Buying used Megasquirt What to look for?

[85glhomni]

I found a used megasquirt I'm going to be looking at today or tomorrow. The guy says it includes a harness and all sensors I will need for my 2.4l turbo. He said it is a V3? What should I look for to make sure it is ok. New to megasquirt and this deal was dropped on me before I had much time to research. He is also asking $250.00.

[The Pope]

anyone doing Megasquirt should consider talking to our Megasquirt vendor as there is no many options. Una a Gearhead here is another good resource for MS info with these cars.

http://www.turbododge.com/forums/14383-matt-cramer.html

http://www.turbododge.com/forums/6183-una.html

[85glhomni]

The guy who is selling it says it's a MSII with the v3.o main board. ( I personally have not seen it yet) He purchased it to use on his SRT4 and then sold the car. A wire harness and needed sensors are included as he stated? I'm going to be running a SRT4 engine in my omni so I thought this would be perfect. I mostly want to know what hardware I need to look for and make sure I'm getting a fair deal to make my project work. The circuit construction and tuning can wait for another day, as I realize that is a learning experience.

[Una]

I would ask who built it. There are many vendors, each has their own take on what the correct mods are for 2.4 support.
As for what it's worth, I'd say $250 would be a good deal, over $350 and you might consider going with a new unit. Especially if you can solder, as you can get a MS3 kit around that price.

[85glhomni]

I spoke with the guy that's selling it again and he said he bought it from a buddy who built it and was originally running it on a sohc neon with a 50 trim turbo setup.

[The Pope]

A nice option is coil on plug with MS too BTW.

[85glhomni]

Well I picked it up today all seems to be ok with it visually, I have not connected it to a jimstim or anything so hopefully my gamble paid off. I also got a 6 foot harness and a intake and coolant temp sensor with the deal. Not bad for the $200 I hope. It says symtechlabs on the back. I opened it up to inspect the board and this is it

[Shadow24V]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have an MS-I with a version 3.0 mainboard. it is NOT an MS-II. An MS-II would have a daughter-card processor like below instead of that big black IC on the center right.

EDIT: Also, Symtech labs is very active on the MSextra forums HERE so you can probably message them and get more details on your specifically built unit

MSII processor (pic from diyautotune.com)

[85glhomni]

Shoot, I wish I would of known that before. Oh well ya live and learn. I think I still did ok with the deal. The msI goes for about $200.00 plus I got a $67 cable and 2 $20 sensors for free basically. I guess I will try to see if I can adapt the daughter board to my setup. I see they are around $111.00 for the board. I figured something like this would happen with my luck.

[Una]

Should just skip the MS-II and go for a full MS-III.. Especially if the price of the MS2 has gone up to $111.. That's nuts..

[85glhomni]

Yeah, I just noticed the price on MSIII is really not a whole lot more. If I'm gonna upgrade I may as well go with 3.

[Shadow24V]

MS-III with MSX will run about $330 (Processor $200, MSX $90 and a new taller case at $40), but you get a boatload of other options. I'd also suggest contacting Symtech to get more info on what they did/didn't do on your v3 board and how to update it to MS-III.

If you don't need all the I/Os of the MSX, the MS-III with case is only $240 at that point. Not bad compared to upgrading to an MS-II

[85glhomni]

Thanks for all the info. I will definitely look into my exact unit a little more. I'm still at the early stage of my build project so my needs may change as I go but now I have a good start at least.