Mega Squirt does full timing control, at idle, at cruise, WOT, in boost, out of boost, modifies/pulls timing if the intake air temperatures are climbing, richens the fuel mixture up if the engine is loaded up over a certain amount of time to cool off the EGT's, has a few over boost protection options, etc.

The Rasberry Pi is a $35 Linux based computer that runs on a 5volt microUSB power cord (cellphone charger). Uses a SD card for a hard drive so has no moving parts to fail from vibration. Just program it and hook it to a screen to show what the Mega Squirt is seeing.

What's up with the Firebird at the moment is I'm waiting for some intake/exhaust gaskets to show up and I'm going to re-install the old intake while I work up a new one, which may simply be a new flange and short length of runner and graft the custom intake to a better flange set up.

This is what I've been up to on my Skylark, the Firebird will likely eventually get this treatment when it has traction issues or if I want a digital speedometer before installing the 4L60E.

Quote:
Thought I'd take some time today to install a hall sensor on the front right wheel to hopefully help me launch the car off the line. The premise is I have a vehicle speed sensor on the transmission letting the Mega Squirt know how fast the rear wheels are turning, and by adding a wheel speed sensor to one of the "un-powered" front wheels the Mega Squirt can compare the two and if the rear wheels are turning faster than the fronts by a programmed amount over a programmed period of time, then it starts pulling timing by programmed amounts. Pulling timing (to as low as 0º) effectively kills the horsepower production of the engine, but it'll pull it and give it back as fast as needed to keep the two wheels spinning at nearly the same rate. Basically it'll allow a ~5-10% slip differential so the rear wheels can be turning slightly faster than the fronts to keep acceleration going.

Many folks have been having luck running the sensor in the brake backing plate or on a bracket and reading the backside of the wheel studs, but it looked like to me the wheel studs on my car don't stick out far enough to get a reliable signal (I didn't actually try..). But I did notice there was a casted lug between each stud, and I checked another rotor I have on the shelf and it had the same casting, so hopefully it's a reliable feature to use if I change rotors down the road. What I needed to do though is bend the backing plate a bit to angle for the lug. That was simple enough just used a cut off wheel to make a tabbed section, bent it, then put a couple spot welds at the joint to stiffen it back up. Drilled a hole in the tab and welded one of the sensor nuts to the tab so the sensor threads in and the second nut becomes a jam nut.


A while ago I started getting away from using the corrugated wire covering, but figured this is a good place to use it to protect the wires. I trimmed out a small plate to hole the wiring in place and used the extra threads from one of the bolts on the ball joint to secure it.



Here is a short video of me testing the sensor before finishing the wiring up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvIFuRjDqE4

The smaller "mph" number is the front wheel. Appears to be working as intended.