Has anyone had an opportunity to try this ?

http://members.cisdi.com/~anesthes/T...-02-13-1.0.pdf

A microsquirt is only $300

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/m...nly-p-519.html

Which, based on the features outlined in the manual and the fact that the source code is available:

http://www.msextra.com/downloads/

Makes this a very powerful yet cheap e-trans controller. I like the fact that it supports CAN, so if you already have a Megasquirt controlling fuel + spark, it will communicate with this and share data/sensor/calibration.

I'm somewhat tempted to pick up a 4l60e and one of these controllers to see how well it works.

-- Joe

 

Just get the PCM from a '92-'93 6.5L turbodiesel, that was built with the 4L80E. That's only $25 at any of my local salvage yards. Then send it to GMTuners to get the shift points raised to wherever you want them. Total cost still ends up less than half the cost of the Microsquirt. This also works for 4L60E, but better to just put 4L65E guts in an '88-'93 700R-4.

 

That's not something I'm interested in. I like the MS stuff because I have 100% control over everything, and I can edit the source if needed to add or change functionality.

The stock stuff is fine for most people.

I'm looking for feedback from folks who might have done this. I realize that this might not be the best place to post, as most of our members use OE electronics or EBL, but I know we have a handful of hardcore members too.


-- Joe

 

^This is exactly what I was going to say.

Instead of having to pay AND send it out any time you want to make changes, the microsquirt can essentially be plugged into ANY laptop, and changes can be made at will and on the fly.

I would much rather have it that way. Being able to tune my car myself, and not have to rely on someone else to do the tuning is hands down the reason I chose the MS over the others.

That aside, Joe, I think there actually may be a couple people on the MS forums who have done it already. I may be mistaken though I thought I remembered seeing a thread on controlling the 4l60e with one.

Surely it wouldn't be very hard to do, just carry over what the current TCM does. Should be plenty of documentation from aftermarket installs/tuning the TCM.

 

I think I'm going to do it for next season. I'm in the opinion that the computer can shift way faster and more consistently than I can.

Plus, 4l60e's are kinda cheap. If they blow up another one from a junkyard is like $250.

-- Joe

 

You could always "massage" the trans tunnel to get the 4l80e in there, lol.

Any way you do it I'm interested in seeing your progress and end result. Since Im currently using and tuning a megasquirt ecm in my car, this is something I was looking into as well. Though I might bite the bullet and go for the 4l80e when I do get that far.

 

Arg... more and more ideas how to do things and not enough time to do them all... I'm just about ready to grab one and tinker with it, if I end up not using it I can throw a GM TBI on my 71 Mach 1 and use the Microsquirt on that...

I really do wish I could just have the engine/drivetrain do what I want it to do without having to do all this tinkering...

 

huh... I just had a crazy thought looking thought that manual- since you would use a CAN bus connection to get the sensor data from the existing sensors (including the MAP), could you use the onboard MAP on the microsquirt running the e-trans for realtime baro correction?

 

Like 6X functionality to a 4L80? Other examples?

Normally I am a big fan of stock sourced parts but you'll convert me one day.

 

There is no onboard map on a microsquirt. Uses an external map sensor.

You can get realtime baro by adding a second map sensor. It's simply a matter of how many spare ADC's you have.

You can also buy anything that supports CAN and that will show up as an extended i/o gauge in TS.

-- Joe

 

Microsquirt TCU supports up to 10 gears.

-- Joe

 

I would love to see gear splitting on a 4L80e (the hardware is capable, I don't know what's involved in making it happen).

What has me concerned about the documentation is that it lists how to setup an MS and GPIO, but not a microsquirt.

Looks like you'd also have to get the harness if you're going to get anywhere with it. I haven't figured out how the can bus connection gets done on the micro either

I kind of expected you to just use the separate board that you documented on your page antithesis...

 

Ok Couple of things.

1) Microsquirt v1 and v2 are deprecated, only v3 is available

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/m...ess-p-131.html


Just order this one ^^^ which comes with the cable. ($339 vs $299 without)

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/m...nly-p-519.html

2) Page 21 and 22 shows how to wire the Microsquirt v3 to the e-trans connector. Shows the wire color if using a MS cable, or pin if you are making your own cable.

3) The microsquirt MODULE which I used for my engine management system is a different product. It's a MS2 on a credit card sized board designed to be used within another product. For example, I mounted it in an old GM ecm case, I added a stepper IAC circuit, I added a fuel pump circuit, and I bridged it to a D56 connector retaining the factory 1227165 ECM pinout. (with MAP using the MAF wires). So ignore that product for this purpose.

4) Pin 2 and Pin 3 (CAN HIGH and CAN LOW) are the pins used for CAN BUS. Simply splice these to your MS2 for CAN communication.

http://www.megamanual.com/com/CAN_connect.gif

Set the CAN id to 0 on one and maybe 1 on the other. You can splice other CAN devices in to these wires as well. (low to low, high to high) like gauges, dataloggers, GPS, etc. Each device gets a CAN ID and will communicate with the other devices.


