Hi guys. After quite a vacation, I am back in the fold. Here is the story of my EFI melodram, which will explain in part why I have been gone.

1. Put MEga Squirt EFi and Grand National Turbo on slant at same time. This also coincided with new engine, and 5 speed tranny.

Mistakes:
1. Too many changes at once.
2. kept inadequate original factory wiring harness.
3. Lack of timing control contributed to preignition under boost.
4. Poor factory GM waste gate. Not adjustable, and too variable.
Successes:
1. Five speed worked like a charm.
2. Boost comes on very smoothly with little or no lag.

2.Took Mega Squirt off, and installed Accel Gen VII ECU and control.
Mistakes:
1. Huge mistake. Poor product. Non-existent wiring digrams.
2. Poor factory support.
3. Terrible quality control.
4. No ignition harness for Mopar, and no wiring diagrams for same. Could not get car started.
5. Accel was the start of a nightmare with this car.
6. Took car to local tuner/Accel dealer to get it started and without telling me he swapped in a timed distributor. This added centrifigal and vacuum advance to computer map timing. This really fouled things up, but I did not know, nor did I think to check this. I "KNEW" I had put a lean burn distributor in, and so never looked. Pre-ignition was now worse than ever since standard distributor was adding 25 degrees of timing to my timing Map.

Success:
1. Sent complete MS ECU and harness to DArt 270, thinking he could use it. He never did, so 2 years later it was available when I needed it.
2. Upgraded all wiring at this point. This was major project.


3. Installed a modern in-tank pump in a new gas tank.
Mistakes.
a. Failed to vent it properly. Fuel pressure dropped after 15-20 minutes of driving.

Success:
a.Car started more reliably when cold.

4. Took car to Behe Performance for dyno tune.
Mistakes.
a. This was another giant mistake. He did nothing in 18 months
b. I had given up on the car, thinking it would never run right again. Considered putting carb back on it, and selling it.

5. Finally went and got car back from Behe. Had to tow car back.
Mistakes:
a. None.
Success:
a. It was in my driveway once again, even though it would not run.
b. Felt energized to get it right this time. I still thought I was going to sell it.

6. Lou Madsen and Sandy came to house and applied knowledge and brain power to switching back over the MEga Squirt.

Mistakes:
a.Again, none. (except back got sore)
Successes:
a. It started and ran smoothly the first time we hooked up the ECU.
b. Pulled Dart into garage where it belonged.
c. Had a ball with Lou and Sandy.

7. Lou returned Sunday evening from Hagarstown for some tuning.
Mistakes:
a. None.
Successes:
a. It was Lou who saw the timing moving with RPM under the light, which led to investigating the distributor more closely.
b. This meant the lack of timing in MS I is not a problem since the distributor will do that for now.
c. It was Lou who noticed that the fuel pressure was dropping as the AF ratio was leaning out, thus leading me to investigate the fuel supply system, and discover, (Dummy me) that I had never installed the intended purge system. Am still not sure if this is the cause of the problem, but suspect it is. Will know soon.

So, what have I learned?
A. If you cannot fix it yourself, with a little help from your friends, a professional has less chance of doing so. He doesn't care like you do. When it comes to a hobby car, a professional is kind of your option of last resort.

B. Always go back to basics, and challenge your assumptions. I felt pretty foolish for not noticing the things that Lou saw in an hour of fooling around the the car. Thanks Lou.

c. You cannot fix a problem by adding more complexity. Simple systems should work, at least the way they are intended. If they don;t work, figure it out and fix it before adding more complexity. Maybe by then you won't even need the extra gadget or do-dad.

d. I really love this car too much to sell it right now. But I need be more patient in working out its challenges. Some of my errors were the result of impatience, and wanting to fix things faster than was wise. It became kind of an obsession that I did not examine very intelligently at the time. I guess I had kind of burned myself out with my impatience. I am glad my Dart is back and intend to get it right this time.

