Evening Fellow B5ers,
I've been looking into the megasquirt stand alone ECU, im not worried about the time or if it's excessive for my application(stock 1.8T). I'm purely interested in weather or not it will 1) Give me the upgrade that other ecu's will and 2) that it will work with my car and not make it 'splode. Any info you guys can provide will be much appreciated.
~Pibb

http://www.diyautotune.com/index.html (Megasquirt Site)

 

you do know you have to write your own base map right? and then you have all the tuning. i don't think you should get into it man, it's not worth your engine

 

Unless you have a serious f**king set up, you DO NOT need a stand alone engine management system. Thats for folks that want to push the envelope.

 

i've got some experience with megasquirt and for a newer vehicle, and especially a newer german vehicle, it's not worth it. there are way too many sensors and features integrated into the factory ECU. you would lose a lot of creature comforts and some important features by switching to megasquirt, unless you spent hundreds of hours researching, reprogramming and re-integrating everything through the megasquirt ECU. BUT...if you did spend all that time getting it installed, and then spent another few hundred hours tuning your fuel and ignition maps, you would have one badass custom tuned A4.

 

So basically the downsides would be massive amounts of man hours put into the thing, for something that could be achieved with an already built ECU? What about running my stock ECU along with the Megasquirt? Someone did this on the forum and said they ran their main functions off their factory ECU and then tuned other smaller things with the Megasquirt. I'm basically just trying to figure out if i want to jump in on the GIAC group buy, or if this megasquirt is worth the time for a much cheaper ECU.

 

i'd jump on the GB. or if you call up speedtuning, i'm sure they'd give you the recent GB's price if you mention you're from AF

 

I've heard nothing but bad things about speedtuning, so imma stay away from them, thats just my feelings. Alright guys, well thanks for the input, hopefully some more people will fill me in, i'd still like some people that have tried it to give their opinions, but so far it seems like i wont be getting MegaSquirt.

 

I've never heard of someone piggybacking a megasquirt ECU off a factory system so I'm not sure how that works. my experience is with much older cars (70s and 80s BMWs), which are a lot easier to convert to megasquirt. A chip is definitely the better option for a relatively stock A4.

Unless you value your time at pennies an hour, megasquirt won't be worth it in the end.

 

There are other factors to go to stand alone as well, it is easier to integrate into older cars as BFlan said. If your car is throttle by wire i believe you have to change it to a throttle cable system. Mike2ptzero i believe has 034 motorsport stand alone, he could also be of help to you in this matter.

 

heres some additional info. weather or not its necessary for you to do this is another story.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=254356