Look at me! One of my PRS Private Stock guitars is in the header at Vintage Rocker. Totally validates my entire existence.
This has been a big couple of weeks for me in the six-string department. I traded for two vintage Electra/Westones, finally took delivery of two guitars that I paid for way back in 2012, ordered something new and exciting that I hope won’t take four years to finish, and also got something in the mail.
But I know that the purpose of this blog is not to document my guitar fetish, but rather to talk about cars and racing and writing and stuff. So after the jump, I’ll show you a video of that same Private Stock PRS that you can easily skip! Then we’ll get down to business.
Brother Bark is in the bargaining stage of his FiST withdrawal, so to speak. He recommended an ATS for the NYC and explained used-car pricing to people who don’t work in the car business.
At R&T, I complained about an incompetent dealer and compared the BFG Rival to the Toyo R888.
For TTAC, I discussed the future of car repair, considered whether to quit racing in NASA, and drove a BMW M3 Competition Package around Mid-Ohio.
There’s plenty of fun stuff to come this week, some of it surrounding a rather heated discussion I had with a certain NASA official who looks like a 6’3″ version of Wallace Shawn and his amazingly loud-mouthed wife. Stay tuned, True Believers!
I think that you might be giving the Megasquirt system a bit too much credit. I do not have any personal experience with Megasquirt, but I understand that it works well for DIY and racing oriented applications. It does a good job of replacing the 25-year-old technology of your neon’s ECM in the basic categories of controlling fuel and spark. There are an awful lot of necessary things that MS doesn’t support. Anything emissions-control related, including running OBDII monitors, is an obvious gap. I would be very surprised if Megasquirt were able to support the sort of algorithm-based fuel control that more modern ECMs use. For example, the 2002 model year Chrysler NGC controller actually predicts manifold pressure and then uses the Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor input to verify the modeled value. Will the capabilities that you discuss arrive in the future? Perhaps…if someone is willing to pay for development!
For sure — but ten years ago, we were picking through junkyards looking for ECUs we could send to a particular shady dealer for “reprogramming” 🙂
MS is just one step on the road.
I agree that MS is still primitive compared to current OEM spec systems but it does provide quite a lot of functionality at a cheap cost. I am not aware of any NGC control available in MS but I do know that there is code to read the reluctor wheel on NGC equipped motors now.
There are also many commercial solutions available that offer more features but usually at twice the cost. I have used the Megasquirt system in some projects and it works well with the biggest benefit being the community around it. I am also intrigued by their Microsquirt ECU as well due to its compact nature and simpler layout and plan to use it in a future project.
There are also options opening up on the EV front and you can now buy a 144v rated EV controller for about $600 which should make for some interesting junkyard EV swaps in the future.
It’s interesting that you think the problem is the speed and not the interfacing.
Controlling variable valve timing is a whole big ordeal, BOV And if I thought more about it, I’m sure I could nominate a few more ECU systems that aren’t well supported on the after market.
But computational horsepower is what aftermarket ECUs excel at. Heck, the raspberry pi (a $30 computer) has enough horsepower to control an HCCI engine while running a high level language.
Eventually we’re going to see self-tuning ECUs that live up to the name.
The self-tuning thing is getting there bit by bit. I am not ashamed to admit that I have used Autotune on Tuner Studio to get going on an MS map and it is quite helpful.
“MS is just one step on the road.”
Just so ~
I remember tweaking and peaking 1940’s tech carbys for max. fun then it was Quadrajets (often called ‘quadraJUNK’ at the time but they’re actually pretty good for stock use) , then we suffered with Bosch D-Jetronic (another one that’s O.K. and not difficult to tweak) so I’m sure that Mega Squirt will be looked at in decades to come , as the bee’s knees ~ already my Hot Rodder buddies think it’s .
-Nate
The Brayden piece was entertaining, to say the least.
I’d say investing half his (Bitcoin) worth in questionable but cool M3s seems like a reversal of the foresight…er speculation that got him into that financial position in the first place. One cookie now vs. two cookies later pysch test, or something. If you’re going to go for the single cookie, go Viper ACR or go home!
When I began reading the “Brayden” piece, I felt the same way that I did when I first read BTSR: not sure if the writing was about a real person. However, I’ve come to believe that both BTSR and “Brayden” are real, actual people. Both are trolling a bit, though. Speaking of which, I’m going to level the same criticism that others have: why TWO new M3s? Wouldn’t a new M3 for the street and a lightly-used, pro-built (caged, set-up, etc) M3 V8 track car be a better combo?
That’s a nice looking guitar!
I apologize in advance for the noob question (and pose it to anyone with the patience to explain this and avoid having a rage stroke) - but how much does the wood/body material matter on an electric guitar? Why does anything matter beyond the strings and pickups?
That’s a bit like asking digital vs analog or Fords vs Chevys, or I suppose, full immersion baptism vs a few sprinkles of water, it gets sort of like a religious debate. There are those who believe that the tone of an electric guitar is mostly the strings and pickups and there are those who believe that tonewoods make a difference even in an electric instrument. I personally think it’s mostly the electronics and I’m pretty sure that blind A/B testing supports that (though construction and materials can undoubtedly affect resonance and sustain), but then I don’t play more than a few chords. Still, a beautiful piece of wood crafted into a musical instrument by a skilled human being has a value all its own. I say that as someone who collects a brand of guitars molded out of polyurethane. There’s enough room in this world for both Paul Reed Smith and Nat Daniels.
Even with acoustic instruments, I wonder how many people could distinguish, in a blind listening test, between Jack’s carbon fiber based Rainsong and one of his top shelf wooden acoustics.
Jack, really like your R&T article on car repair. Tell it like it is, brother!
Thank you sir. How’s that Econoline working out?
” Bruce Barry was a workin’ man….”