can someone help me!

[wonton]

im piecing a turbo kit for my 96 NA. heres what i have so far.

own-turbo manifold.
soon to own-turbo
intercooler and piping
engine management
BOV
down pipe
550 RC injectors

what else do i need?

[MoD_Scotty]

Intake pipe with MAF adapter and filter.
Oil and coolant lines (at least oil lines).
Colder heat range spark plugs.
Boost controller and boost gauge.
A billion hose clamps and couplers.

[wonton]

i got the boost gauge already :biggrin: autometer carbon fiber face!

[RotorNutFD3S]

Recommend aluminum radiator
Larger exhaust (I know you and I have already talked about this)
Upgrade the spark plug wires

[ben91]

get your engine management on the car and working asap. I recommend you get a ms kit or pnp from diyautotune in suwannee. you will also need wideband o2. next step is ignition upgrade. then big injectors, fuel rail and fuel pump. then you will be ready for forced induction. with my ugly hood, you will not need an aluminum radiator immediately, but the stock plastic tank job will eventually fail.
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[RotorNutFD3S]

Yeah, we were discussing MSPNP during lunch just a few minutes ago. Hopefully that will indeed be the next step since he found a decent deal on one.

[nickt93]

Per my message, I've got Ripley's old intercooler and pipes that I'd sell you for the same price he sold to me. You won't find a better deal than $150!

Also, you'll want a stronger clutch to hold the additional power (assuming you don't have an upgraded clutch already).

You'll need a new toothbrush too so that your teeth are nice and purty when you crack a big smile once you are boosted!

[matredd]

bummer i sold my mspnp9697.

[wonton]

god i cant wait to put some boost though my 1.8, im already crackin smiles just thinking about it!

[N3v]

if your car's a 96, I can build you a megasquirt. I wouldn't feel good about building one for any other year model, but since I built mine for my 97 I know it would be exactly the same. I could even come down and help you install it and get it tuned.

Also, you're gonna need a wideband gauge. I recommend the AEM UEGO. They're cheapest on ebay for around $215 if you wait for a deal, I got mine for $225 though. This is compared to the $275 price that FM sells them for.

[ben91]

The UEGO sucks! Hated the one I had and gladly sold it. Get the innovate LC-1.

[wonton]

how much will it cost for you to build me a megasquirt!

[wonton]

The UEGO sucks! Hated the one I had and gladly sold it. Get the innovate LC-1.

how much do those run?

[N3v]

there's a looong debate between the uego and the LC1. some very experienced people say they've never had problems with the LC1, but others say their LC1 blew after a week and their uego works fine. From what I gather, the uego is not as responsive at displaying the values as an LC1, but its more likely you'll have problems with an LC1. Also, keep in mind if you get a UEGO and want me to build you a megasquirt, I've done an uego before, so I could pop it in and set up the MS to work with the UEGO in minutes.

I'll build you one for $420, and that would include me coming there and helping you install it :)

It takes a while to build and test though, so if you wanted me to build you one, if you sent me the money within the next couple of weeks, I would be ready to help you install it over my spring break, which is mid-march.

Btw, the megasquirt can be setup on a stock engine or turbo setup, it doesn't matter. if the megasquirt is already setup on your stock engine, all you have to do is basically install the turbo, set the MS for your bigger injectors, then retune your fuel map.

[RotorNutFD3S]

Sean, I recommend you go this route if you can buddy. Get the ECU and tuning out of the way first.

I'm throwing my vote in for the UEGO, it's a little slower as N3v stated, but I've never had a problem with mine. To add to other stories I've read, I've had two LC1s, one unit crapped out, and I got sick of the other one after having to replace 2 sensors within months of each other. YMMV.

[wonton]

there's a looong debate between the uego and the LC1. some very experienced people say they've never had problems with the LC1, but others say their LC1 blew after a week and their uego works fine. From what I gather, the uego is not as responsive at displaying the values as an LC1, but its more likely you'll have problems with an LC1. Also, keep in mind if you get a UEGO and want me to build you a megasquirt, I've done an uego before, so I could pop it in and set up the MS to work with the UEGO in minutes.

I'll build you one for $420, and that would include me coming there and helping you install it :)

It takes a while to build and test though, so if you wanted me to build you one, if you sent me the money within the next couple of weeks, I would be ready to help you install it over my spring break, which is mid-march.

Btw, the megasquirt can be setup on a stock engine or turbo setup, it doesn't matter. if the megasquirt is already setup on your stock engine, all you have to do is basically install the turbo, set the MS for your bigger injectors, then retune your fuel map.

yeah, i dont have the money right now on hand for you to build the MS for me! but i should have my taxes back buy the beginning of Feb! how exactly do you build one, is it full proof. god forbid, my car wont blow up will it? im deff interested.

