How is the megasquirt working? I missed a year here, and never heard the details! Last I saw, you were watering your lawn with it! Looked like you had it working good. Do tell!
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"The bus came by and I got on That's when it all began"

Yes, this I know, hasn't helped me yet. I'm going through the trouble shooting guide but I'm stuck. I passed all the tests up until I was done, then when I was done, its now failing them alll, so i'm stuck. I can't even get a voltage reading across the CPU socket.....

Neil_in_PA wrote:

How is the megasquirt working? I missed a year here, and never heard the details! Last I saw, you were watering your lawn with it! Looked like you had it working good. Do tell!

Yeah, I was happy to see you resurface, Neil! I should have said hi sooner but well, I'm just anti-social like that.

The Megasquirt EFI/ignition setup has been great. There were a couple of inconvenient no-start episodes due to some kludged stuff I *knew* was poor form but did anyway 'cause I was impatient to get it going but it has not once left me stranded. Even when the POS Ford throttle body developed a broken throttle shaft, I was able to limp it home (I went back to the smaller 318i TB which turned out not to be much of a performance downgrade - and is much higher quality and will last forever). I am cross-country confident in it now. (Knock on wood.)

I don't have any before/after power numbers but it definitely added some very sweet low- and mid-rpm torque and the engine is much smoother now that the spark timing is directly crank-referenced. Tweaking and hardware/software upgrades are endless but I'd say the carb-equivalent point was reached after only a few hours of tuning - that is, once I figured out what I was doing!

I may be abnormal but I would have been thrilled just with the increased fuel economy (up around 15%), and the fact that I can hop in, turn the key, and just drive away normally at pretty much any temperature. I really have to remind myself to take it easy unitl it is warmed up 'cause it feels no worse when cold. Another plus I hadn't anticipated but really appreciate is the complete elimination of gasoline fumes in or around the car since the fuel system is now totally closed except for the tank vent through the charcoal cannister.

Even though it is now like a newer car from a driveability standpoint, it has retained all the best of the '02-ness - maybe even amplified it somehow.

regards,
Zenon

P.S. Here's the write-up with lots of detail and pics, though there have been a few system refinements since so it needs an update:
http://www.zeebuck.com/bimmers/tech/Megasquirt/megasquirt.html
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'73 2002i Verona (Megasquirt/318i EFI conversion, daily driver)
'72 2002 Golf (bone stock, rusty but still pretty, sleeping)
'73 2002 Fjord (first '02, now parts car, almost gone)
http://www.zeebuck.com

beast02er wrote:

Yes, this I know, hasn't helped me yet. I'm going through the trouble shooting guide but I'm stuck. I passed all the tests up until I was done, then when I was done, its now failing them alll, so i'm stuck. I can't even get a voltage reading across the CPU socket.....

If you ask your question thoughtfully and with enough relevant info, you are guaranteed to get great help on the MSEFI forums.

I'm not going to be much help here since I got lucky and never had any board-level assembly problems so don't have any specific MS board troubleshooting experience.

A few general things, though: What are you using for a power supply? Do you measure the supply voltage at the input of the voltage regulator? Do you measure the expected 5V at the regulator output? Do all your solder joints look smooth and shiny? What did you install/do/change between the last time it seemed to be working OK and then not?

Sometimes just sleeping on it helps, too!

regards,
Zenon
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'73 2002i Verona (Megasquirt/318i EFI conversion, daily driver)
'72 2002 Golf (bone stock, rusty but still pretty, sleeping)
'73 2002 Fjord (first '02, now parts car, almost gone)
http://www.zeebuck.com