Dumping my Accel Thruster EFI ECU for Megasquirt

It's been while since I have written a decent post for this blog. The main reason for that is I have been fighting with my Accel Thruster fuel injection system for quite some time now. I got it to the point where the engine would start and run for a while but once it got up to temperature it would stall. So I began a quest to try and find some help. I searched all over the internet trying to find a forum with other DFI users and found none. I tried to find more documentation but Accel's website is absolutely horrendous. Just terrible. I almost can't express in words how awful it is. In contrast FAST and Edelbrock have fantastic sites. So it's not like an old school hotrod parts company can't put together a decent website. After giving up on Accel's website I attempted to try and contact Accel support but they have ZERO internal support for their fuel injection systems. They recommended I contact a third party who they consider a 'master installer' for support. I did contact this person but after exchanging a dozen e-mails I didn't feel like I was making any progress. The documentation I was able to find for this system was confusing at best and terrible at its worst. It seemed like the documentation was assuming more knowledge than I possessed which I guess is on me but when there is no where else to turn for help it is a really shitty situation for me. I also could not find any online forums with other Accel Thruster EFI users.

I purchased my engine from a builder who was supposed to tune the fuel injection system on their dyno and give me a pretty much plug and play setup. I'll admit I am a novice when it comes to EFI systems. Maybe I was expecting too much from 'plug and play'. After fighting with this Accel Thuster system for months and getting advice from knowledgeable friends I slowly began to realize this Accel system was not a good fit for me. I wanted something that was initially ready to go but I could learn more about and tweak later on. After doing all this research trying to find support I now think that Accel EFI systems are marketed at engine builders and are not for hobbyists like me. The lack of support, lack of online communities and lack of decent documentation makes it very difficult for the average shade tree mechanic to work with this system. Their Thruster tuning software hasn't been updated since 2009 which is concerning because entire operating systems have come and gone in that amount.

A friend of mine recommended I read a book titled 'Performance Fuel Injection Systems' by Matt Cramer and Jerry Hoffmann. It was very informative and covered a wide variety of EFI systems from full aftermarket to piggy back units. My first realization from reading this book was that the narrow band O2 sensor that came with the Thruster was essentially useless. I purchased a PLX Wideband O2 sensor and attempted to use it with the Thruster system but it didn't help me narrow down any of the issues I was having.

After reading about the capabilities of various systems in the book I decided to learn more about Megasquirt ECUs. Megasquirt seemed to have the most features for the best price. I was especially interested in the CAN bus capabilities. I downloaded the manual for the MS3-Pro ECU from diyautotune.com to learn more about it. The manual was easy to understand and didn't seem to assume much if any prior knowledge about EFI. Looking around the internet for online support I found the Megasquirt forums to be very active. There are a bunch of helpful videos on Youtube too. ExtraEFI has a series of video tutorials that go through every single menu option of TunerStudio and explain what each setting does.

I felt now I could make an informed decision what I should do. I definitely wanted to stick with EFI. I wanted a system that could data log internally (Thruster EFI can't without an expensive add-on). I wanted to run dual O2 sensors and have each data logged (Thruster only supports one O2 sensor input). I wanted to be able to control three separate electric fans (Thruster only supports two). I wanted software that could run on Mac or Windows (Thruster is Windows only). I wanted a modern system that was under active development and has an online user community (Thruster seems like a forgotten, stagnant product). All of this was pointing me at a Megasquirt system. I decided to go with the MS3-Pro ECU.

The Megasquirt manual had some great advice on wiring ground connections and how to reduce EMI noise reaching the ECU which could cause erratic behavior. These things may well have been some of the issues with the Thruster system but their manual made no mention about this. I am working on relocating my HEI remote coil to reduce noise from that and I have to wire up all the sensors to the new ECU. I'm planning on writing up blog posts to document my experience of installing this Megasquirt system. Hopefully it will be much less painful than that damn Thruster system.