Another MSM success story, yay! :party:

I have one question for you though Rev. What is the service light (the one that is a car with a wrench in the middle of it) used for with you MS2?

It blinks at random intervals. I thought it was an AFR warning light because I noticed it at light loads when I was cruising and AFR was around 15.5 but it blinks sometimes when AFR is a lot lower.

Overheating warning (approx 217*F). Sometimes its spot on, other times its not. Its one of the things I get asked about a lot, so I decided to completely change the way it works on the newest model, and also to make it adjustable.

Do compare the coolant reading through TS and let me know at which temperature it begins to blink.

I will definitely check that out. i hope my coolant temps are not that high on the street when I am not ragging on the car. Thanks for the info.

Even though I am just at the tip of the iceburg with your ECU so far I am already incredibly impressed and glad I didn't try to make my own MS3x. Well worth the slightly extra cost for the massive amounts of saved time, inevitable headaches, and extra features.

EDIT: @Miata2fast, We definitely all need to get together again soon. How is the miata coming anyway?

Yesterday after work I made my way over to Sixshooter's house to use his timing light to set my base timing so that I could finally drive my car in heavier loads. That only took about 5 minutes so we decided to take some time to smooth out some of the cars behavior at idle and then go for a drive and tune a bit.

Sixshooter got my idle running perfectly pretty quickly by just adjusting my idle up a bit from 850 to around 1050 to stop the car from almost stalling everytime the fans kicked on. It also handled my A/C better this way. While he was messing with my idle I checked to see when the coolant warning light kicked on and it started to blink right around ~195 degrees instead of at 217. Reverant, If you could let me know how to adjust this I would really appreciate it as the light is rather annoying.

When we went out for a drive we noticed that in heavy loads the base map was rather rich so we focused on leaning that out for a little while and we found a rather strange anomaly. Right at 5K rpms my car goes incredibly rich, 9.5:1 or something like that. It only does this between4800-5200 and then it behaves normally again. The autotune will not tune this out and if it is adjusted manually and then autotune is allowed to mess with those cells it makes it really rich again. We can not figure out why it is doing this so we set autotune to only tune to 4500 and later I will tune above 5200. Until I can figure out this issue I will leave that dead area at the manual settings we put in there.

If anyone has any idea why this could be happening I would appreciate the insight. I was thinking that maybe some of the MSM specific solenoids were interfering or something but I am not even sure they are in use at all with the MS2.

Other than that I am completely happy with the ECU so far and I have picked up a lot of midrange power where the stock ECU use to bog down the engine. the car is only running 5psi right now and I plan to turn it up slowly to 14 psi by the end of this week to see what it can really do.

I had some free time today because my federally funded employer gave us the day off for Veteran's Day. My MBC was not easy to dial in correctly when I was tuning full throttle pulls and the EBC is all around better so I decided to install it. I picked up a light switch block-off plate from Home Depot for like 55 cents and made a quick bracket for my GM boost solenoid. It isn't pretty right now but it works and I will cut off the excess and spray paint it black later.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352777432

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352777432

I really need to clean up my engine bay but that will be for another day.

I went out for a drive to make sure it was working and I happened upon this interesting specimen.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352777432

It has a porsche badge on it but it looked like a kit car on the inside. I could be wrong and if anyone knows what it is let me know. I would have got some pictures of the inside but the owner and some of his friends came outside and I needed to go.

^ Looks like a Porsche 550, maybe a replica. Either way pretty neat.

Porsche 550 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yupp- Porsche 550 replica. The most common ones AFAIK are by Beck Speedster.

Yeah I am 99% sure it was a replica. The interior didn't look like the picture of Ralph Lauren's. It was much more plain with visible frame/cage supports. It was still very interesting though.

Back on topic... I haven't been able to do much tuning in regards to the EBC but I noticed that in third gear it pulls like a train but in fourth it is rather underwhelming until I get up to like 4500 rpm.

Should I be tuning it with the boost duty cycle tables manually or should I use PID instead? Both?

Start with duty tables so that you can dial in boost and fuel. Then when you are comfortable with fuel and boost, try closed loop.

Tune open-loop first. When that is as good as it gets, switch to closed-loop and tune that.

Edit: Rev beat me to it.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...-5.?1310873237

You probably could have asked if it was real.


That said I would probably do the same.

I didn't really have time to stick around and chat and I figured it would be really awkward to walk up take a few pics and then walk away without engaging him.

I thought about asking if it was a replica but I did not want to offend in case it was real. This was in front of a Bonefish that often has Ferrari's, SLS AMG's, Lambo's and all that jazz so it attracts the type of person that might get angry if you label their classic as a replica.

