Newbie to MS

I have a '94 F-150 with the 300-6 in it and I was wondering what would be the advantages or disadvantages of MS rather than stock EFI? I'm going to have this truck for quite a while and was pondering some mods I could do to improve efficiency some and maybe get a little more power. And right now I have plenty of time for a pretty big project.

8) using the megasquirt you can install a flex fuel sensor and be able to run E85 if you like, or E10, or something in between, without changing the fuel maps. like the factory system you can have an ignition controller as well. the megasquirt is also simpler than the factory system, but doesnt use many of the factory sensors and thus is not emission legal technically.

if you want more efficiency though, start by porting the stock heads and intake, add a set of headers, advance the timing to 10-14 initial, and install a set of 19lb/hr injectors. that should net you more power and fuel economy without having to change over to a new system.

if you have never used the megasquirt before, it is a system that you program. there is no factory settings for it.

What type of mods were you thinking of ? The E85 thing would be possible. Otherwise Im not sure you would gain much over the stock system if you are going to leave the motor stock. It would be a good way to learn about EFI. Starting with the 'stock' working setup eliminates lots to variables for your first project. Once you are used to the setup you can find hardware problems pretty quickly but on your first there is a lot to take in. After you get it running you will know and have a better understanding of how everything works and have ideas for what to do next.

Well, since I'm keeping it I want to eventually build the motor up, though right now I don't think I have the money to do the headers/porting. Small stuff that doesn't involve the engine being halfway apart :roll: and I've been soldering a bit of wiring and a few circuits and since it's been fairly cold I thought of getting megasquirt assembled.

Actually though I've been wanting to bump the timing or at least check it, I did the ignition upgrade( http://www.fullsizebronco.com/forum/sho ... 65&t=63592 ) but haven't been able to time it yet and it's really been running like someone shoved a BMW beetle up the tailpipe. Biggest problem--At certain RPMs at least in neutral it runs really rough, nearly every time putting it in reverse without giving it gas will stall the engine if it's not warm, and it still frequently stalls the engine even if warm. In addition the same rough spot makes the truck act like it's running on the fumes of E when going down the road and progressively is getting worse. It's just something I was pondering if the computer or computer wiring was slowly eroding into trash.
The other reason was because I wanted a programmer or something--But being as my truck is OBD-I I can't get anything really to run on it.

And before anyone asks, currently there are no codes--being as the battery completely died for 20+ hours and I haven't yet driven it around.(Father has an '05 and my alignment right now is about as bad as it can get before having the steering gear box flop around wildly)

Do you have a compression tester? May be worth a check just to make sure there is not a mechanical reason for the rough idle.

Megasquirt is for sure programmable. I have heard that the Fords were the hardest to work on and dang near impossible to 'reprogram'.

Just to be sure you are up to the task of building a megasquirt I would order the stim board and build that. It has the 37 pin connector on it that is a pain to solder and also has one of the little transistors on it that has the smallest and closest of any pins. If you think the stim was easy then go order the MS kit. If you thought the stim was a bit of work and had trouble with the transistor or connector then dont even think of trying to build the whole main board, just get one already built or get the 3.57 that only comes built.

I'll have to give that a try. But out of curiosity..What would I probably be better off with going for? I've seen Megasquirt 1, Megasquirt 2, Megatune, Microsquirt, and some others. If I was to use Megasquirt to do fuel and spark, what mods would I have to do? Would I have to remove the distributor and rig together a system like newer cars do with electronic controlled spark?

Just making sure I'm not getting in over my head there's quite a bit of stuff out there.

And with compression I'll check around to see if there's anyone around or if a parts store near me has compression testers to borrow tomorrow or so

For your motor I would just go with the MS2. The ms1 cant easily control things like idle air controls and has other limits that the MS2 does not have. The Microquirt is pretty much a MS2 prebuilt in a really compact weatherproof box. Megatune is the most commonly used software you run on your PC to setup, tune, and monitor your MS system. The the difference bewteen the 3.0 and 3.57 is the 3.57 uses more current surface mount components and only comes prebuilt. The 3.0 uses older components that are easier to handle and do yourself. They 3.0's dont come from the factory assembled but some of the vendors do assemble them. I dont believe that anyone sells any of the older boards anymore. As for your ignition question most of the Ford systems are fairly well documented and compatible with all versions of MS so you would not have to change until you want to.

Is this truck your daily driver? Do you have another car you could use if your truck is down for a few days? MS IS NOT plug and play, you dont want the pressure of having to get it working so you can get to work. Sometimes you have to put down the tools and just clear your mind or go back to the manual and you cant do that if you need to drive it to work. You may look into trying to keep your existing ecu. What I have read some people do is get a factory ECU and gut it or at least connectors so they dont have to modify the factory harness.

Yeah, my truck sat for a while(About a week) until a few days ago, so tuning it just right probably wouldn't be a problem.

I have an automatic trans. though, would the MS2 do anything with that or would I have to buy a trans. computer for that? Eventually when my E4OD gives up I'll probably swap a stickshift in to just be done with it.

The 94 had an electronic shifted transmission? Lockup can fairly easily be done. If it is electronic then you need the GPIO board which I would hope is in production now. In some cases I have read about people that have been able to let the stock computer run things like the transmission and the dash. Not sure of the details since I dont have anything that new.

Have you looked at the MS Forums? Just do some searches on key words for your truck and see what you come up with. Im sure you are not the first guy to try it on one of those.

Have to see if I can find it again but someone came up with a homebuilt computer along the lines of whwat Megasquirt does for fuel injection but this one controlled the transmission.

This is not same one but seems to do similar.

http://www.high-impact.net/transmission ... mpcont.htm