[ben91]

The "stories" you hear typically all involve user error. Most people are simply too stupid to operate things. The UEGO has a controller and a gauge combined, so stupid people can't **** up hooking them together.

The LC1 (when hooked up properly, and that ain't hard as I've done it) is proven to be faster, more precise, and have a larger range. Also with the LC you are able to run any display gauge you want (or no gauge at all) from a matching autometer nb a/f disco-meter to analog gauges to the xd16 fully programmable job (which is what I have and won't trade it for anything). And yes, I'll say it again, I have had the UEGO and it SUCKS in comparison the the LC1. I've now had 2 LC1s and 1 LM1. And 1 POS UEGO that I sold.

[N3v]

yeah, i dont have the money right now on hand for you to build the MS for me! but i should have my taxes back buy the beginning of Feb! how exactly do you build one, is it full proof. god forbid, my car wont blow up will it? im deff interested.

I'll take the time to explain it. Basically what comes to me is a metal case, a blank PCB board, and various plastic bags full of components, like resistors, diodes, IC chips, etc. about 50% of the components get soldered onto the board no matter what car is going on, but after that you have to know how your particular car operates (coil packs or distributor, number of cylinders, etc etc) and you solder different components on based on that information. then, you add some 'mods' on, as in the megasquirt needs a custom circuit to control the miata's unique two coil pack ignition setup. Other mods are needed to output the tachometer signal correctly to your gauge cluster, or to control your idle, or to electronically control boost.

That brings me to another point. You'd have to choose whether or not you want to run a parallel or standalone install. A parallel install is where you wire all the megasquirt wires up in parallel with your stock ecu wires, and just cut the wires that control ignition and fuel control to your stock ecu. So basically, the stock ecu still gets all the sensor readings and acts normally, it just doesn't know its not actually controlling anything. The benefits of this are that you can use your stock ecu to control your idle, radiator fans and AC. The megasquirt can be modified to handle the idle and radiator fans, but your AC simply won't work. It requires some complex circuit in your ECU which increases the idle when you turn on the AC. Also, the megasquirt can't up your idle when you turn your power steering while sitting still, but I run a standalone that controls my idle, and this doesn't affect me at all. Also, if you keep your MAF, you might be able to keep everything OBDII compliant without having to switch out any hardware come inspection time. I doubt this is a problem in georgia though.

In all of my experience with a megasquirt as far as reliability, it will never spontaneously die if wired correctly. If your car won't start one day, its much, much, much more likely that its another component of your car. The only confusing moments I've had with my megasquirt were only in my noob days when I had settings set wrong. If you had an issue with it though, you of course would be free to contact me about it.

Also, I can tune it while I'm there, but I would advise you to have a laptop you could use to mess with the settings yourself later. That will be critical once you turbo, or you'll have to get it tuned at a dyno shop before you could drive it.

[wonton]

cool! i will probably do stand alone? thanks for shearing your knowledge. im getting rid of power steering. i will be running ac. talking to a friend of mine, he tells me my best option is go full stand alone!

[N3v]

AC won't work if you run standalone. The only way to do it is to build a seperate box with a circuit I've never built and I believe the whole business costs about $40. It would be cheaper and easier to do parallel if you want AC. There is no performance difference between standalone and parallel. The benefit of a standalone is that the wiring is very simple. Thats why I prefer it.

[ben91]

MSPNP runs a/c, idle valve, and everything else. I had one and it was freakin fantastic. I hope DIY Autotune goes through and develops the 99-00 version. Which reminds me that it's probably time to bug Jerry about it, I do it monthly... :)

[N3v]

yes, the MSPNP i believe will handle the AC. My DIY standalone handles my idle and radiator fans and warmup idle, and a circuit does exist so that you can build it and remove your stock ecu, but as I said, much cheaper and easier to run parallel, which let me repeat, does not affect performance.

The PNP is like 700 bucks, though.

[wonton]

gotcha! i thought the only way i would be able to run a bov is if i have a full standalone. is this true?

[N3v]

nope, BOV's are totally mechanical. Also, don't be mistaken, a parallel system is not a piggyback. a piggyback simply modifies your signal to trick your stock ecu into doing what you want, but a parallel install is using two ecu's at once, one to handle the performance aspects of your engine, and one to handle AC and idle and stuff.

[ben91]

gotcha! i thought the only way i would be able to run a bov is if i have a full standalone. is this true?
No relationship.

