jimmyesh on Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:24 pm

Another step towards completion - I now have the ECU! 😀

Megasquirt V3

dangerousdave - yep you were right about the on-board 21 psi MAP sensor! 😛 No bother though, I'll still use the FRS one that I bought for the signal to run the boost gauge on the FRS dials...

It was originally bought by a good friend who was going to put a Golf 1.8 20v Turbo lump into his MK1 but has since sold the engine and consequently didn't need this anymore. He sold it to me for £100 which was a Godsend just after the Christmas blowout! :oooh:

Luckily the Golf also uses C.O.P ignition and this is already mapped for that so hopefully it shouldn't be too much hassle setting this up to run my Ford C.O.P setup. 😕

Luckily there's a big Megasquirt site with lots of helpful forums and as I'm an Electronics Technician by trade, this hopefully won't prove too difficult! :aaah:

Apparently I need to change a transistor for a more powerful one to drive the Ford ISCV that I'm using as the Megasquirt is normally used for stepper-motor type idle valves 😕

Also, I was hoping to fit a boost control solenoid and I'm sure I have to add another driver for that too:-?

Ah well, I love a challenge! 😉

jimmyesh on Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:38 pm

A bit more progress! 😀

Thanks to "cowie20" on these forums I now have a full FOCUS RS wiring loom which he sold to me for a very reasonable sum, thanks again mate 🙂

Seeing this box of wires took me back to when I built the MANJ and had to decipher a whole ST170 loom! :aaah:

I went through it this evening with the Ford TIS CD and have identified the parts I require. As you have seen in earlier posts, I'm using the Focus RS Clocks and consequently need to use inputs from the engine and Vehicle speed sensor to supply the ECU with the info that it needs to drive the clocks. I have pinouts for the FRS 104-Pin ECU and should have this little lot sorted soon enough... :oooh:

Also, as the FRS dials incorporate a boost gauge, I have a FRS MAP sensor which will provide the signal for the ECU to drive that gauge.

 

I am using other features of the Focus loom too, such as the twin cooling-fan drivers (using cyl-head temp sensor & ECU), the outside temp/ice warning sensors, the Ford Passive Anti-Theft (PATS) system and keeping the alternator wiring to the ECU.

I'm going to pare this lot down to the bare essentials to save weight/clutter and generally to only keep what's absolutely necessary for it all to work.

I should have the driveshafts back from recoprop this week and have started making up the engine loom for the Megasquirt, the coil packs and injector loom is all sorted and looking rather neat even if I do say so myself! 😛 (will take pics next time I'm in work).

jimmyesh on Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:10 am

The loom looks a little less scary now guys! 🙂 I've been chipping away at it for an hour or two every night with the TIS CD, my ECU Pinouts and a huge pile of wiring diagrams/connector views.

To be fair, I don't need a great deal of it and am keeping only what's absolutely necessary for my instruments to work 🙂

I spoke with someone who's very experienced in this field yesterday and basically as I'm using two ECU's (MS V3 for engine, FRS for dials, anti-theft & cooling fans etc) I need to add another crank sensor to drive the Focus ECU (for tach driver) as misfires can occur if you try to share the CPS signal between two ECU's. It doesn't have to be accurately mounted either as it's only for the dials and is not actually running the engine so can be sited anywhere between 0 & 360 degrees. Luckily the Duratec lump has the trigger-wheel mounted on the outside of the cam-chain cover, behind the crank pulley so it shouldn't be too hard to knock up a little bracket :oooh:

jimmyesh on Fri Feb 05, 2010 8:42 pm

Right everyone, couple of new developments 🙂

Firstly, I returned the Megasquirt V3 to my friend and am not using it any more - I've been chatting to some well-known ECU-tuners who can remap (hack into!) Ford EECV ECU's and am going to run the engine on the Focus RS ECU as well as the clocks! :oooh: It means ditching the C.O.P setup but in many other ways the 104-pin EECV is more sophisticated than the V3. It seemed stupid having a powerful ECU that's already designed for an inline-4 turbocharged Ford just sitting there driving the clocks! :rolleyes:

Here's the ECU...

I'm still working up North in Catterick for another couple of weeks so took my box of Focus RS wiring up, and also my TIS CD and full pinouts for the Focus RS 104-PIN EECV - my mates think I'm both mad and sad at the moment! 😆

Here's what a few boring evenings have produced - I have completely stripped the engine loom back to the ECU connector and re-made the loom to suit the layout of my Fiesta MK3 Engine bay + back-to-front Duratec HE engine. I've left most of the sensor connectors off for now though so that they can all be added once I have it all in-car once I'm back down south - it will all be tidy and use the normal Fiesta MK3 rubber boot that covers the ECU. The ECU will also be mounted where the MK3 Fez item normally lives.

The driveshafts have arrived from Recoprop and as you can see, they are almost equal-length. O/S one is 380mm, N/S one is 355mm so hopefully torque-steer shouldn't be as prevalent as it is with the normal Fiesta transmission :oooh:

Exciting times - things are looking up! 😀

jimmyesh on Sat Apr 03, 2010 6:58 pm

Hello everyone and happy Easter 🙂

Had a full day working on the car yesterday and finally started to get my modified Focus RS wiring loom fitted...

