Megasquirt vs Modified Stock ECU

I know a lot of members here have experience with Megasquirt.

I have an 89 Dodge Omni that I will be converting to Turbo.

I have two options as far as engine management: 1. Convert the car to Megasquirt is the first option. 2. Splice a factory turbo harness and turbo ECM into the stock harness.

Either option will entail rewiring a portion of the car. Either option allows full control over timing/fuel/boost/etc.

Megasquirt will likely cost a few hundred dollars more than using the factory ecu/wiring.

Can anyone with megasquirt experience offer their opinion ? Do you consider MS to be worth the time/money invested ? Any issues ?

Megashart is worth it if your keeping it long term. If your using this as a challenge car just wire up a factory ecu. Megashart can be upgraded later too and plenty of add ins are out there. There is a learning curve and it is steep. Where as the oem ecu can probably have a preexisting tune burned to it.

If you're not doing much in the way of modifications to the engine you're dropping in, I'd start with a stock ECU.

If you already know that you'll be going nuts with mods, I'd seriously consider Megasquirt. However I'd still try to get the base engine running on a stock ECU to rule out other issues. Nothing more frustrating than trying figure out an "electronics" issue that isn't.

The factory ECU can be tuned and it includes knock protection.

Plan on running E85? It's WELL worth it on boosted applications, and Megasquirt offers a fully tunable flex fuel option that can blend timing/fuel and boost curves based on ethanol percentage. Knock protection is also doable.

Megasquirt will be more difficult to initially setup, but is ultimately more powerful: launch control etc is also easily setup. It is also nice to have a full understanding of what sensors are doing what, and when, and under what circumstance. (IE: datalogging and troubleshooting)

MS also supports knock sensors, fwiw. I have no experience in those though, as I don't run them on my MS'ed car.

What do the minime guys do? they obviously know how to get all kinds of power from the 2.2 on the cheap.

For an 8V car with sub 350 HP in mind there is no reason to use a MS over a SMEC. If you are looking at more than 400hp or a 16v swap get the MS.

I've always used factory stuff. It's well hacked these days and there are plenty out there to help you to get it to do what you want if your not able to do it yourself.