[wonton]

cool! so do i still run the MAF, or do i switch to MAP

[N3v]

either one works, the MAP requires installing an intake air temperature sensor in your intake pipe, which isn't a big deal. I have ITB's, so i obviously don't have a MAF, so I don't know much about using them. I know turbo guys remove them to improve flow in their intake pipes, cause you have to couple the maf into your intake/intercooler piping. I would recommend tossing it and going MAP.

[wonton]

how much am i looking at spending when it comes time after i pay you and you come down here?

ur fee is $420
wideband is $250 roughly
MAP sensor ?????????????
what else do i need?

[N3v]

yeah, the $420 covers the MS components and wiring harness. I believe the air intake temp sensor is like 25 bucks, but the MAP sensor is built into the megasquirt. I got my wideband for $225 shipped, so 250 should be your max. So, you're looking at around 670 total. However, the added cost of a wideband means you can tune your setup yourself. Without that ability you'd have to take your car to a dyno every time you made a change (aka fuel octane, turbo, upping the boost, intercooler, etc etc) to be getting an optimum tune.

Even still, dyno tuning will improve anybody's tune slightly because its such a controlled environment, but you don't have to do that to get the last few hp until you're pretty much done with your setup.

Edit: a wideband is also a very good gauge to have because if your car unexpectedly goes lean for some reason (fuel injectors act up or fuel pump or whatever) you'll notice before it does damage. Also, even with a PNP you'll have to either get a wideband or get it dynoed.

[wonton]

this is so confusing! everything else i know, its just computers, wires and stuff like that gives me a headache!

[N3v]

well thats why I'll come take care of it :P but you do need to understand the wideband stuff. The wideband shows your afr at all points and time. the megasquirt has a chart called a 'fuel map' and it's a spreadsheet of how much pressure is going into your engine vs how many rpms. like this:
http://turboninjas.com/gallery/d/31897-1/fuel+map.JPG
the numbers on the left are pressure in kilopascals, KPA. Atmospheric pressure in our area is around 97kpa, which means 97kpa is what is going into your engine when you're flooring it. So, notice how that chart only goes to 100? (edit: i don't know why this chart goes to 108, i found it on the internet, thats like 3psi. mine goes to 100) That means that map is for an NA car. If you turboed it, to say, 14.7psi, or atmospheric pressure, then your chart would max out at 200. Following me so far?

Ok, so say you tune your car with that fuel map, a max of 100kpa, when you're non turbo. great, the AFR looks healthy and awesome. However, when you go turbo, it will go beyond 100. then your engine won't know what to do and it'll run super lean above 100. So, you have to rescale the fuel map where it maxes out at 200 instead, then change the fuel values to be higher above 100 (in boost) to deal with the boost.

edit: so, the beauty of a wideband is that you can change these numbers yourself, cause you can tell what your afr is actively. you change numbers, and your afr goes up or down, and you change them until you get it where you want. If you didn't have a wideband, you'd be flying blind and you'd have to get it dynoed, where they would do the same thing for you

[wonton]

im starting to understand a lil better! im pretty sure after i get more involved with all of this, it will become a second language to me.

[RotorNutFD3S]

Just be sure whatever you do that you can still get the car scanned to pass emissions. They won't inspect for anything except a functional catalytic converter.

[wonton]

and that can be taken care of with removable cat right?

[RotorNutFD3S]

Honestly, get a good high flow or even a metal core cat. You lose less than 1 hp by having a good cat installed when you have a turbo. But that's also as long as you have a good exhaust system that allows it all to flow. And you won't have to worry about swapping crap out.

Passing OBDII scans for emissions will be your biggest concern.

[N3v]

yeah thats the awesome part about ms, its a little tougher than other engine management, but once you do it you learn a lot. not to mention it's cheap. My favorite part is the rev limiter though. stock, when you hit your rev limiter, it stops fuel injection, which is bad for your engine to 'dry fire' like that. on the ms, you can set it to cut spark instead of fuel, which your engine can deal with fine, except unburned fuel gets into your exhaust, which equals fireballs. if you set up launch control, it makes it where if you are clutched in and flooring it, it sets the rev limit to 3500rpms or so :naughty:

Edit: oh but yeah that stuff ^^ will destroy a cat. I use a pipe with a cat heat shield welded to it :P

[wonton]

awesome, im glad there are people on here who know what they are talkin bout. cause i sure as hell dont know that much, im just really good at turning wrenches!

