Does anyone know who repairs megasquirts? I have a MSPNP Pro for my 1990 Miata controlling a turbo vvt engine. I was driving around doing some autotune. Everything was fine for quite a while, then as I was almost getting home, I made a right turn and my head lights turned off then back on, then all of a sudden the car stumbled and turned off. Smoke started to come from the Megasquirt. I turned off the key and noticed that my headlights would not work anymore as well as my emergency lights, although the cluster still blinked the indicators very quickly like when there is a short on the headlights. Anyways the main problem after examining the ECU is that I burnt some things on there and some traces (I think that's what they're called) got damaged also. I hadn't connected the tach out cable coming out the ecu to anything and the wiring was exposed. Since the ECU wasn't bolted down yet I wonder if this cable could have touch the chassis and shorted it out? I'm kind of bummed out since I had just recently finished my vvt swap and was getting some tuning done.

 

The only person I have heard of that will repair these things is PFTuning which is Peter Florence. He's in one of the Carolina's. But I hear he is incredibly difficult to get in touch with. You might try the facebook page.

Obviously DIYAutotune but I believe they don't repair as much as replace, if you know what I mean. Call them, they charge an hourly rate plus parts. Who knows, might be under warranty.

And one of the site big wigs (jsmcortina) at MSForums says he repairs in his sig. Might be worth a shot although he is across the pond. Welcome - James Murray Engineering

Whatever the case I highly doubt the tach out touching ground or otherwise would be the culprit to your ecu failure. And I would definitely rule it out of causing the headlights to turn off and whatnot. I really do feel for you so check your wiring before putting another $1000 ecu back in the car.

 

I always thought Jsmcortina really helped on ms extra building, don't know if he was involved with the production of the pnp pro.
I'd start with talking to Matt Cramer hopefully he could help you or point you in the right direction, although that board does look pretty fubared

 

You need to go through DIYAutoTune.

 

you need to figure out what dumped all the voltage to ground else your burn up the next one too.

 

Yes, this thing looks like it's been hit with 18 volts... and the voltage has been kept that high for a long time.

We can repair the damage in the pictures - it's a two layer board, so there's little risk of damaging other traces than the cooked ones. Email us at support@diyautotune.com.

 

Email sent. Thanks for the quick reply. I really want to get this fixed. Its an expensive piece of hardware!

 

As much as I hate wiring,it looks like I'm going to have to start hunting down what could have caused this. I recently stripped almost the entire car to put in some sound deadening so the dash with all its wiring had been disconnected recently and I did my engine swap also so the engine bay wiring was also modified a bit. Nothing too crazy though. I just spliced in to the CAS plug to get +12V for the EBC and I spliced into the injector wiring for +12V that the crank and cam sensors need. I grounded those sensors to the back of the manifold. One thing I did notice and it should've raised a red flag was that my battery kept getting drained within hours. I assumed it was because the car had not been turned on for a while so I kept jumping it and continued. But like a good friend told me before, "assumption is the mother of all f**k ups". One more thing is that my radio did not power on with the key in either ACC or RUN. I'm pretty sure I wired it correctly, but I could be wrong, I'd have to check it out today after work. That wouldn't cause a ECU to burn up like that though would it? Also I am getting my +12V and ground for the AFR gauge straight from the ECU and I did not have an inline fuse. Just throwing some things out there while everything is fresh in my head. I literally just finished wiring and putting in the engine less than a week ago. Thanks again guys for the replies.

-David

 

Let me ask you a question... what alternator are you using? If you are using the VVT alternator, you will need some sort of voltage regulator.

 

Yes I was using the VVT engine alternator, but I thought that was okay to use since the MSPNP Pro can control it. At least that is what I'm pretty sure I had read. I didn't change any of the alternator control settings in tunerstudio though, left whatever was on the base map for 01-05.

 

Neither wire from the alternator (from an NA6 at least) is a control signal from the ECU. So if you PnP-ed the harness, it won't work. Get an NA alternator with a ribbed pulley, or one of the junkyard alternatives.

 

I think AFM is onto something. If you did not rewire the alternator when you swapped on the VVT one the MSPro will not properly control it. I would go the easy route that he suggested and find a 94-97 alternator and swap that over. I am assuming OP is already using the ribbed water pump pulley since it was probably on the vvt motor he got.

 

So what you are saying is that the VVT alternator is not really plug n play with the MSPNP Pro? How does the Alternator Control work then? I should've ran some type of signal wire from the Alternator to the ECU aside from the stock plugs that already connect to it? I have a NA 1.8 alternator already that I can try using, but I just thought that the VVT alternator would be fine with the newer MSPNP Pro.

 

If it was the alternator, would that cause my battery to drain within hours? Because that is something I first noticed.

 

For sixth sense

 

Darn that really sucks if that was it, because I have a 94-97 Alternator on my extra VVT engine in the garage. I did not rewire anything for the alternator, just plugged it in because I had not read much about rewiting it, just thought it would work. I did read that people were using the older NA alternator, but I assumed it was because they were not using a MS Pro so they couldn't control it.

 

yes. the MS is ready to handle voltage regulation, but it wasnt wired up to do it.

 

Much like with sequential injection, you can't use any features of the ECU that the harness doesn't support without extra wires. Unlike with sequential fuel, running wires to control an NB alternator with an ECU is a bad idea. Use the NA8 one if you have it.

That does really suck.

 

well it definitely sucks finding out after the damage has happened. Would that cause the MS to burn up like that? I guess it's probably not good if it was overcharging it. Because it was idling and then driving fine for about an hour before this shenanigans. Would this cause battery drain?

 

ugh man this really killed my day. I was trying to get it ready for the yearly Miata event at MRLS Oct 1st. Doesn't look like that's going to happen anymore. If it really is the alternator (I hope so because I really don't want to start hunting down cables) then I could possibly still be good. I have a MSPNP Gen 2 as well that I used to use to control the 1.6 engine, I can still wire up the VVT engine and use the 94-97 alternator this time, however I would have to do something different since it can't control VVT.