I hope this piece of history helps others with their projects. It is nice to be back among friends. I kind of lost my way there for awhile. As Dorothy said; "There is no place like home".

Sam

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Sam,

I am glad to see you back here again. I always liked reading about your car. I was hoping to possibly meet you at hagerstown this year, and see your car. Guys like Lou/Sandy are great to have around, they always seem to know where to look. I've asked Lou quite a few questions about my car. I am glad you are making progress again and hope to one day see you at a slant six race. Good Luck!

Ryan

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Ryan Covalt
62 Plymouth Valiant Race Car 2170# 11.008 @ 117.65 MPH 1/4 Mile Best
72' Dart Swinger Street Car, 4 spd, 3330# 14.061 @96.58 1/4 mile Best

Sam,

Nice summary. Good to do these reflections sometimes. I'm excited that you're excited about the car. Hard not to be...

Talk to you soon,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

We will notice in another thread that I did put a tank vent in. It just did not work. Now to fab something that does. It should not be hard. I am still open to the possibility that this will not be the last missing piece of the puzzle.

Sam

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Tonight I installed a block off plate for the IAC that was left over from the Accel system. The idle is much more stable now. On to tuning. It was idling very rich at warm up, but first I must let it warm up, get the timing set at around 10 BTDC at idle, then get the idle AF ratio stable around 13:1 or 14:1 or so. Then, I can go back and get the warm up enrichments established. That is for another day.

I found the com port on the lap top that Mega Tune wants to work with, and got the lap top talking to the ECU. More progress.

Sam

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Please continue to keep us posted on your progress, Sam. Pretty much every mod you've made are mods I'd like to do to my Swinger someday. Thanks for sharing the good times and the bad...

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vm

I put the poor man's fast idle back on, left over from before. It is a purge valve from a minivan wired to open only when the fast idle lead from the Mega Squirt gives it power. Can anybody recommend an inline valve to tune the air flow for good start up RPM? I suppose I could go to Home Depot and buy a small in-line globe valve of the kind they put on ice cube makers.

Sam

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I agree. Thanks for the candid summary. I love your car, and am glad you're sticking with the project(s).

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DynoDave
1970 Plymouth Duster
1972 Dodge Charger Rallye
1977 Chrysler Cordoba
WPC # 12304

Thanks for the nice comments, and encouragements, but keep in mind, if it were not for this forum, this car would not exist, at least not in my world. It is a reflection of the collective wisdom of many, many guys who have prodded, er..encouraged me along the way. Keep up the prodding...er....encouragement. It is working.. There is still work to do.

Sam

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Went out tuning tonight, and could not get the tuning table to save to the ECU, even when a pressed the S as it said in the Help menu. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong here? I will post this on the Mega Squirt forum also.

I was pleased with what I could get to happen, but when I closed and reopened, the old values were still there, and the engine was running rich once again. As always, thanks.

Sam

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"Alt B" in the VE tuning map screen should help, or the laptop was somehow disconnected from ECU before saving?

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Lap Top was not disconnected. Alt B huh? I will try that. I wonder why it says "S" saves the table to Flash memory in the help menu? All other keystrokes worked fine, so know the lap top is connected. I could change constants and I think those stayed. Maybe I should go back and see if those went back to the old values.

Sam

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I just found the alt-B key stroke listed under the file drop down. I see it is short hand for "Burn". That should work. I wonder why the "S" keystroke does not. Another question I have not been able to figure out intuitively from the program is how you switch back and forth between the 3D map of VE table values and the matrix table of MAP and RPM Values. Anybody know this? It seems to kind of show up randomly in the table form, and most of the time in the 3d contour display.

Sam

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They're under different menus - the 3D one is under Tuning. The other ones' location depend on the firmware you have, but the latest MS1/Extra code has the flat VE table under Basic Settings and the flat spark table under Spark.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Keep up the good work Sam. I might need your tune one day!!

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11.02 @ 120.56
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAxRmoDgsdY
Chassis dyno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd6hFGzLJMc