Since the IRS was nice enough to give me back some of MY money, it's time to pull the trigger on a engine management system for my Gen III hemi build. This will be a drag race only deal with E85 for fuel. Either of the systems mentioned will do everything I need. I realize the megasquirt system will require more legwork, but money still talks pretty loudly. There doesn't seem to be any wiggle room on megasquirt price. Is there a "deal" to be had on the holley HP system? If the $$$ are close enough, I think I want the holley system.
Any and all input is welcome.

Feel free to call me (number is on my website efiexpert.com). I can help with the Holley side of the equation after a few questions such as TB type (DBW or cable), etc...

Talk to Monte... I got my price from him.. maybe\
he can help

Give the guys a call at DIYAUTOTUNE.COM or MS3PRO.COM(same people) great service and the MS3 stuff is a good value.

I just fired mine up this weekend with sequential fuel and spark. I went the longer route and chose to assemble my ECU myself. It is an MS3X which has most of the features of the pro but lacks a few of them. The Tunerstudio program for Megasquirt stuff is easy to use, mine fired up and idled first hit of the key this weekend.

The MS stuff can do as much as you want it to really. Traction control, Dry or wet nitrous control, sequential fuel and spark, flex fuel etc.

The holley stuff is really cool but its not cheap. I no doubt have more labor in my setup but I saved lots and lots of money vs the Holley Dominator which is the closest feature wise to my MS3X.

Is the Mega Squirt software still open source where you can modify it?

If a carb is is not in your future go with MS over Holley.

It is available for peer review and end user modification, but you are only allowed to use it on licensed hardware. To most that won't matter, to Richard Stallman it would.

Care to elaborate, or is it a "just because" scenario...........Said this before, but have yet to see a serious race effort with MS on it.

Monte, I was hoping you would chime in. Would you care to quote me a price on holley system?

Your definition of serious race effort is probably a lot different then most people not in the business. The most serious use of an MS3 I have found is Lee Sicilio's twin turbo hemi daytona that did 283mph on the salt flats a few years ago.

The support system is the biggest killer of the MS3, you can't phone up a hotline and get the help you need when you need it. That alone is worth the extra money for the Holley

I think you would be better off to contact him
in a PM or get his phone number and talk to him..
he isnt gonna quote prices over the net
EDIT
if you want any kind of a deal

This is kinda what I was getting at. The MS seems to be more science project type stuff. Build your own, do your own legwork, learn a lot about EFI likely, but more or less be on your own. Someone that is very familiar with EFI can make anything work. The box only does what you TELL it to do. Navigating the software and being ABLE to tell it what to do seems to be most people's issue. Electro-Motive was much the same way. It worked fine, if you totally understood the system, but the only guy that seemed to was the one who designed it and he was not a racer. From jump, it was a goal to make the Holley very user friendly and not have so much of it be "EFI speak". You don't want the average guy overwhelmed when he opens the software and sees terms he has no idea what they mean. Holley tech is also very good, plus we teach classes on it at the plant. From the basics, to advanced levels. The guy who teaches it, is not an engineer. He is just a guy like the rest of us and makes it easy to understand. The classes have hands on training as well, where you go out in the Power-Lab and makes changes on a running engine and see what does what

I'm not up to speed on MegaSquirts technology, but if you go that route, make sure they have programming to work with the Gen 3 cam and crank tone wheels. And you will have to know which crank tone wheel you have, also.

I worked on injection a LOT but all my part was
the mech hard parts, the tank, lines, rails,reg and
the injectors... all the electronic parts I never
played with... and thats the hard part to understand..
I went from the full return style system to the in take
return system

I think the MS3PRO the non science project, fully assembled ECU is quickly catching on. It has phone support, training classes, etc that the "science project" grade makes you do a little more leg work for.

Lots of Drag Week class winners have been science Project MS cars over the years as well as lots of land speed stuff.

In MY scenario I saw the Holley stuff in Action on roadkill when they did the engine and EFI swap in the middle of PRI. I thought it was cool and I wanted it, then I looked at the price once you buy all the stuff to make it work and I pooped a little. That's when I started to dig around on the MS stuff and I am glad I did. I learned a lot doing it the "hard" way and I saved a ton of cash.

I sound like a salesman for MS3 but I am just happy with my experience.

I've worked on very many different efi systems from the early days.
haltech, accel dfi, felpro, electromotive tec 1 and 2. I worked on a motec equiped turbo v6 in the days of the mustang vs buick era. I loved the motec software. Electromotive came out with "wintec" software, which was a scaled back motec rip off. It made the Electromotive system light years better.(original software was DOS command based) I stuck with the electromotive system for my own stuff. It did what I needed it to do (most of the time) The more modern systems (big stuff, efi technologies, holley, aem) are more laid out like a computer template program. I like the old "cartoonish" icon based software.
A telling thing to me is I have never had to work on a modern FAST system. as popular as they are, I would imagine that either they are very straight forward and easy to get correct intuitively, or their support is outstanding and rock solid.
I do a lot of driveabilty clean up for guys that take their cars to dynos to be "tuned". Getting the high power numbers seems to be the goal at most shops. Driveability is the part that makes guys happy.
I worked on my first MS2 a few years ago. This was a pre built, user installed system that was towed to my place to be initially programmed and then final tuned.
The biggest issue for me was getting all of the system info that pertained to this system. The problem is there is more than one software system to run the ecu. It seems that set up and tuning info for both(or more) control software systems is all mashed together in the same source. I was very confused on trying to set up the original configuration, because I didn't know there was more than one. I was looking for screens that didn't exist in the software I was using.
Once getting that straight... I really liked the system. extremely intuitive, simple to navigate, great data logging.
Now the holley. I have 2 complaints that I just need to get over. First is the "template" style format. I don't like looking for drop downs to get to icons. I realize the reason, but would rather have small icons I dont need on the screen, than to have to search for the ones I want. Big deal. I need to get over it.
Second, WAS the lb/hr tables for fuel instead of PW. This can be changed now, so really a non issue. Honestly though I got use to the lb/hr tables and again, I understand why it was done this way.
Holley's datalogging is very similar in operation to what megalog veiwer which I love. The custom icf tables are a dream come true.
I don't see any situation that I will recommend anything other than the Holley system for future builds/friends/customers.

The MS tuning software has got better, but you're right, it still requires you to have a decent grasp of how EFI works. It's not a plug and play system and there is no documentation outlining a standard V8 install. Because the system is designed to be so universal, they don't have a lot of recommended components, therefore a guy can get overwhelmed with all the facets of the software that can be configured. The MS3Pro has solved a lot of those issues, but at like 1000 bucks, it jacks the price up to that of the other systems. The other MS units that can still be had for only a few hundred dollars, but they are more labor intensive to install. Like everything in the car hobby, if you want to save dollars you have to expect to spend hours.

To my way of thinking, how could anybody NOT like the fuel tables in lb/hr. That's a real number that means something. Burn this fuel, make this power. But lots of guys are USED to VE tables, so now we have the option to switch the table over

I agree with you, but years of using pw gets you into a comfortable groove. The whole thing makes more sense with lb/hr. As I said, I do a lot of clean up work. The pw is more helpful in low power situations when getting in that zone of minimum pulse width. There wasn't any of that info in the programing screens, although you could see it in the logging screen. I like the current v4 for that reason.

When I was flowing injectors for Chrysler I had
to play with both.. PW and weight... I flowed maybe
8000 injectors back then... every day flowing injectors
and doing voltage off sets