Programmable EFI anyone?

I saw a turbo Caravan *once*....

The problem with turbo cars is, most of them died quickly, so they've been crushed and gone years ago. The ones that are left are owned by enthusiasts who will put the turbo specific stuff in a different shell rather than let a junkyard have it. So it means buying long-distance, or dealing with drooling Mopar nuts who know how much their stuff is worth

8k RPM is not a problem, really. The distributor is a piece of cake, it's just two separate ignition systems that share a common shaft, and besides most racers fire the plugs at the same time from the same MSD box anyway.


(and hey, I'm a Mopar nut too... I nearly swooned when I discovered today that not only would I be permitted to step into a pristine '63 Super Stock Belvedere, complete with crossram 426 Wedge, but I would be *ordered* to *drive* said beast, and fiddle with its innards to determine its state of tune. HEAVEN! )

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2006 08:56PM by Pete.

I guess I would be most interested in knowing three things about this system:

1. What sort of financial investment is this going to be? Considering a full-on MSnS system with fuel and spark, installed and tuned, is going to run under $400, it would be interesting to see how this stacks up.

2. To what extent does this allow for tuning? What kind of resolution is offered in terms of fuel/spark tuning? How adjustable is it? Can the end user change things?

3. How confident are you that this could be used in other platforms? I know it's been done in the Neon realm before, but would it make for a easier-to-get-up-and-running system for someone with a Neon-based powerplant?

Thanks!

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

1. depends on how much you can do yourself and how much you will have to pay someone else. the howto on my website is ford specific, but the same steps would have to be done for any other vehicle. read through it to get an idea of what is involved. converting a ford 2.3 costs less than $100 in parts.

2. the tables return either 8 bit or 16 bit values, and are very easy to modify. the hardware itself uses 16 bit values for the timers that run the injector and coil drivers, and 8 bit values for the analog sensor inputs. the chysler engineers pulled off a pretty neat trick with the tables that allow them to use very little memory while retaining the resolution of a typical grid style table. it also makes t hem very easy to modify since you only have to change a single point at a time, instead of updating tens or hundreds of individual cells. there is free software called D-Cal that is used to modify the calibrations, which is only available on a yahoo group. I will try to get some screenshots of it posted on my website. changing a table consists of dragging a datapoint on a line graph.

3. I am confident that it could be adapted to any 4 cylinder engine that uses a distributor. the hardest part currently is the distributor itself.

Too bad Neon engines don't use distributors...

I've seen somebody hack a distributor onto the end of a Neon DOHC head, once. No pictures, but it was one of those weird jobs that combined "awesome fab work" with "duct tape, silicone, and a prayer".

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

interestingly enough, the neon heads do share the same bolt pattern as the turbo-era 4 cylinder blocks... many turbo dodge owners are doing so called "hybrid" motors this way. i am not sure how things match up on the bell housing end of things though. the amount of work involved is still not that far off from the volvo headed 2.3 setup though.

I don't think I'd hack a distributor onto a Neon motor. Why not just fab up a crank trigger like this one?



Come to think of it, the basic Megasquirt set up for controlling ignition utilizes a Ford EDIS system, so it might be easier if you were looking to work on a Ford in the first place.

As for the hybrids, a lot of the Neon guys are now forgoing the old Dodge Turbo blocks in favor of the more modern Chrysler "cloud car" (Cirrus, Stratus, Breeze) 2.4L blocks. I have a number of friends running them boosted in their 2GNT DSMs. They're scary. Personally, I'm more interested in rumors of a 1.6L PTCruiser in Mexico with shorter gears than I've got in my trans for more get up and go on the streets from a naturally aspirated application.

In any case, I still think this idea is a pretty good one. Reliable tuning for under $300 is damn rare, if not impossible, so providing a durable tuning solution for minimal investment, especially to a community such as this, where just building the damn car costs a fortune, is a good idea.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

...and here they are!
http://www.merkurboys.com/pics/index.php?album=mopar%20ecu%20conversion/Flash%20module
Still have a bit of testing to do, but everything is looking good so far.

Not too shabby! :thumbsup

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest