After many years of deliberation I decided to convert my car to fuel
injection. The main reason being that I use the car everyday (or
should) and with carburettors proving ok for the flat out driving
style, but not for the UK's congested commuter roads, it seemed the
best way to go.
One of the reasons it took so long for me to decide was the huge
initial cost of buying injection components. Back in '94-'95
ECUs, wiring looms and even second-hand injectors were very expensive.
Another drawback was the lack of ECU programming software available to
the end user. As the years progressed the cost of ECUs and the like
didn't really drop, but second-hand components started to. One of the
better results of waiting was the release of ECU programming software
by most manufacturers, to the end user.
I had been following the development of the Megasquirt ECU for about a year
while looking at commercial offerings from companies like SBD Motorsport and Emerald. Although as I write
this, Megasquirt will not control my ignition setup, it is a powerful
and flexible open source alternative to the UK commercials. With the
soon-to-be-released Megasquirt II and Ultra Megasquirt, ignition
control for my engine type hopefully won't be too far away in the
future. At £110 for Megasquirt and around £600 for a
commercial ECU, together with the open source nature of the hardware
design, firmware code and various programming software suites, you can
see that it's a fairly easy decision to make - well it is for a UNIX
sys admin with electronics as a hobby!
The following notes detail my experience of the conversion from
start to finish. I've tried to include as many details and pictures as
possible to help others get a better idea of what it takes to implement
Megasquirt and fuel injection in general. Although the conversion is on
a Westfield, I have tried to make it as generic as possible. Please
note: The following notes should be used in addition to the Mega Manual
available at the Megasquirt main web site. You make use of these notes
at your own risk; I cannot be held responsible for any damage or
consequential loss suffered by the use of Megasquirt or any
documentation contained herein.