Post up a screen shot of your duty cycle table when you get a chance. I'm curious to see what yours looks like.

Considering I haven't tuned it yet it is all 100%. Once I dial it in I will post it up.

So I thought I knew what I was going to do for my suspension but then I read a thread I had never seen before and it altered my plan a little. This is the thread (Post #9 and everything else he posts are the relevant parts):

Verify susspension choices...

I was originally going to go with 450/300 spring rates and make a coilover around the MSM bilstein's for the best cost benefit for my level of use. I chose those spring rates because that was the highest I had heard that the Bilstein's could handle properly but after reading his posts I am inclined to maybe go for 600/400 like he suggests.

Does anybody have any input on this? Don't say something stupid like xida's/FCM or bust because I am not spending 2k on coilovers when I do not competitively race. I know the MSM bilstein's are more than adequate with the right modifications for what I need so it does not make sense to blow the budget.

I've never heard of MSM billies being able to handle 600/400....

Normally I would have taken what he said with a grain of salt and discarded it. However, he seems to know what he is talking about and explains it in context of the shock dyno of MSM bilstein's campared to that of xida's. He could be completely wrong which is why I wanted to bring it over here where I know we have some experts on suspension to see if his reasoning is legit.

I'm not even close to an expert, but most "experts on here" claim 400 is tops for the msm billies

Also his analogy makes sense, except he doesn't really give you any tips on that magical "in between" that everyone wants.

saying 800lb springs on a daily is acceptable is retarded. I realize the whole "springs don't affect comfort in the way that most think on a miata" argument, but anyone claiming you can daily on 600 or 800 springs has either driven on the street like 1 time for like 10 minutes, or doesn't notice the teeth shattering bumps cause they have a permanent dildo up their ass set on full vibrate. Even with proper shocks the ride is still terrible on the street. Keep in mind those little imperfections that most say are so completely un-noticeable, are like 80% of what you'll feel, and those big bumps are like 20% at the most. as long as your setup is OK on those big ones not shattering your bump stops, having something soft enough to absorb the little ones is WAY more pleasant than something that will let you feel every single ripple in the road.

Maybe I am weird but I like feeling the little imperfections in the road. It makes me feel like I am one with the car if that makes sense. I can feel everything the suspension is doing.

I hate driving cars that most people think are comfy because I can't tell wtf is going on beneath me. I don't want a ride that is super harsh but most of what I consider harsh is the kind of jars you get from the bumpstops.

I for instance find the current ride quality of the MSM with the low profile 17's completely acceptable. It is far from perfect and bottoms out too much with the soft springs but it in no way bothers me. Most people complain about how harsh it is and I just don't understand it. I figure once I switch to 15's with a higher sidewall that stiff springs would not bother me.

I may just go with 450/300 like I was planning originally but the 600/400 really peaked my interest when he actually went into the data explaining why it would work correctly.

Ryan, you sound like me. Trust me, the 700/400 combo on xidas is what you really want. Ride quality is so much better than stock. But if you are going to the billies, 600/400 is going to be undrivably loose. 700/400 assumes you've got the RB race bar up front and no or stock rear depending on alignment. 600/400 might work with the RB 1.25 man bar and no rear.

I think I might go that route. I would love for my car to handle like it is on rails. I plan to start taking it to the track at some point and a tight suspension is a must.

Wow you're car is like almost exactly the same as mine. Black 05. mish ic, maf kit etc. Except instead of getting the ecu figured out I opted for suspension/wheels. But definitely you've inspired me to go the ms route.

I was actually the 2nd person to run Joe's first revision of the MAF kit. I ran it for a bit but am now running an FM intake. Joe's currently remaking me a new intake setup completely one off with the Maf relocate.

You're still running the maf relocate with the ms2? It's possible to delete the maf all together no?

I'm thinking come this next tax return I'll be contacting Rev. May be hitting you up for some help. I'm currently running some 321cc injectors. You think I'll need to change them out when I go stand alone?

The only reason my MAF is still in there is because I never bothered to get an aluminum pipe to put in its place. I need to do this because right now it does nothing and is a restriction. Definitely get an ms2 ot 3. It really transforms the car. Your injectors will be fine until you need more power.

About 2 and a half months ago both of my headlights burned out. If I replaced them again this would have been the 4th set in a year and I was getting tired of them burning out so i decided to just go ahead and purchase a HID kit which would give me better visibility anyway.