-- Joe

 

Any good chassis dyno shop will have a tranny tricker, then one dyno pull to valve float will determine your shift points. With the LSx you don't even need to do that.
So no need to get your shift points changed once they're set. For LSx, the intake manifold runner length dictates the HP peak must be around 6200-6300 RPM, and the best HR lifters dictate shifting by 7200 RPM. This holds true whether you're playing with a truck-based, LS1, LS6, LS2, LS3, whatever. The only exceptions would be the Edelbrock or fabricated intakes with a solid roller.
In any case, twiddling with shift points isn't a chance for huge reductions in elapsed times. So no need to change them once they're set.
And since you're discussing 4L60E and 4L80E, an efficient converter worth its asking price will slip no more than 500 RPM no matter what the stall speed, and the old rule of thumb is to shift 500 RPM past HP peak, plus you want to cross the finish line at the exact RPM of HP peak, so gear it for 500 RPM less than HP peak to compensate for the converter, unless you're paying extra for a converter built to survive WOT lockup.
Trial and error testing / tuning may be fun at first, moreso when you're just getting started, but enough other guys have already done enough of it to have it scienced out now. Why reinvent the wheel? Heck, none of us can even hope to improve that proverbial wheel. Not realistically. So just follow the existing maps and enjoy the drive. Tweaking the tune can't compare.

 

That's one way to do it. I've never really been much of a fan of dyno tuning. Just about every car I've seen that was tuned on the dyno ended up getting retuned trackside anyway. It became a novelty of simply having a place that printed you a sheet showing how much power you made on some random day of the week.

Plus, we typically change things so often we're constantly changing things trackside in the tune. On manual cars we're always setting the light at different RPM's so I don't see why changing your shift points trackside wouldn't be equally as beneficial.

-- Joe

 

Right, but my question right after that is the 4L80e is basically an overdrive planetary set added to a TH400 with electronic controls for the valve body... it's almost identical in function to a TH400 + Gear vendors, and in theory you should be able to split gears like a GV can (instead of going 1, 2, 3, 4(OD) you can go 1, 1+OD, 2, 2+OD, 3, 3+OD so you get 6 speeds with much smaller rpm drops between them, theoretically faster by keeping you right at your hp peak.

The rumor used to be that it was just a question of different programming, I have no idea if that is the truth, if it is if the MS could control that and if it isn't what would have to be done to make it work and then could the MS control it (without major reworking of the etrans code)?

Eh, the note at the top of that answers my questions (that no changes needed to be made internally for it, where they were quite significant for a standard MS2...) and CAN bus pins being labeled in the chart

Reading stuff when you're half asleep does that to you... Joe, i feel like I owe you an apology there, about half of the questions that you answered would have been unnecessary if I wasn't half asleep when I was doing this.

LOL, see my above comment, I saw the map sensor diagram at the bottom of the page and went to "hey look, it's got a vacuum port on the back of it..." :-P

I've played with it some in TS for something else I'm experimenting with (TIOx because I wanted to add PWM outputs to my MS), so I know what that looks like, but what I was wondering is that one unit obviously can see the inputs that the other is getting (the micro can see the MAP from the mini for it's tuing, as well as just seeing it in TS while you're tuning it).

What I was wondering is if you're out of ADC's on one if you can use the other to connect something like a second map to do baro correction?

 

I've seen cases where "twiddling" with one shift point made over .1s difference in the run, and sure, nice rules of thumb like shift at 500rpm past the peak might get you close, but that won't get you the fastest run, in some cases you could come significantly short.

You can get a lot closer by accounting for the gear ratios in the tranny (so you know where in the power band you drop to on each shift, which typically is different on each shift also. The same engine with a 4L80e will want different shift points than with a 4L60e/700 because they have a much different gear spread), but that still only gets you close, you can still drop some time out of your 1/4 by twidding there.

Finally, crossing at your hp peak is never fastest. Most cars/drivetrains want to be significantly above the HP peak through the lights to make a fastest run. I've personally owned 3 cars that had a rev limiter well above the HP peak that I found run fastest when you went through the lights holding the next lower gear and bouncing off the limiter through the lights. A couple of hundred rpm won't make as big a difference here as it does at the shifts, but it does add up.

Finally, like joe and I'm assuming wille (though I think you've said that you don't take yours to the track), I enjoy changing things and trying to eek out a little more speed. I typically have changed something every time out, if not while at the track to get an extra little bit. I log all my passes with notes about what was changed.

You might still say that is all not going to add up to that much, well, do you know someone that seems to always go a little bit faster, that every car they've ever bought people thought was a factory freak? I am that guy.

I've gotten a STOCK (the one exception was that a PO stuck a lightweight clutch assembly in it that slowed it down) LB9 (305tpi) car with 3.08 gears into the 13's, added headers and ran a 13.6@100 (people around here seem to think they are 15 second cars, this one is a particualrly pitiful example with 120K miles on it and blows a ton of oil smoke burning a quart in <800miles).

A better example of this is my 2012 SHO- something where everything is computer controlled and AWD, 0 traction problems, so most people assume that it's going to run what it's going to run, put it in D and stomp the gas. They are well known to be consistent 14.1 cars without the performance package (better gears, brakes and tires). I took mine to the track 3 days after I bought it. Lined it up and hit it and ran a 14.1xx... expected. Then I made 4 more passes, manually tweaking the shift points (paddle shifters), changing the launch technique and staging differently and by the end of the night I left with a 13.003 (I think, it might have been a 13.001)... The guys on the ecoboost forums don't believe it's stock because they can't do it... oh well...

 

AFAIK, TCI makes a 6 speed 4l80e which is a modified trans. As long as you get the solenoid logic correct it should work.

I think 6 speeds out of a stock 4l80e is a rumor.

Yes.

Under advanced->can settings, select the ADC on the other device and define it. Then under general->fuel under "baro" select "two independent sensors", then you can select the remote can ADC.

-- Joe

 

I really want to do this the more I read about the e-trans.. Even a 4L60E with good clutches and a tcc valve sleeve should hold up for a bit.

It also has a VSS output, so it will convert the 40 ppr to 2000/4000ppm if needed for your speedo, which means you don't need a converter box.




-- Joe