Sick of carburetors, hello DIY fuel injection and ignition control: MegaSquirt II

There is a reason new cars don't use carburetors, and it isn't too expensive (but a lot of work) to convert to using a MegaSquirt II module (you buy in a kit that you assemble yourself) so you can reap the benefits of Electronic Fuel Injection. My dad bought a MegaSquirt I kit a long time ago to replace the Chrysler Lean-Burn system on a '78 LeBaron we used to have and never assembled it. A few months ago I became so frustrated with my 2150 and being embarrassed at school for breaking down and driving a "heap", "POS", "Pinto", and "Vega", all of which associated with reliability issues that I decided it was worth the time to step up to a more modern fuel delivery method, starting with a two-injector Ford CFI throttle body:


$30 on eBay bought me this, with injectors that functioned (surprisingly) and dirty everything. Cleaned up with brake cleaner (didn't have carb cleaner at the time) off the engine, and I made a connector for the injector connector (black, on left) by cutting up a computer Molex connector. Mounted and hooked up now, AN fittings are rigged up in this photo.


Dad's working on the injector wiring here.

MegaSquirt computer with case bought from DIYautotune.com (I got SO much information from them about the whole project)\
Relay board, mounts in the engine compartment, connects to MegaSquirt computer through the firewall, controls injector banks and receives data from sensors.

Tools and parts used in installation of fuel system.

Fuel pump and filter installed.


Sitting on the spray-painted German flag hood I did myself with foglights and cheap black plastic passenger side mirror recently installed Once the MegaSquirt is mounted and the O2 sensor is installed I will tune it and finally be able to drive to school in what my peers now know of as a "Ford Maverick", "boss car", "German flag hood", "that car with six horns" (I went overboard with my horn relay I installed and a bunch of horns I've collected), and "Muscle car". All of those names have been accumulated by people on Facebook that see photos I post

Later work to be done: Ignition control setup/rev limiting, install my 8-injector 5.0 HO intake manifold, roller valvetrain, and E7 heads I pulled from a Thunderbird HO motor at pull-a-part, and dual 2.5" pipes (from our '65 the previous owner used to race) with headers I might get for my birthday

 

Interested in following the MS setup and operation. Got any pic's of the 6 horn setup? Im going to replace my horn w/ a new setup, probably a twin-dual tone setup.

 

Here are a few pictures:

The wiring isn't hidden so well, but it will be when the weather is warmer. I am also going to make the brackets for the twin horns in front of the radiator longer because hood prop clearance is very close. Also the relay is mounted where the green and red wire leads between the radiator and overflow reservoir.

 

Hey 12VOLT, I guess u got enough hornsIm thinkin u probably sound like a big truck when u lean on those babies...

 

It sounds demonic, it's great! I scared my neighbor from 50 feet away and I don't even have the train horn installed! 120 dB from three feet away I have a back-up alarm that's switchable so I can just beep whenever I want to (good for getting kids out of the way driving through a parking lot getting to band practice) and a car alarm siren that's switchable so I can mess with people that "accidentally" touch my car :evilsmile I've gotten so much crap from people because they think it's ugly or crappy (which it used to be when one door was orange and the other was bare Bondo) so I decided an easy fix is $8 of spray paint (fixed the ugly, mostly) and an hour of wiring silliness could make the car memorable in another way But yeah, it sounds like three angry cars instead of one mildly irritated one when I honk, and the train horn is gonna go in the back pointing rearwards for tailgater deterrence once I get a compressor since the car won't stink as much as it did with a carb.... muwahaha.

 

Just curious about your carb troubles, were you running it with a points ignition ?

 

man your going to have fun with the megasquirt. i have a ms3 project in the works. cant wait to hear about the resutls

 

I have a Pertronix pickup and a high-power Accel coil, and I had the timing set correctly. And yes, I'm very excited to drive the car with the 2bbl throttle body as I believe I should have more power than I did with the 2bbl carb, and I still had way more get-up than any of the "imports" (to be politically correct) that talked crap about my car even with the carb.

