Mfw I just ordered an MS3 kit, stimulator, and a wiring harness

>mfw I just ordered an MS3 kit, stimulator, and a wiring harness

I have no idea what I'm doing.

like everyone else that buys one.
what car

'84 E30 325e. MSing it because my eventual goal is to do an 885 head swap and fabricate a set of ITBs. Once that's done and I've got some miles on it, I'll pull the engine, have it bored, and rebuild or replace everything in the short block that I'm capable of.

I decided to MS it because it's old as fuck and any updated wiring system still uses archaic intake metering (unless you buy a MAF kit, which is almost half as much as megasquirt). And this way I can run COP and a wideband. Plan is batch injection and wasted spark for now.

Plus, I like having something to mess around with.

best of luck

i finished up my install with a turbo ls1 about a year ago, great software and hardware. you shouldnt have any issues. the forums are also great.

>great software and hardware
it isnt. its basic as fuck. dont get me work, i run it on my project car. but there is much better stuff, you just need to pay for it

What would you recommend? VEMS? AEM?

i have never used either of those, all the entry level stuff seems the same.
the control of actuators is poor.

So what would you say is good?
I'm planning a turbo setup on my e36 and I'd like an ecu with lots of functions.

for the price point, and features its great compared to haltec, aem or holley.

What exactly are you looking for that ms3 is missing? because comparing MS3 to a motec m1 series ECM is not exactly fair.

cant argue with that.
i would consider spending more if i had to do it again.
the closed loop boost control is piss poor at best. i find it pretty much uncalibratable.

Sounds odd, i havent had any issues with my closed loop boost control. when i first installed it i had to work some bugs out but nothing major.

Might be something with your setup then, anything that can cause inconsistent results mechanically can affect the closed loop boost control.

I'm trying to decide on MS3 or stock ECU for my turbo LS. How would you rate the difficulty of tuning on MS compared to HP Tuners?

I would've gone stock ecu but ended up getting an 80e so now I need a new harness (had a th350 before and planned to go 400). So either HP tuners or MS it'll cost the same.

i started off with a stand alone engine harness and a 0411 pcm with hptuners.

I hated hptuners, its complicated and gives zero explanation requiring you to do frivolous research to change what you want to change for whatever system.

and because its using the stock ecu it has severe limitations and you have to almost trick it to get it to do what you want it to do.

Ms3 doesnt have any of these problems, most of the fields have well written dialog boxes that explain wtf they actually pertain to.

MS3 sounds pretty user friendly and all the features would be there if I wanted them, but I liked the familiarity of the stock ECU setup, its all I ever really saw guys using. I was afraid of going to MS3 and being left in the dark having to learn everything from scratch (not from a tuning standpoint but hardware and wiring)

trust me, ms3 is far easier to comprehend than oem wiring and ecu tuning. its astounding what people have done with stock ecu's considering how limited they are.

an example of what i mean as to "its limited" there is no wideband input on a 0411 or e38/e40 etc ECU. you need to use the narrowband output from your afr gauge to interface with your ecu. However if you use the egr lift input pin and wire the wideband output to that, and then change a bunch of settings you could then use that pin as your wideband input, but it has multiple bugs spread across the software since anything that used the original narrowband input needs to be changed over to the new egr input pin afr input or else it runs like shit and doesnt give you a reason why.

ms3 you hook up your wideband, tell it what type it is and your done.

i was in between holley efi and ms3 when i was building my turbo ls1. the new ms3 ultimate is a pretty sweet setup for the price, considering everything out the door is under 2k for the ms3 and over 3k for the holley.

i would suggest you check those two out, fast efi seems to be very niche and not very adaptable. Best out of all of them in my opinion is motec, but that also costs 4k just for the computer alone.

It works fine in the conditions and gear its calibrated in. Drivinh through the gears will cause an over boost when the conditions change.
There needs to be an air temperature compensation, a rpm dot compensation, and a boost by gear compensation table.

It's the worst thing about megasquirt because it just does not work.

Dumb question, but this will sell me on MS lol

Do you know if you can do pic related on MS? It's just a relay that sends the 2-3 shift solenoid to ground so it forces high gear. Every application I've seen people using it has been with a stock ECU. I'm pretty sure it'll work but I'd like confirmation from someone who knows what they're doing lol

yeah ms3 has alot of programmable outputs for things like transbrakes, lights, boost controllers, nitrous and more.

I know, but this is different, it's more of a "glitch" than a feature.

You have a relay on the 2-3 solenoid wire, you hit a switch and it takes the 2-3 solenoid to ground instead of the controller, forcing the trans into 3rd. That should still work in MS right? I'm just thinking the trans is controlled differently or something in MS compared to stock, I'm way over thinking it for sure

not really. you could switch by engine speed not road speed so i dont see how it would work

It works on stock computer cars

if you cant see why that wouldnt work you dont know nuffin

Anybody know how feasible it would be to transfer the ECU and injection system from a fiat Cinquecento 900cc to a reliant 850cc? It's a single port injection system and the ECU is not remapable, but I'm hoping it would just work as both engines are roughly the same size and design (pushrod).

lel I don't that's why I'm asking, I mean all it does is just ground the fucking solenoid to trigger it, I'm just trying to figure out if the controller will flip its shit when you force it into 3rd