Budget EFI
I love this job. I've been at the helm only about six months, and already it feels like I'd never left. The technical side of high-performance cars has always been my first love, and that subject is what continues to make this job so much fun. Just when you think you've seen it all, a company comes up with a new widget that you just have to play with to see if it really does what they claim. A few months ago, my buddy Tim Moore was surfing the Web and ran across a reference in an obscure chat room to a budget electronic fuel-injection system called MegaSquirt. After reading the buzz on the Internet and discussing its merits, we contacted Bruce Bowling and Al Grippo, who created the system, and they sent us one.
The MegaSquirt EFI system is a bargain-basement approach to an everyman's electronic fuel-injection. We did a little investigating into what it would cost, and it looked like if you really watched the budget and shopped around for previously owned parts (in the grand Car Craft tradition) you could piece together a system for probably around $800 or so. This sounded like a pretty good deal.
I've always been dangerous with a soldering gun, but despite my enthusiasm, I knew that if it were up to me to solder this rascal together it would never be finished. That's when Tim volunteered to do the electronic work and give this system a try. Tim spent less than eight hours soldering and testing, and then we threw together an old TPI manifold on a small-block and tested the engine on the dyno. The complete story in this issue will give you all the technical details, but it was a lot of fun putting this whole package together. Like any guy who thinks he knows something about a system, we dived in headfirst, not bothering to read all the instructions offer on the Web site (www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html). Of course, that didn't work very well and we struggled on the dyno because we didn't have all our bases covered.
Our second attempt was much more successful, but even then we encountered problems that turned out to be of our own doing. The one that caused us the most grief was the little white wire that comes off the MSD-6A unit connected to the negative side of the coil on points-triggered ignitions. Otherwise, it isn't used. The wire had been taped, but somehow it fell off and the wire would intermittently ground out the ignition, causing all kinds of mayhem. Once we discovered that simple problem, the MegaSquirt ran exceptionally well.
What was telling about all this was something that I've noticed over the years of working with EFI: Regardless of how many times I've worked with EFI packages, any time there is a problem, I immediately assume it's in the black box. Only after all kinds of extra work and assigning blame do I usually discover it was something dumb I did that caused all the problems. It's perhaps human nature to distrust what you don't understand and blame the part that you can't hit with a hammer or tweak with a screwdriver.
The fun part of all this was taking a very inexpensive EFI system that a couple of guys designed and combining it with a live, running engine that made great power and responded just like the designers said it would.
It is inevitable that I always seem to find new ways to make additional work for myself, but my curiosity about the MegaSquirt won't allow me to do just one story and then move on. Perhaps it will inspire a few of you to jump into EFI. If nothing else, it's a great way to get an inexpensive education in EFI. -Jeff Smith