Eventually: I'm going to work on the E7 heads a little or have them worked on by someone that really knows what they're doing (Thermactor bump removal, port match to the HO intake) and slap 'em onto another 302 we're pulling from our '65 Mustang that's less tired than my current motor's bottom end (200,000 miles and not enough oil changes on my dad's account) with an E303 or other mild cam if I can find one at a pull-a-part (wish I pulled the cam out of the Thunderbird) and I'll have headers on that motor eventually so the car should really scream when that's dropped into the car, right?

Also what do you guys think about how the foglights look? I actually aimed them as driving lights to widen my visibility so I can see around corners and they do that job well as far as I can tell right now, since the car hasn't moved for months. I picked them up at O'Reilly's for $25 and they came with all the wiring and switch and they're 55W Halogen bulbs each!

 

Look forward to reading about your experience, I got 3 megaquirt build and tunes under my belt already. Always fun!

So your going fuel only for now?
Wideband?

Two step, flat shifting, boost control, shift light outputs, fan control, nitrous control, ac control, pda operation.......... Boy the bells and whistles you can throw on them. LOTS OF FUN!

 

Once I have it all tuned for fuel (this weekend is the goal to be on the road but I won't get my hopes too high considering we are dealing with computers and something I built myself) I'm going to drive straight to the school's auto shop where my teacher thinks I'm a genius so I can get some new tires. A local tire supply is right next door to our shop so they just roll tires off their property off a ledge that's in front of our shop so we can install them
I'm not using a wideband sensor since from what I've gathered it isn't really necessary and I have a pair of Ford ones I pulled from the T-bird. Probably within next month I'll have direct coil control rigged up (I wanted an MSD 6AL for Christmas but my dad bought the MSII upgrade board since it opens up the possibility for computer-controlled ignition AND I get rev limiting from the MSII) and eventually I'll use it to control an MSD 6A when I have the HO port injection (what I called "MegaSquirt Phase 2" in the project plans I made in my notes at school) rigged up.

 

Your set up will be awsome from stop light to stop light go for it .

 

At a boy. go for it. Memories of myself in high school. Used to come up with all kinds of stuff on paper. Best friend and I sat in Hortons one night and drew up plans for solenoid actuated valves computer controlled. No camshafts. Guess what Honda came out with decades later?? Chrysler just started using them this year. We drew it up in the mid 80's. Our ideas were a bit ahead of current technology. LOL. We still laugh about it today.
We built some crazy stuff back then him and me. EXAMPLE,,My air compressor was 2 Chrysler ac compressors. The great big twins, and powered by a 12 hp cement mixer engine all welded to a 40 gallon tank. All parts donated so to speak. Good times.
Keep building and learning kid.

 

That is an amazing idea! I have a 5 gal air tank and two spare AC compressors and a 2hp treadmill motor that I could rig up! Thank you for the idea
I fiddle with electronics, computers, RC, and audio but lately I've been thinking of ways to propel various objects (carrots make great projectiles). A MAPP torch, a lawn mower muffler, and some copper pipe built me a great paintball/carrot cannon. Large targets 100 yards away have been hit accurately (houses at a construction site). My best friend and I have done a number of experiments with homemade rockets and propelling model cars, skateboards, and a go-kart with them. I make gifts for people with silver solder, wire, scrap metal and a welder rather than cards or store-bought things

 

Cool.
After I got married my friend kept tinkering. He ended up building a small jet type engine out of a Turbo charger. Built the entire thing himself. When it was set up right we wheeled it out the shop door. Got the shop vac and spun her up. She fired off propane and blew all the posters off the end wall 40 feet away. Took a lot of work to get the flame and housing designed so it didnt blow itself out. Used a furnace pump for the oil supply. It was real impressive. He even built an afterburner for it later on.

 

You would have had better luck had you went to a Holley 2 bbl. Reason I asked about points is, that's the source of most people's problems with a carb. It's not the carb, it's the points wearing and changing the tune. 90% of so called carb problems are really ignition related.