[ben91]

yeah thats the awesome part about ms, its a little tougher than other engine management, but once you do it you learn a lot. not to mention it's cheap. My favorite part is the rev limiter though. stock, when you hit your rev limiter, it stops fuel injection, which is bad for your engine to 'dry fire' like that. on the ms, you can set it to cut spark instead of fuel, which your engine can deal with fine, except unburned fuel gets into your exhaust, which equals fireballs. if you set up launch control, it makes it where if you are clutched in and flooring it, it sets the rev limit to 3500rpms or so :naughty:

Edit: oh but yeah that stuff ^^ will destroy a cat. I use a pipe with a cat heat shield welded to it :P
I've been reading your posts and not saying anything until now. I am going to say something here because it is starting to get out of hand. I mean it with respect, so please do not take it as an attack.

You are showing more and more that you are not qualified and now you are just being dangerous. Spark cut is horrible on exhaust valves, manifold, turbo, cat, exhaust, everything after the combustion chamber. It's noisy, and it wastes all that gas too. It results in damaged heads, destroyed turbos, destroyed cat converters, broken exhaust pipes, all sorts of bad stuff. This is not the first thing you've said in error, but it is the first really dangerous thing you've said.

I'd suggest that you (well the both of you) spend a bunch of time on the ms and msextra forums and self educate. The blind leading blind approach demonstrated so far will result only in broken cars. wonton, it's going to be up to you to know what info is good and what info is not, so it's going to take some self education.

[N3v]

hey, i didn't say it was good, its just better for your engine than fuel cut. You hit it for launch control for a sec, but I'm not saying its fine to stick a brick on your accelerator in neutral.

sigh.

What else am i doing wrong? I'd love to know :)

I mean, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I kinda do take it as an attack. You're coming across as making me sound like an inexperienced idiot. my ms has about 10,000 miles on it without incident, and I recently built and installed a megasquirt on my friend's 240 running 11:1 pistons, and while it hasn't run very long, it shows no signs of peril. I'm no guru, but I know how it works, and I can definitely build an ecu that has an identical setup to my own.

[nickt93]

awesome, im glad there are people on here who know what they are talkin bout. cause i sure as hell dont know that much, im just really good at turning wrenches!

Sean - if you want to start learning a little more about how all of this works, read Maximum Boost by Corky Bell. It will be the best $23 you spend out of all of this! Very nice introduction to the principles of turbocharging.

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Boost-Turbocharger-Engineering-Performance/dp/0837601606/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231300990&sr=8-1

[N3v]

Sean - if you want to start learning a little more about how all of this works, read Maximum Boost by Corky Bell. It will be the best $23 you spend out of all of this! Very nice introduction to the principles of turbocharging.

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Boost-Turbocharger-Engineering-Performance/dp/0837601606/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231300990&sr=8-1
+1 I can build it and get it working for you, but knowing the inner workings of everything, especially turbocharging is invaluable.

Edit: also if you decide to go this route and are waiting for tax money in february, I think I could still have it ready if it was early to mid february. If you have any more questions, hit me up on AIM or MSN ^

[ben91]

Sean - if you want to start learning a little more about how all of this works, read Maximum Boost by Corky Bell. It will be the best $23 you spend out of all of this! Very nice introduction to the principles of turbocharging.

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Boost-Turbocharger-Engineering-Performance/dp/0837601606/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231300990&sr=8-1
N3V, I don't have time right now (got to go to work) but you've got a lot to learn before you try to sell your services. I'm not doubting that you can build the board, since it's just a matter of following directions. The comments you have made in previous posts show a lack of full understanding of usage and tuning. Also, DIY Autotune is much closer to us and is the foremost megasquirt miata expert. You've probably heard of them before. :p

Sean, I second Maximum Boost. Good book. Get it from BEGi and Corky will sign it for you. Also, I'd again suggest the MSPNP, not just because it's a refined product, but especially for the fact that if you get the PNP I can leave a word with DIYAutotune to hopefully get you on their dyno. :biggrin:

[N3v]

I wasn't really trying to "sell my services," I was basically just offering to help out. I'm obviously not making a huge profit selling something for $420 when its $250 in parts, several hours in assembly, and includes a 3 hour drive and a few hours of setup. I just thought I'd offer since I'm sure I'll be down there for a drift event over spring break. I got mine to work, and I'm 100% sure I could set his up to work absolutely fine too.

Edit: Also, looking over what I said, its easy to think I might not have a full understanding of what I'm talking about, but I was trying to explain a lot of complicated things at once, so I made some things sound more simple than they really are, but from a basic tuning knowledge point of view, its probably all you need to know.

Edit2: I bought the parts for my MS from DIY, and I've been trying to get on their dyno forever! They're the only MS-savy dyno shop in the southeast, as far as I know.

[wonton]

N3v, i dont have any kind of instant messaging! never been a fan of that stuff. im cool with the building of the MS and the basic tune, over the coarse of the next few weeks will tell what route im going!