The MegaSquirt line of Engine Management Systems are Do It Yourself (DIY) systems capable of full standalone engine management at a fraction of the cost of the what the ‘big dogs’ charge. They were designed with education and performance in mind, so that the do it yourselfer could learn the in’s and out’s of engine management and tuning, while learning a good bit about electronics in the process if you choose to build the unit yourself. What you end up with is an incredibly performing EMS that you built yourself for ultimate bragging rights when you leave your buddies behind as a speck in your rearview mirror. And you did this for a quarter to a tenth of the cost of a ‘big name’ retail standalone ECU.
Building and installing a MegaSquirt EMS will require that you do some homework. Some of the questions and answers below will help to guide you on where to start this and how to go about it. You will learn a lot in the process and if you so choose you will come out of it with the knowledge to properly tune your car for the current configuration you have now, and for any future power combo you can dream up and implement. There is no limit to what you can do or to how much power you can make with this engine management system. We know right now of a MS user running low 10’s (10.08) in a 5000lb 4×4 truck making over 1000hp and 1000lbs/torque to the wheels (turbo/nitrous) who took first place in his class at Hot Rod’s Drag Week 2005 and 2006. he won a high dollar ($2400+) big-name EMS system in the 2005 contest, he quickly traded it away to stick with his trusty ole’ MegaSquirt 1, which he has a total of around $200 invested in. We’ve got another customer making about the same level of power now on one of these units on a Land Speed car he runs out at Bonneville. Again with an MS1 running the MS1/Extra firmware, he holds a world record in his class at 240 mph. (Check out Gary Hart’s car out at this link). Another customer we’ve been in contact with recently has a MegaSquirt 2 in his rear-engine dragster. He’s running consistent 8.8 ET’s in the 1/4.
This MegaSquirt thing is no joke.