Microsquirt install tips and basic info

[vannatta20]

Hey everyone. I have a swap thread titled"5.3 swap the easy way" and wanted to contribute some more. My other swap vehicle is a 1968 firebird. 6.0 with ls3 topend and T56. I read about some guys using microsquirt to control the engines.

This is a assembled PCM that will run most engines. The computer is the size of a credit card! It cost 320$ with a basic harness! So I went on ebay and I got myself a unit and gave it a shot. I sold my swap harness off my firebird to pay for it so I crossed my fingers I could get it to work. The harness comes with each wire marked and I simply soldered my connecters on off of a junk harness. It took about 5 hours to do this. This harness is MUCH SIMPLER.

The computer can only run LSx engines efi in batch fire mode as well as wasted spark. This means bank 1 fires the injectors all at once and same with bank 2. Only 2 wires on the pcm control all the injectors. Super simple. The cam sensor is no longer needed. It is only need for SFI injection to help time the injectors.

I wired up the crank sensor, TPS, MAP, Coolant temp, and IAC. I am running it in speed denisty mode with a LC1 wideband hooked up the the microsquirt. Whats sweet is when you have a wideband you can enable the self tuning mode in the software. You can even adjust your fueling tables with AFR ratios I got it started fairly easy. Only issue was the IAC. It is not longer used BUT has to be adjusted manually to bypass air for it to idle. I only did this once and it starts and idles great with my smallish cam.

The software is free(tunerstudio) but you can upgrade for a little $ to get self tuning and more advance features. You can tune on the fly and have nitrous and turbocharging options.

This computer does not control the transmission. I have a t56 so thats a big reason why I did it. Ive been tuning with hptuners for awhile now and really wanted to see what else is out there. Im happy with it so far.