Whelp, no turning back now.

[x2percentmilk]

I submitted my proposal for my senior design project, looks like I need to step up to the plate, and commit to making this damn thing. The overall goal is to make a custom, super affordable, programmable ECU for our cars. The goal by Late April / May is to get the car to start and idle.

Ive been doing TONS of research on this so now its time to get the ball rolling, wish me luck, ill try to keep you guys updated if I have time. Id love any suggestions / feedback as im going as well.

[MADMarc]

GL with it man. Mechanical Engineering or Electrical?

[x2percentmilk]

Computer Engineering w/ Computer Science minor, but I cant even count how many electrical engineering credits ive taken.

[bluzvr4]

will this benefit 2nd gens or just 1g guys? either way good luck

[GTOJOE]

how affordable is super affordable?

[x2percentmilk]

400-600 dollars, depending on how things work out. When its all done it should work for any 3/s, though you'll need the separate CAM/CAS sensors of the 93+, and maybe some other small details ill find out later. Im hoping to even allow you to run this while leaving the stock ECU in place for OBD, if you care/need to. If its commercially viable ill also have a neat dash accessory for it and some other fun stuff, but thats looking into the future.

[stealthee]

FYI the 91-92 CAS and 93+ CAS are directly interchangable. The signals are derived the same way. The ECU doesn't know the difference. There is only a minor difference in latency between the two styles.

I had a guy buy a 95 NA Fed Spec ECU and drop it into his 92 with no problems.

[IPD]

so you're going to do what gatecrasher never finished?

easily worth $600, assuming:

1. it's reliable
2. it's pre-mapped for stock

biggest drawback of AEM is the amount of tuning required. if we can get good maps for this, it should really get this platform moving.

[x2percentmilk]

Thank you stealthee, I wasn't sure if the signals ended up being the same in the end, so in that case the cross year application holds true.

1. Reliability will always be a concern. My guinea pig and test vehicle will be my daily driver, so thats definitely something I want out of it as well. Ill even be using some industry proven/standard parts for safety.

2. The goal is to make it a one size fits all sort of application. If you have a stock vehicle, you should be able to unbox it, plug it in, and turn your key. If you have larger injectors, just choose the size and go. Fine tune adjustments can be made from there, how deep you want to go is up to you. Boost control/maps will be an option, as well as running speed density. Those who want to toy with red lines, wideband o2 targets, anti lag and 2step launch control will be able to.

By the way, anyone have any links to solid resources for speed density? Im only finding general information.

Yes, this will be a standalone. Complete control of everything.

I'm fairly confident in my price target. Those companies like AEM have overhead and longevity to worry about, so they up the prices like crazy, seriously for $1600 I can make my gaming PC twice. Ill be honest with my pricing and will offer it as low as I can while still making it worth my time. I plan on making this into a company / carreer, and I need to eat, so there will be some profit involved, but im not much of a capitalist and would honestly give them away for free if I could.

[marshallh]

Ill be honest with my pricing and will offer it as low as I can while still making it worth my time. I plan on making this into a company / carreer, and I need to eat, so there will be some profit involved, but im not much of a capitalist and would honestly give them away for free if I could.

I'm just curious, how much of your own expense are you covering right now? I am at the tail end of a project that's taken me over a year, and I will tell you this; people will PLEAD and BEG for you to lower your price, NO MATTER what it is. Also, while money will not seem like a huge deal now, because it's interesting, there's a good chance during the tail end of the process (the mind-numbing stuff) you will be forcing yourself with all your effort just to work on the damn thing, and money is a HUGE reason to keep going.

Set your price high. You can always lower it later but it's VERY hard to raise. You absolutely must make this worth your time and effort. At the end of this project you'll realize how much hidden work / corner case finding / idiot proofing has to be done, NEVER short change yourself or let others do it to you. It's one thing to be an engineer working for someone else, and another entirely to be a one man show.

Pretty ambitious, enjoy the project.

Just a hint since I've done something similar in the past, and now do it for a livingish... document everything before you start writing code. The key to a successful embedded layout is organization, not quality of code... you would be amazed at how simple to understand somee of the Powertrain code running on your PCM is. Oh, and I would go as simple as possible for your first pass. You're going to run into EMI problem when it gets to the hardware part.

This is super true, DOCUMENTATION, don't feel like you have to plan every single thing in advance, but you will need docs to retain your sanity. Your mind starts to do weird things under stress.
I have a 12 page PDF that I've been adding to as my project's been progressing, stuff like hardware register definitions, how to use the hardware, pitfalls to be aware of, etc.
Consistency with your docs and your code is crucial. Comment the shit out of your code.

PIC is a good choice, I would stay away from AVRs because Atmel loves to EOL products whenever it feels like it.

Anyway, if you have any questions feel free to PM me, I could write a book with all the numerous things I've had to learn over the past while.