DDM tuning had their base level kit on sale for 30 dollars which is about as much as what I would have paid for stock bulb replacements. I went ahead and bought a kit from them without realizing that if you do not purchase something directly from a shop they ship from China and not Cali.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358732742

This resulted in my kit taking 3 weeks to get to me. During this period I drove around with just foglights because I rarely drive at night and it is always on a well lit street if I do so the fog lights were alert other drivers of my presence without being dangerous for my visibility.

I got away with this without being pulled over a single time until fucking New Year's Eve. I had received the kit that day but ran out of sunlight to install it. Like an idiot I drove my car that night and got pulled over on my way home. Luckily I just got a warning because I played dumb.

The very next morning I installed the kit with great ease and tested the lights out that night. I went with 6k HID's. The visability over stock is amazing and I like the ever so slight blue tint.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358732742

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358732742

Sorry for the terrible pictures. I do not own a real camera so I use my phone.

This past weekend I finally stopped being lazy and got around to fixing some minor issues that my car was having. I had developed a slight vacuum leak that ended up just being a bad OEM spring clamp on the hose that vents from the valve cover to the intake manifold. This little leaked made the car drive like absolute shit and get mediocre mileage (23-24mpg) even with me babying it.

My IAT sensor had also never worked correctly after I installed my MS2. This ended up being because I was retarded and left the two connections to the pigtails of the sensor exposed and touching each other in the heatshrink. :vash: After I taped them off everything worked great.

I also received a package in the mail recently that has me rather excited!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358732742

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358732742

I got a great deal on this 3.63 R+P that I couldn't pass up. I am probably going to wait until I am making a bit more power to install them but I do like the idea of being able to cruise at 70mph @3000 rpms.

I am currently working on tuning my EBC with a target of 13psi. This should have already been done but I thought something was hooked up wrong because it seemed to only be using wastegate pressure. Th real problem is that I did not realize that the boost control duty setting was set to inverted so I essentially had it doing nothing this whole time. :loser:

Started tuning it today and I can definitely notice the difference. I reach 13psi at 3200 rpms and just need to tune it to hold to redline. I will post a virtual dyno once everything is as it should be.

Congrats on the 3.636 Ryan. Are you and the MSM going to make it out to the Florida meet on the 6th of April?

I am not sure yet. I will still be in audit season at that point but I think I can get one saturday off for that meet. I might have to go into work on Sunday instead. Looks like an increibly large amount of people will be there.

Very nice car

When you installed your 3 inch exhaust, did you experience any issues?
what do you suggest if I was going to run on stock internals.
Great work by the way! can't wait to see your dyno :bowrofl:

oh and whats a ms2? is that a tune? :noob:

I had no issues with my exhaust but I always left the stock boost cut active. Some people bypass this to turn up the boost but the injectors are out of juice at 10 psi which will cause huge problems. I am still running stock internals and the msm turbo will never make too much power for a stock bottom end.

MS2 is megasquirt 2 which is a standalone ecu. You use it to tune your car and get rid of the stock computer entirely. You sound like you have a lot of reading to do. You need to go through all the stickies in the DIY turbo section and read some of the MSM specific stuff on mazda-speed.com. If you don't fully understand a modification you should not install it. Read a lot and learn before you start modifying your car. You will be able to do it right the first time and avoid a lot of headaches.

This is the first car I have ever done any work on besides plugs, coil packs, and oil changes and because I took my time and planned everything out and read as much as possible I have been able to DD this car with only minor problems that were never enough to leave me stranded.

Basically what im trying to do is get the most power from a few mods like intake and exhaust, plus an upgraded front mount. I really dont plan on doing much modifications unless needed.

Which is why im asking so many questions about the exhaust, i have read around and people have said different things, do you think if I were to install a 3 inch exhaust, changed the injectors and bypass the boost cut or raise the boost will cause any issues?

Ive searched around and read stuff like hydra and now this ms2 but there expensive from what ive seen.

sorry for all the questions. Thank you for your help. I appreciate it.

missed the projector lenses, my bad

If an MS2 is too expensive, you should just stop now. Last time I checked there were 4 under $250 for sale on this site. They will take more work then getting a nice new one from Reverant, Brain, or DIYAutotune.

To get more power you need more fuel. To get more fuel you need something to put more fuel in the engine. Your shitty MSM ECU won't do that. It would be the first thing to go if I had an MSM. First engine management. Then worry about adding power.

Uh, what? Did you see his pictures of them?

The main upgrade you should do with your mazdaspeed miata is an ECU. Just doing an intake and full exhaust is going to make the car sound cool, but not very fun to drive.

