There seems to be a fair bit of interest in using the MX-5 engine / gearbox at the minute.

Rather than buy an unknown engine / gearbox from a breaker / ebay or scrappy, I was considering buying a whole car.

The thought was I could run it over the winter (while the Indy is laid up). That would then show up any problems with the engine / gearbox / clutch / cooling / fueling etc.

My question is, could I do a megasquirt install in parallel to the OEM ignition system? Obviously not running them both at the same time, but having the ability to switch between them? Thought was this would make the install in the Indy easier, but iron out any problems while still on the road / in the donor?

Cheers

Mike (megasquirt noobie)

Thats a good idea.

I did a similar thing with my MS before I took the carbs off.

It allows you to test:
air temp sensor
water temp sensor
AFR stuff
tacho input
stable voltage supply (even when cranking)

In my case I also checked the injectors, and should have checked the flow rates.

In my case I added a tps to the throttle pedal, and it was very useful when logging data.

Its a good plan.

Matt

Shouldn't be a problem. I did something similar on my car. You may have to swap plugs over as you swap between the two. You may be able to run just fuel or spark, perfecting oe before the other.

There is a plug and play megasquirt for the MX5 which is just a straight swap in for the std ecu with the same connectors. It even has the std MX5 map in it to start with. I had one of these in my turbo mx5 and it was great. Install is literally unplug old ecu, plug in new one, turn key. http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/megasquirtpnp-c-40.html

I've just got my mx5 up and running on MS1 v3. I have spare connectors if you want to make a harness?

Check out miataturbo.net for a build guide,

http://www.miataturbo.net/forum/t17498/