'88 Dodge Omni, 2.4L MS2Extra

[UnaClocker]

I have a blog about the swap, http://www.turbododge.info/Archive.html
But a quick summary is, I swapped in a 2.4L DOHC motor from a '99 Stratus into an '88 Dodge Omni (actually, it's titled as a Plymouth Horizon..). I used the stock crank trigger (Neon/420a mode) and fire the stock coilpack with the MS. Using the V3 circuit board, bought from Glen's Garage and assembled by myself. Just got the car on the road a couple days ago, but it drives REALLY well so far. Very happy with it.

[UnaClocker]

Gone through the first tank of gas now. With mostly city driving on the car, and lots of WOT blasts, I got 28mpg out of the first tank. I'm happy with that.
I'm going to have to swap in bigger injectors, the duty cycle is pegging at WOT at 5800rpm.
Forgot to mention in my first post that I had also built the tach output circuit and the radiator fan control circuit. Both of which are working great for me.

[UnaClocker]

Let's see.. What's all new.. Biggest upgrade was the step up to Megasquirt II running the MS2-Extra Alpha code. Got at least 1,000 miles on the new CPU. I'm very happy with it for the most part. Wiring up the IAC idle control soon. I swapped in some low impedance 33lb injectors. This dropped my peak duty cycle down to about 55%.

[UnaClocker]

Still running like a dream. Been through a couple oil changes now. Sold my backup car and this is now my primary daily driver. I get about 32mpg on my commute to and from work. I imagine I'd see 35mpg on a freeway road trip, if not better than that even. Power is outstanding, haven't had it to the track since the first trip that really wasn't tuned at all, but from the stoplight races and such that I've done with friends and the general public, it's a potent car. ;) I found that I was running far too little timing at idle and at cruise. I now idle around 16degrees, and cruise around 36. I think my cruise had been down near 28 or 30.. With the old cruise timing, I couldn't lean it out past 15.8 without it surging, now I'm cruising at 16.2 happily, and it can go to about 16.5 before I start to feel some surging.
I setup MS2E to give me two different fuel tables. VE1 is my normal table that's tuned to get good fuel economy. It doesn't go richer than 14.4:1, EVER. And when the throttle goes past 90% it switches to VE3, which is set to take the engine directly to 12.6:1 and get me maximum power. This really helped my gas mileage on days when I couldn't resist the urge to accellerate. I almost never fully floor the pedal unless I'm REALLY trying to race, so it keeps me in my leaner range and saves a good 10% of my fuel. I found that at even as little as 50% throttle, I'm hitting 90+kpa, so if my primary table is set to be very rich up there, like it would need to be in open loop WOT form, I waste a ton of gas around town, on hills, etc..
I tell you what, this engine is one torquey beast. I can pull a serious hill in 5th gear (overdrive) at 1800rpm no problem. It's like driving a diesel. Actually, my old diesel rabbit could only dream of this kind of torque. haha..
Do I regret not adding a turbo to this thing? NOT AT ALL.. I wouldn't get traction in the first two gears on the best of days with that much power. By the time I hooked up in 3rd, I'd be above any speedlimit in the state. The top of 3rd seems to be about 80mph. Not to mention the gas mileage.. I don't get quite as bad of a gas mileage penalty when I feel like just going out and romping on this thing.
Pardon me for going on for so long.. Just haven't posted about this car in awhile, and it feels like I've been through so much with it. Oh, I added remote start (CompuStar.. Actually properly supports manual transmissions), and the MS2E starts so well that the remote start can actually start the car up no problem. I spent months trying to get MS1E to start properly. Never did do it.. I always looked like I was driving a beater after work trying to get the thing to stay started. Whatever they did in MS2E, I love it. I think they changed the number of squirts while cranking, and the cranking pulsewidth is now a percentage of Req Fuel rather than a raw PW.. Sooooo much easier to work with. But that just explains why it fires almost instantly (as quickly as it can with a crank trigger wheel), not why it stays started, where the MS1 wouldn't.
But anyways, that's enough for now. I want to thank Ken & James for putting up with my nagging about bugs in the MS2E beta's and alpha's.. Sometimes they were right, it was my settings, and sometimes I was right, it was their code.. In the end, it's some awesome programming.

[UnaClocker]

Still going great. 20k miles on the car now since the engine swap and MS install. Got cold starting figured out earlier this winter. It now fires up like an OEM ECM at any temperature. I have remote start on the car and it always works, idles at a good idle speed during warmup too. I'm using an aux air valve from a Porsche 924 to get the cold idle to be about the same as the warm idle. I think a second valve might be able to get the cold idle up a bit more so I can turn down the warm idle. But I'm ok with it as it sits.
I even loaned the car to a friend for a week. He had no problems with it and couldn't stop complimenting the car when he gave it back.
Oh, and I took an emissions test, just for the heck of it, since I'm not required to, where I live. It passed very well.. They didn't check for NOx, apparently, they don't care about that in Washington State.. But CO% was .01, with a limit of 1.2, and HC was 52 with a limit of 160.. They never popped the hood. heh..

[UnaClocker]

I just finished converting to E85 and installing a turbocharger (stock SRT4 turbo). I installed 100lb injectors to keep up with the fuel demands, and to give me some room to grow. Works like a champ, still fires right up and idles when it's cold. I'll be moving to sequential injection with the MS2-Extra v3 codebase here soon.