The stock MSM has projector lenses so he should be fine. Did you even see his pictures? There is a nice cutoff.

This.

I had an intake, exhaust, and front mount all on the car for about 3 months. It had more power than stock but I hated how the car drove. Once I installed the MS2 I loved the car again. The stock ecu in the MSM is the biggest POS. You pick up so much low and mid range when you switch to a new ecu. No more afterburner effect when the stock ecu stops choking the engine and the turbo kicks in full force at 5k rpm. Now I have nice smooth power delivery and I am getting full spool at 3200 rpm. It was the single best upgrade I have and will probably ever make to the car.

Stahp! Making me so jealous. Tax return money can't come in fast enough!!

LOL


Are you still on stock seats? Have you done a rollbar yet? The next things on my list are rollbar, ecu, and clutch.

I do not have a roll bar yet. The next 3 big things in my build will be a rollbar, suspension, wheels/tires.

I am also still on stock seats which sit me way high and I do not find very comfortable. I thought about some race seats but I find them a little annoying for a DD. I will probably wait to get a pair of lotus elise/exige PROBAX seats which can accomodate a harness and are very comfy. BECAUSE STREETCAR! :party:

Until I am ready to pony up the dough for a pair of elise seats I might try a foamectomy+modfied stock rails+seat mount floor hump delete :fael: to gain as much headroom as possible so I can actually see street lights when I am the first car without leaning all the way forward.:jerkit:

It's entirely funny you mention that. I'm selling some elise seats. Non probax though. I rocked them for a year and they are awesome for autox/track but sucked putting up with on the daily. I personally didn't mind them, but everyone who rides with me moans and complains. (Gf) Plus the anxiety of bigger people like my folks getting in the car kills me. A lot of people never realize how low the car is and just how low the seats sat. So people would just slam down into them if I didn't warn them.

I am currently awaiting my NB mounts and sliders to come in for my 90 NA seats. Doing a foamoctomy this weekend. Even with out the foamoctomy done yet, NA seats are definitely the best choice on cheap comfy seats. Lightyears better then NB seats. I feel like I'm riding on air compared to the elise seats.

FYI, 90-93 NA seats can be found cheap, 99-05 nb brackets and sliders adapt just fine so you can mount them in your NB with working buckles just fine.

I messaged you about possibly buying your seats and asked for a shipping quote. After I really thought about it though I decided that it would be better to wait to get seats as I think the money could be better spent elsewhere right now.

If you want my old NA seats you can have them for free. Just pay shipping.

No thank you. I appreciate the offer but I'll just stick with my MSM seats for the time being.

Hey Phil,

When you're talking about the "NB" seats, are you talking about the leather seats or cloth?

I'm not sure how the cloth NB seats are, but the leather GT seats look really nice, but are not really all that great. Only being 5'9" with my seat all the way back and a decent foamectomy, I consider myself to barely fit in the car. I'm wondering how much better a foamectified NA seats would be.

I've got a roll bar being made now and I'm not sure how I'm going to fit under it when I go to Laguna Seca in April.

I've sat in the leather and used to have cloth. Honestly, I hated them. The head rests on NA seats don't come up as high as i'd like but the NB seats just plain suck in my opinion. I finished a foamoctomy on my NA seats and have them in the car. I've only driven around town with them so far since the msm is not my dd. But initial impressions are awesome. Their so comfy. I think I might actually take a trip down to NC this year because of how much better they feel on my back. I don't know how well they will work though once I get my rollbar in. But these seats were never going to be permanent anyways. They are just my inbetweeners while saving up for something else.

So a little while back sixshooter helped me install a HDHCDD roll bar so that I could start doing HPDEs. I didn't take any photo's during the install because it looked like it was going to rain so we were in a hurry to just get it done. This is the only picture I currently have with the rollbar installed.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1368454699

Sixshooter finally convinced me to sign up for my first HPDE event with NASA at Sebring on June 15-16. I am pretty excited. I ordered my helmet last night and I need to make a list of what needs to be done before the track.

So far I am thinking:

Change brake and clutch fluid
Check brake pads (I think these still have a lot of life left and I won't be pushing the car to its limits my first time with sub par street tires)
I just changed the motor oil with t6 less than 1500 miles ago
Tranny oil is also fairly fresh from when I did the clutch.

What else should I be looking at to just freshen the car up? I am not going to do any major mods because the car works now and I don't want to mess with it. I am also thinking I will turn down the boost a bit because I am pushing 14 psi on this turbo on the street which is far out of its efficiency range. I am thinking of shooting for 10 psi to keep the heat down.

