Hi
ever since i put my megasquirt in apart from running great when it does and being a pain in the rear when it doesn't want to im thinking now of
taking it out and swapping it for an Omex, is anyone using and omex or have any experience with them? are they nicer to use and map than a megasquirt?
whats the software like ? are they more reliable that megasquirts diy nature,
what do people think is this a good option to consider?
thanks
Mark
What version of megasquirt do you have, what problems are you having?
(i'm asking as a) i may be tempted if you sell the megasquirt and b) most people seem to find they have hassle setting them up but they work ok
once done).
Omex are very good. They are as easy to tune as megasquirt and their mapping does seem to be better. They dont have as many auxiliary functions as the
megasquirt.
I changed from MS to Omex on my car and was pleased with the result.
Omex all the way.
The factory and dealer back-up (us) is second to none.
The system difference is chalk and cheese. the megasquirt is an ideal amateur system for people who wish to learn about EFi systems. the omex 600 is
the best available (before you get onto the top brand stuff). You will not believe the difference between the two and you will not be disappointed.
the software is one of the best we work with, highyl professional yet very fast and easy to map, extremely reliable ecu and software, with outstanding
customer support.
Flakmonkey and jeffw have both fitted Omex, ask them.
We offer discount to Locost members.
[Edited on 25/11/10 by atspeed racing]
It's one of the microsquirts so version 2 I believe. One issue I'm having is the engine will rev to 3500 then hit what can only be described
as a limiter then when it struggles through after 4000 it's fine, I also find the megasquirt software very repetitive and the tunerstudio one is
better but still hard work. I had one problem with the megasquirt about a month ago where it leaned the fuel off and then stopped this is after it had
been running fine 30 mins earlier,
What onex should I be looking for? Obviously if new the 600 but what about second hand?
How do older OMEX systems compair to the new one (600) ?
quote:
Originally posted by dhutch
How do older OMEX systems compair to the new one (600) ?
That's something else that I like the sound of there is so much variation with megasquirt it's hard to get a definitive answer for them
I'm hopefully putting a new engine in it some point next year so will start saving.
On the wiring point of view is it as straight forward as swapping the wires over as I think?
I didnt need to add or remove any wires for my install. All connections were essentially the same.
Make sure you get a Omex 600, rather than the outdated 500. The 600 can be upgraded, the 500 cant.
Atspeed racing,
Would you consider Omex to be reliable enough to use on a daily driver?
Considering a VAG 1.8t conversion for my Mk2 Golf but I haven't space for any more cars so it would have to be my daily driver and get me to work
each day reliably. Bit concerned as to whether it would be up to it! 
Cheers,
James
James that's a great question I would also like to know the answer for that would like to use my car more but so far have been let down on reliability of the megasquirt surprisingly nothing else on the car lol
i have omex its fantastic, never an issue and the guys there are great,
although the 1.8t conversion in golf are done alot and done retaining the stock ecu which i would allways prefer if poss as they spend alot of money
making them run correct
I went from Megasquirt to Omex and haven't looked back..Car is light years better now. All done at Atspeed as well.
Recommended and yes you will be able to use it as a daily driver.
Thanks definitely going to have to change fed up with the other thing, unfortunately Atspeed is a bit far from me but even so I'm going to have
the change. When the engine gets changed to a tuned one the ecu will have to get changed or even before then (more than likely over Christmas)
As I would be doing it myself would it just be a case of inputting the figures that I have on megatune in the tables etc into the omex software to get
it to run. I currently have the microsquirt running the ignition through an edis module am I right in sayin that the omen 600 will happily run direct
to coil?
Thanks
Mark
i use the omex 600 on my own car (peugeot 106 gti turbo - 430bhp), and majority of customer cars. it is our favoured system, although we also like MBE
on naturally aspirated cars. a car mapped PROPERLY on a professional system should be no different than a OE ecu as far as reliability goes.
there are lots of other systems we do, we see them everyday so soon get your favourites, they all have good points and weak points, but in our opinion
the omex is leagues above the rest as an all round package, and the 600 we feel is very competitively priced... a professional spec system aimed at
the clubman competitor.. we rate it on par with systems in the £2000 region (motec etc)
- colin.
quote:
James that's a great question I would also like to know the answer for that would like to use my car more but so far have been let down on reliability of the megasquirt surprisingly nothing else on the car lol
Another vote for MS. Mine is now in it's 3rd car / 4th engine and it's outlasted them all. I've not had an MS related breakdown once.
It's done a couple of years as daily driver for the mrs and if she can't kill it then quite frankly no one can 
The difference between a well installed MS and a well installed Omex/DTA/etc etc is minimal at best, similarly a poor install of anything is likely to
give you trouble. What you don't get with MS is a paid support network, someone you can throw the car and a load of cash at and expect to get a
working car back. What you do have is the biggest support network of any ECU, with active support from the guys that actually created it all. But, you
do have to do a fair bit of learning along the way, that's where the money gets saved.
I think MS' reputation is taking a bit of a hit recently because it's outgrown it's original remit somewhat. What started as an
educational project for geeks became so popular that more and more people were picking it up without having a full idea of just what you need to take
on. If you have a reasonable grounding in electronics/control/software then picking up the knowledge you need to get an install running sweetly
isn't all that hard. If you've also got to teach yourself electronics along the way then it suddenly becomes a much more daunting prospect,
troubleshooting can become near impossible if things don't go entirely to plan.
