16v ECU/hardware swap or Megasquirt?

[jdbubb at verizon.net (Dan Bubb)]

As far as using the stock 82 ignition and fuel, if the 82 CIS is CIS Lambda it can probably be used as is. If it's straight CIS without WOT enrichment I don't think I'd use it. Adding KS ignition isn't difficult. You could use an 8V wiring setup with a 16V box.
Factory reliability and the 16V you're describing will kick the ass of any NA 8V unless it's on ITB's with a huge cam.

OTOH, Megasquirt, properly tuned (bear in mind that getting the ignition map right is really where the power is!) will give you an additional % power just because you're loosing the pressure drop across the CIS metering plate.

If you use the Relay board the wiring harness is really painless. You can terminate the engine bay end for each sensor or injector, route the harness to the relay board, cut and terminate. I'm thinking I could create an MS wiring harness from scratch in less than 8 hours total.
Tuning the fuel is also painless with MS if you have a WB-O2 considering the autotune feature and tuning software such as Megalogviewer. Of course you have to know what your AFR should be for various loads and RPM.
Tuning warmup, accell enrichment, after-start enrichment and cranking pulse width all take some trial and error and, of course, some sense about how to segregate the various enrichments to know which to tune.
As I said, tuning the ignition timing is really where the power and mileage are. There are no feedback tools for this other than avoiding ping or detonation. The only real tool is to dyno tune the engine, but that is really only effective at WOT unless you find a load dyno that can maintain RPM for various throttle positions. I've seen more incredibly bad ignition maps, but it isn't all that complicated. Just think about how a mechanical and vacuum advance distributor works and mimic that to get to at least a 95% level.
I haven't had any reliability issues with MS.
Dan

From: "Mark F." <mk1mark@gmail.com>
To: "Scirocco list" <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 12:41 AM
Subject: 16v ECU/hardware swap or Megasquirt?


> Hey list,
> 
> I'm going to be swapping over most of Michael Abatzis' old 16v I
> hauled up here from New Orleans recently into my 82 (cirrus grey, w/
> snowflakes Neptuno!).  The donor car has a nice 1.8L 16v punched out
> to 2L, w/ TT race header, and a bunch of other goodies.  I've never
> owned a 16v in my 17 years of Scirocco ownership (!?), so I don't
> really have an opinion of the stock 16v setup.
> 
> My options are to use most of the stock 82 setup, swap over the
> complete 16v setup (w/ enrichment module), or Megasquirt (w/ coil pack
> ignition)...  I have not looked into how difficult the 16v fuel/spark
> swap would be, so if anyone has some insight into what to expect there
> that will help me as well.  As for Megasquirt, I've followed the
> development of it since quite early on and I know what to expect in
> terms of the hardware required and how to implement it.
> 
> I'm leaning towards Megasquirt, especially since my MS project got
> scrapped last year, but as this car is (and will be) my daily driver
> I'm not overly concerned with wringing every last hp out of it.
> Anyone care to talk me out of it?  :)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mark.
> 75
> 82
> 82 Caddy
> 91 Jetta Coupe
> 
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