Anyone have any experience with the MicroSquirt8? (Page 1/1)
82-T/A [At Work] JUN 13, 06:03 PM
I don't want everyone to lose their mind like they did when I bought the FAST EZ-EFI 2.0 for my V6 Fiero, or because I'm not using the Ultra Mega MAGA EZ-9000 Super ECM like everyone else is, hahah... but I was looking around at potential upgrade projects I could do with my daughter in making her car (1985 Fiero 2m4 SE) a little bit more reliable, and I ran across this little guy:



It's the MicroSquirt8, and seems to be ideally suited for smaller motors. I'm rebuilding my daughter's Iron Duke to mostly stock. If there's a couple of things I find that I can bolt on or I need to bore out the cylinders, then I guess it won't be stock, but effectively I'm not going to be changing much, and this would likely work well. Particularly because literally only 4 spark plugs, 1 injector.

Just curious if anyone has used one of these? Would be ideal because then I'd already have a fuel map I could steal. But I noticed that the harness in the engine compartment is fairly trashed, and a lot of plug-ends are damaged. If there's not a lot of work, and maybe if I even don't have to get an analog to digital converter for the timing... it would be pretty cool.


Thoughts?
La fiera JUN 13, 10:54 PM
The Megasquirt I run is based on a Microsquirt. The Microsquirt you want to run is newer than what I have.
Spadesluck JUN 13, 11:47 PM
Not currently but I have been in talks with them. My future plan is to run one of their systems on my 4.9 motor. Main goal.... just because I can.
armos JUN 14, 06:54 AM
No experience with this product. Maybe it's great. But even if it is, I don't know how this would make a stock 4cyl Fiero more reliable. If that's the goal I think the stock ECM is a better bet. You'd just be introducing potential complications and issues that are unique to this one car.
Something like this might be useful for tuning with a modified engine, and it might be fun to mess with, but I wouldn't see this as a reliability upgrade for stock.
I could see that differently if the stock ECM was problematic, and you think the modification would make things easier to diagnose/maintain. But the stock ECM works. It's also old low clocked, high tolerance 5V/12V through hole lead soldered stuff. That era of computer components is about as bulletproof as they come. Like an Atari vs a PS3/whatever.

For reliability in this department, I'd go over ways to test proper function of sensors, and go over all the electrical connectors, replacing any that are broken.
Not sure if there's any support for datalogging the 1985 4cyl ECM. If there is, it's useful to see what data the ECM is seeing and whether it all looks normal.

The ability to datalog/scan the ECM could be one benefit to changing it. But nothing has been more proven in daily drivers than the stock ECM.
Frenchrafe JUN 14, 07:07 AM
It's the sort of thing you would use to convert a carb and points motor to run EFI.
I don't think you going to add reliability?
At least that's my experience with megasquirt (microsquirt - same thing just more compact)
If the Fiero was like an old 70's european car, then why not? But the GM ECU is quite good considering.😉

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"Turbo Slug" - '87 Fiero GT. 3800 turbo. - The fastest Fiero in France! @turboslugfiero
https://youtu.be/c4Cu7_2OgYc

82-T/A [At Work] JUN 14, 12:13 PM
Thanks guys, honestly... I've really disliked MegaSquirt products for a long time... not that I had anything against them; however, I just kind of valued my time to some extent, and the products they offered (at the time) were basically DIY kits. I mean, to the point where they'd literally send you a garbage-looking box, and a circuit board which in MOST cases, you had to soldier all the components on yourself, with a photocopy of some junk instructions. I've done this plenty of times with computer boards, but I always felt like the ECM needed to be something that was VERY reliable, and not a kit I would cobble together from parts I might get from IndieGoGo or something.

Obviously, they've done a LOT over the past year. I mean, they even offer a drop-in replacement kit for the Porsche 944, which I would have loved to have had when I had a Porsche 944 a few years ago. I still don't need all the stuff in a full modern MegaSquirt, but the MicroSquirt is perfect, really, for a 4 cyl with TBI injection. I downloaded the manual, and it's much better written than the garbage they put out years ago. They go so much into detail that they even offer direct configurations for pretty much any OEM component you would want to use from any car manufacturer. Obviously, they ***** and moan like all the other EFI kits do about someone wanting to use a distributor, rather than reluctor wheels with crank or cam sensors... but they still directly support GM HEI7/8 integration. I'm not at all concerned here because the Iron Duke uses timing gears, and let's be honest... haha... how much performance am I not gaining on a Duke by using a reluctor and DIS rather than a distributor?