As with anything it's a balance. Sometimes it's worth paying a professional to do things you can't, sometimes you're better off
DIY.
thats a very constructive post.
its true the megasquirt was originally something for people to tinker around with, make their own ecu, and get their car running, a nice project to
undertake and learn about EFI, and due to it being cheap its become popular amongst amateur car builders who are expecting great things from it.
the problem we find as a tuner, is that if a MS car comes to us as a non runner, it soon becomes non cost effective for us to tune it, or even get the
car running, and quite often it works out cheaper to have just bought an omex in the first place - BUT if people are be prepared to sit there and set
it all up, find out information, learn about efi and basic efi tuning, weed out all the little problems (either ecu or installation) and get the car
running, and fair play to them for doing so!!, the tuning itself is usually straight forward - although the ecu still has its limitations compared to
higher end ECUs.
we often find ourselves limited by the ecus physical limitations to process information fast enough, you have to "map around" problems in
order to make the engine do what you want it to do, example any great change in ignition timing between sites, even though interpolating is felt
through the car, (particularly a kit car being light is exaggerated) so you have to physically help it by running less timing for example, a
sacrifice, whereas a higher end system will make this a smooth change with not even breaking into a sweat. these kind of problems become even worse
with cammy engines where a lot of changes have to occur due to the engines irregular air consumption in its off cam state, a high end system can
pretty much eliminate this and enable you to drive through it no problems e.g. i have full race turbo camshafts in my road car, 8000 + RPM, and i can
pull away on tickover with a twin plate clutch.. its that kind of thing that makes the difference, but thats reflected in the price you pay for your
engine management system and time spent setting it up.
on a final note, an MS with the time taken to build it, install it and set it up correctly will do an adequate job for mild road use.
99% of problems we come across in our field of work are due to poor installation. installation and attention to detail cost nothing, just time.
regards
colin.
[Edited on 2/12/10 by atspeed racing]
quote:
Originally posted by atspeed racing
we often find ourselves limited by the ecus physical limitations to process information fast enough, you have to "map around" problems in order to make the engine do what you want it to do, example any great change in ignition timing between sites, even though interpolating is felt through the car, (particularly a kit car being light is exaggerated) so you have to physically help it by running less timing for example, a sacrifice, whereas a higher end system will make this a smooth change with not even breaking into a sweat.
im no computer geek, perhaps someone else can answer this better, but i would say its as if the cpu or chip or whatever it is hasnt got enough
horsepower. perhaps they have poor ignition drivers? try and do too much, and it can be described as a misfire, so yes, stops working for a split
second. sometimes this can happen on some ECUs when sending data to and from the ecu, especially if you have changed a bulk of the map at once,
injectors for example may stop firing, or will lose connectivity with the laptop for a second. on board data logging on systems that are not powerful
enough can cause an occasional misfire whilst it records the data etc, as if it misses a beat kind of thing.
im not sure how many calculations per second an ECU does.. but i should imagine its hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
- colin.
MS1 has an 8Mhz CPU, so figuring a rough average of 4 cycles per instruction, that is about 2 million a second. An engine running at 10,000 RPM is
turning 166 times a second, you've got about 12000 instructions to run per cycle of the engine. This, to me, sounds plenty to do a few lookups,
add some fudge factors and interpolate.
If you're doing comms with the ECU at the same time, then some of those cycles will be spent working the serial port, and I could see it causing
problems, particularly if you are doing writes to flash (not a fast thing to do) and you don't have a separate slave processor to offload this
sort of thing to.
I guess if I were to design my own 'money no object' ECU I'd have a processor running the engine and another to do the housekeeping
(serial comms, logging, displays etc).
In terms of hand crafted machine code running on a multi MHz processor, engines are painfully slow, but you do have hard realtime constraints so if
you offload the distractions to something else then it will all be happier. Or you can just run a faster processor.
Regards,
Dave (computer geek)
quote:
Originally posted by scudderfish
Or you can just run a faster processor.
Regards,
Dave (computer geek)
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
quote:
Originally posted by scudderfish
Or you can just run a faster processor.
Regards,
Dave (computer geek)
Or run a profiler and using the information it generates target the code to optimise, meaning the bits that are used often / take a long time to run are modified to run quicker
(computer geek who used to code & wishes he had the tools modern coders have).
Going back on topic - ATspeed, are you comments based on setting up MS1, MS2, MS2'n'extra, MS3? I'm curious as the performance of the chips inside the Megasquirt has improved through the years.
quote:
Originally posted by atspeed racing
and it can be described as a misfire, so yes, stops working for a split second. sometimes this can happen on some ECUs when sending data to and from the ecu, especially if you have changed a bulk of the map at once, injectors for example may stop firing, or will lose connectivity with the laptop for a second
I'm running an MS1 built by myself carefully 3 years ago, in a Westfield with a 175hp Zetec on throttle bodies. I set it up as near as I could,
fine tuned on a RR, and it has never missed a beat, never failed to start. I can't remember the last time I even connected my pc to it.
I think, as has been said previously, the reputation has suffered a bit by those that have bought them to save money rather than those like me who
bought them to learn about efi.
I also built my own from scratch about 5 years ago and even though it is a MS1 v2.2 so considered outdated it has worked perfectly well with no
hardware related problems.I am considering upgrading to a V3 unit but dont really know if i would gain anything in the process, im using an Edis for
ignition as I consider it to be the most proven and sturdy option.
Paul
quote:
Originally posted by fatbaldbloke
I'm running an MS1 built by myself carefully 3 years ago, in a Westfield with a 175hp Zetec on throttle bodies. I set it up as near as I could, fine tuned on a RR, and it has never missed a beat, never failed to start. I can't remember the last time I even connected my pc to it.
I think, as has been said previously, the reputation has suffered a bit by those that have bought them to save money rather than those like me who bought them to learn about efi.
quote:
im using an Edis for ignition as I consider it to be the most proven and sturdy option.