this set correctly? It will make the difference.

For what it's worth: I will soon be running a MSII/v3.0 full standalone on my Duster, using the stock variable reluctor in the distributor for input, outputting directly to the coil via pin 36. Same idea as you except you have the MSD in between the MS and the coil.

DO NOT get discouraged, if there's one thing I've learned in building 5 MS ECUs and 'squirting 3 vehicles, is the Megasquirt WILL work.

I will be glad to talk to you on the phone about this, PM me for #s.

George

Edit: disregard the question about input source. I see you are using the VR. The 3.0 board has two variable resistors to adjust to set the high and low point for the VR pickup. In the assembly guide it says, basically, to crank those both fully counterclockwise. May improve your input signal. Take note of the current settings though, so you can come back to them.

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It's a Slant thing. Even I don't understand.

1974 Duster, EFI /6 soon to be turbo...

Get that Monkay! Get that nasty thing!!

Thanks for the offer of help George. I may take you up on it. It is a 3.57 board. I just remembered. And this board is seldom referenced in the MEga Manual.

The back ground on this is that the car would start and run fine when the MS II ECU was controlling only fuel. As soon as I would switch the VE output to the tach terminal and hook the white wire to S-5 it would not start. Switch it back to VE controlling the MSD box, and the MSD box triggering the ECU and it ran fine.

AT first the ECU did not read the VE. I turned the pots full CCW, and I got a tach signal on the screen. So that much looked good.

I tried controlling the coil directly with the ECU, (it does have the coil controller installed) and I damaged something in the ECU so it would no longer run when controlling fuel only. So, it is going back to DIY for warranty work. I think I fried something because I did not unhook the coil when changing the ignition/coil settings in Tuner Studio. I know I was told to do this. Dummy me.

The MS I went back on, which had controlled it nicely for years, and it runs fine with that.

How could it be timed out 180 degrees and still run when ignition is only VE fired MSD box? I was at a loss to trouble shoot it. Thanks again for the willingness to help. I appreciate it very much.


SAm

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on getting this repaired Sam?

Pierre, I need to make a heat sink for the seven pin HEI module and then will send all off the Matt for testing and repair if needed. I thought I might buy an IAC solenoid and include that for a check up as well with the ECU.

It's too cold to work out there now. If it warms up this week end I might get some time into it.

Sam

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Much respect for getting your brain this greasy with your project!

I am still trying to wrap my brain around the handful of fuel circuits in my HP holley...

Good luck and don't forget to take breaks.

rdr

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madam im adam

Inquiring minds want to know! Sorry to be a pest lol... I'm just always curious about failed components and failure modes.

Pierre, Your comments are always seen with gratitude.
Sam

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Since this thread is still within easy view of those coming on board and researching, I thought I should make an update.

Peter Florance was contacted. He put me onto the idea of distributor phasing, which was never mentioned in any of the literature, but is vital none-the-less. If the rotor does not align with the spark plug wire contact inside the cap at the right time relative to the reluctor vane passing the pick up magnet, the spark from the coil will not happen at the right time for it to jump to the right plug, if any at all. Since timing of the firing of the coil is now determined by the ECU and not the MSD box, the timing when fuel only could be quite different from that when controlling ignition, because of whatever time elapses in the processing of the signal from the pick up.

In all the discussions that followed this revelation, no one seemed to know how the timing was actually determined by the ECU, since it obviously cannot send a spark BEFORE the reluctor passes the pick up. And yet it appears to do just that when advancing the timing by as much as 50 degrees. It seems as if the ECU is actually establishing the timing for the next cylinder from the one the rotor is actually under at time of pickup alignment.

When I say no one knew how timing was determined,, by that I meant to say, there seems to be several different ways the ECU can configure the relationship of distributor events to firing order. But there seems to be no CHOICE in the configuration tables for this. The ECU just seems to figure it out based on something it is seeing in the relationship of the timing of different events. So, apparently, things were off by enough that my ECU could not relate to what was happening and thus never got into its proper timing cycle of events.

BE that as it may, the ECU is in Peter's hands now. He has repaired it, and there are plans afoot for me to go to his place in VA Beach to install the distributor, time it, and install the MS II and configure it and my lap top to talk to each other and get base timing and fueling set up for me to drive back home and continue tuning it.

There is only speculation as to how the damage happened in the start up attempts, but the fuel circuit was gone. You are instructed (in red letters) to NEVER, NEVER change timing configuration with the coil hooked up, which I did do. Take a bow Sam. Apparently this can send large amounts of high voltage back through the ECU and burn things up. Which it did. Don't do that .

Also in Peter's hands are a fixed lean burn distributor, which, (no surprise) is phased correctly from the factory, an HEI module and coil, with factory harness configured to plug and play with the Mopoar VR pigtail, a new relay box, and the IAC motor and housing.

AT this moment I am waiting to hear from him as to potential dates to come down. I hope this will happen soon. I will keep you in the loop.

Sam

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I did not mean it, but did you know we talked about distributor phasing before?

Cheers, Wizard

I do not remember. I suppose I did not know what that meant, since it was not mentioned in any of the manual I had read.. Now I do know what it means. . Thanks for trying. Don't give up.

Sam

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