I still plan to repair the existing ECM and harness that's in the car, simply because it's not a tall order... just need to buy replacement end-pieces. I also want to make sure that when I'm done rebuilding the engine, that the engine will run properly, and the existing ECM works perfectly fine. The car actually ran quite well with no check engine lights. But in the long term, and what I mean by "more reliable," is that I'll be getting a newer simplified system, with a newer harness. A system like this will allow me to get rid of things like the EGR. I do care about the environment, but I can more properly manage the engine to the point where I likely no longer even need an EGR (that's a goal anyway). That'll allow the engine to run cleaner and more efficiently. It already has built in functionality for things like a knock sensor, which the 1988+ Chevy S-10 used, so I can use that harness, sensor, and plug. There's even a built-in feature for things like a GM E85 sensor, which technically my car supports now since I've replaced the fuel pump, and all the fuel lines with newer stuff. There's a few other features as well that I'll be able to take advantage of.

It'll be a teaching moment for my daughter too, which I think will be cool, so she understands how a car's ECM works ... sensor input is compared to a look-up table (fuel map) to optimize fuel. And also... it's so damned cheap. Minus the plug-ends and any sensors I might buy... it literally costs $388 shipped with the harness. It's much easier to do now than it was when I did it back in the day with a DOS laptop through the RS-232 and having to wipe ROMs by exposing the chip to UV light. Like, that was cool the first time I did it, but it got old fast.

For a car that, in my opinion, is going to be completely static, and is limited in its performance... my hope is that an ECM like this will ensure it runs a bit more reliably, without hunting idle or other things that are often as a result of a slower-to-respond ECM. The communications speed of the ECM is 300 baud, which... if anyone has ever connected to a BBS back in the day, 2400 baud was considered slow. 300 baud, you could type out the data at nearly twice the speed the computer could. So there will be significant improvement there.

I much prefer something like the FAST system for my V6 though, which does a continuous self-learn and builds its own fuel mapping based on a default that's provided at the onset. It uses something like a PID for the values, and it continuously calculates the average for each sensor value and appropriately defines the AFR needed to optimize it under the conditions. It remembers this, and continues to build on that. I wouldn't really call this machine learning, but it is a type. Mathematically, it uses a concept called "linear regression," which is fantastic for something where there are more variables and a lot more going on. But for the Iron Duke, it's such a static engine... I mean, 1 injector, 4 spark plugs... it doesn't get much more simple than that. A MicroSquirt seems perfect for it. And it looks like the "squirt" company is hugely supported now.
pmbrunelle JUN 14, 08:16 PM

quote
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:
I still plan to repair the existing ECM and harness that's in the car, simply because it's not a tall order... just need to buy replacement end-pieces. I also want to make sure that when I'm done rebuilding the engine, that the engine will run properly, and the existing ECM works perfectly fine. The car actually ran quite well with no check engine lights. But in the long term, and what I mean by "more reliable," is that I'll be getting a newer simplified system, with a newer harness. A system like this will allow me to get rid of things like the EGR. I do care about the environment, but I can more properly manage the engine to the point where I likely no longer even need an EGR (that's a goal anyway). That'll allow the engine to run cleaner and more efficiently. It already has built in functionality for things like a knock sensor, which the 1988+ Chevy S-10 used, so I can use that harness, sensor, and plug. There's even a built-in feature for things like a GM E85 sensor, which technically my car supports now since I've replaced the fuel pump, and all the fuel lines with newer stuff. There's a few other features as well that I'll be able to take advantage of.



Is this your daughter's project car, or yours?

Part of the fun of a project car is fixing it up your own way, making it your own.

If you steer the project too much, she's going to miss out on that fun, and not learn as much as if she was the primary decision-maker.
82-T/A [At Work] JUN 14, 08:26 PM

quote
Originally posted by pmbrunelle:

Is this your daughter's project car, or yours?

Part of the fun of a project car is fixing it up your own way, making it your own.

If you steer the project too much, she's going to miss out on that fun, and not learn as much as if she was the primary decision-maker.




It's my daughter's car. But to be honest, she's not really sure what to do... and is ok with me sort of leading. I'm basically teaching her how to work on a car while doing this. Whenever she wants to do something a little different, I typically let her. But this is kind of down her alley... she does a lot of stuff with Arduinos and Raspberri Pis with Python and such, so this is kind of along what she would be interested in... (data logging, fiddling with fuel maps)... basically all the **** that I absolutely do not want to do... haha...