Firstly the dash was removed to make things neater/easier towards the end when I'm hooking up the wiring to the Inst cluster/OBD Port/PATS/Fiesta fuse box;

As I'm using the Focus RS ECU and loom, I also needed to fit a Focus PATS tranceiver so here it is;

As per my previous updates, I pared the original Focus RS loom right back to the ECU connector and started from scratch, reconstructing it to suit the layout of my Fiesta's Duratec engine bay. I'm using the standard MK3 Fiesta ECU mounting location so here is the bare loom emerging from the passenger footwell! :aaah:

This job is extremely time-consuming! :rolleyes: Basically I left all the connectors off the loom so that I could tailor it exactly to my engine bay, and heat-shrink each individual "branch" that goes off to a different part of the bay then soldier the relevant connectors in place (been triple-checking the wiring diagrams and ECU pinouts at every stage! :oooh: ) - we're partially there in this pic...

Here is is as I left it last night - most of the engine bay components are all connected now, including earth leads etc. As I've needed to revert back to conventional HT-Lead ignition due to using the FRS ECU, I've had to re-route my hard boost pipe slightly (see pic) - no hardship, I'll get that sorted soon. As you can see, I'm also using the original MK3 Fiesta ECU wiring rubber "boot" for neatness and also, The Focus battery junction box - this allows me to run all the ECU, PATS, sensors, dash, fans, fuel pump etc with the correct fuses/relays already in place. I'm also using the Focus relays in this box too such as, Starter relay, Engine run relay, Fan relays, Ignition relay, fuel pump relay. As a result, I'm only keeping the fiesta fuse box for the lighting, heated screens, central locking etc.

Here's the wiring that needs hooking up to the dash,OBD port,PATS,Starter button,fuel pump and the fez fuse box. Not too much really as the ecu and engine bay wiring that uses the battery junction box all gets taken care of under the bonnet. (sorry for the grainy pic - crap mobile phone! 😆 )

Image

Got a bit more to do and I have an extra week's leave after my wife goes back to work in a week's time so going to beast it then!

jimmyesh on Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:09 pm

Well, my leave is almost over 🙁 I managed to use a few days of it productively though 😀

Basically all the wiring is done! :aviator:

As you can see from the first pic, all the engine-bay loom is done and I've gone full-circle back to Coil-On-Plug (C.O.P)ignition :oooh: This might be of interest to some of you - I did some research and some testing of my own (using a signal generator, test-jig and oscilloscope) and found the the C.O.P coils can be ignited from the standard Ford DIS or EDIS wasted-spark setup 🙂 Each individual coil had a dwell-time of just over 2ms, whereas the standard Ford coilpack has a dwell-time of 4.2ms. When wired in series, in pairs (1&4 , 2&3), the C.O.P coils had a dwell-time of just over 4ms! Others have successfully used this setup on various cars using EDIS and ECU-driven wasted-spark ignition. More importantly, I have freed upsome valuable space in my 'bay once again (chopped my hard-pipe for nothing though as I won't be using the standard coil-pack now :rolleyes: )

The interior wiring is all done, the dash is all re-fitted and the instruments work! :Q

Almost looks like it was made to fit in an early '90's Fez 🙂 Can't wait to get those other 3 needles moving though :devil:

Also fitted a FRS-Style "Engine Start" switch. As I'm using the FRS Relay-box and complete starting system, I thought it made sense.

A new problem has been the Ford PATS system :rolleyes: As you know from my previous updates, I'm using the FRS EEC-5 104-Pin ECU which obviously uses that PATS system - I purchased the ECU & supposedly "matching" key from someone on Passionford - After some headscratching (and swearing!) today, I narrowed the problem down the the ECU & Key not matching. I'm getting 12v & Earth to the PATS, plus the two PATS signal wires have continuity to their corresponding pins on the ECU. With the ignition on, I've bypassed the two wires on the ECU that ground the "Engine Run" relay and starter relay, connecting them manually to earth - had the engine turning over on the starter motor that way (kept the coil leads off for now :oooh: )

Someone on this site who lives locally to me says that he can get the key reprogrammed for my ECU for far less that Ford charge so hopefully things will be happening soon... 😉

I'm so excited that this little beast is finally coming to life after such a long slog

jimmyesh on Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:48 pm

Thanks for all the kind words guys 🙂 Yeah, exciting (but also worrying) times! :aaah:

Had a PM sent through and it looks like I may be getting the PATS system looking at and hopefully the key re-programming on Sat 24th - fingers crossed! :oooh:

Have still got a few little bits to do;

1. Both driveshafts are still sat in the boot, waiting for me to get it upon the ramps and fit them.

2. My PAS reservoir (nice little black item from a VOLVO of all things!) needs fitting and plumbing in.

3. One coolant pipe (to the top heater-matrix pipe - fiddly as fook to reach now! :rolleyes: ) needs fitting.

4. Brakes/Clutch need bleeding & clevis pin fitting to the master cylinder.

5. Engine oil, Trans Oil & Cooling system need filling.

6. Focus RS Post-Cat Lambda sensor needs boss welding further down the exhaust (just for ECU purposes - not planning on using a CAT).

7. Cooling fan wires still need connecting (will be using twin fans once it's running - think this lump may generate some heat! :aaah: )

8. Oh yeah the horn's knackered too (people should hear this motor coming though to be fair 😛 )

Things are getting hectic again at work now so hopefully I can keep my wife on-side and get some time on the car...