I would bring a folding chair, tire pressure gauge, some water to drink, and a large amount of humility. The more you realize you don't know about performance driving, the more room you have to learn. I assume your tires are in good shape now. They won't be afterwards!

Sidenote: First post here!

Hope the day is great for you and you learn a lot. Great car btw.

Hey Ryan, can you snap a shot of how you mounted your ms under the dash?

Bring food if it is not available. A good hat to keep you cool in the sun. I would go ahead and put better pads on the car - mediocre street rubber is plenty good enough to cook pads if you are driving hard. Brakes are the last place to skimp, and the last thing you want nagging and worrying you as you start going faster.

Your 10psi idea is a good one.

Thank you two for the advice.

I will try to get a shot of it when I have the time. Basically what I did was take the bracket that holds the top of the stock ECU under the dash and bolted it to the megasquirt and then the firewall using the stock location for the lower bracket. There was literally no modification involved and it stays in place nicely.

Just read through your whole thread, ms2 is now officially on my list of things to do. :drool:

So kind of a big update. My first HPDE is this weekend at Sebring and there was a lot of preparing to do. I ordered my helmet from Summit and when it arrived I decided I should wear it around to make sure it fit correctly.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

I also ordered a set of Hawk HP+ brake pads for all four corners and Sixshooter helped me bleed out my brake system and change the pads. Then his wife cooked us an awesome dinner. Good times.

My current tires were nearing the end of their life but I was going to try and make them last through this track day. I also did not want to put new tires on my stock MSM wheels. Well, a deal popped up and what do you know....

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

I still was unsure if I wanted to buy tires for them before the track day because I wanted to learn to drive on low grip tires so I would be traveling much slower when I lost traction and I would have more time to correct. Well then the plug that I used to repair the front left tire 15k miles ago failed. After talking to Sixshooter about tire selection he completely disregarded my notion of a performance tire with decent treadwear. His exact words were, "You can have a sticky tire or a tire with good treadware but not both." After a little more prodding and him basically telling me not to be a bitch I ordered a set of tires.

I also had my windows tinted because summer is here and my car was getting incredibly hot and my air conditioning had trouble keeping up. The guy did a phenomenal job. It was so much darker inside the car that I noticed there was light coming through around my rear window on the soft top. FUCK!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

Called around and every shop just said they don't repair soft tops they just replace them. Due to how it was failing I knew it was fixable it just needed to be stitched. Bought one of these:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

Had my brother help me do some of this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

It works like a charm. I am not completely finished repairing it yet because the seem is failing around most of the window and it takes a while to hand stitch it. I will post pictures of the finished product and probably do a bit of a write up.

Well today my tires came in and I got them mounted and balanced. My choice was...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371084499

I have not had the chance to really test the tires and doubt I will until Sebring but the ride quality improvement was huge over the 17's. I hate my ride height now. The wheel gap looks terrible. I have already purchased pmhaddad's GC sleeves with 550/350 springs and FCM bump stops. I am just waiting for them to be pulled off his car.

The car is really coming together now and I am really happy with it.

So pretty much you told him to fuck off, and bought the tire that has phenomenal grip AND lasts forever.

I really hope they last a while. I don't mind buying good tires once a year. I just hope it is not going to be every 6 months.

All that car needs is a few suspension tweaks, and it will look tits.

Have you noticed a little seat of the pants difference in acceleration with the new wheels and tires?

You have come a long way in such a short time. Kudos to you Ryan. Be careful out there this weekend. Hopefully I will join you guys in this lifetime. :party:

I would like to think acceleration is better but I really have not been able to push the car yet. I do know that everything about the way the car rides now is better. It is more comfortable, grip is higher, it feels lighter on its feet. Overall it has been a great change over the 17's.

Definitely need to add some "low" to avoid the 4WD look.

I really wish you'd bought bronze 6ULs instead though, they look great on a green or black car.

Just for giggles, after you've driven on the 15s for a while, switch back to the 17s to appreciate the difference.

I was looking at getting bronze, silver, or black if I bought new. These were a good used deal so I had no choice on color. I will be selling the 17's and would never put them back on the car.

Car is coming together nicely, Ryan_G (which is a curious user name for a person named Donald). Have fun at Sebring and take to heart the earlier comment about maximizing humility. :)

There were some issues with parts and my schedule, so my car won't be ready for another week or two but I'll hopefully get out to a NASA this year.

My first name is Donald but I go by my middle name Ryan. Not sure why I put Donald in my profile but I can't seem to figure out how to change it and I have yet to bug an admin about it.

I have no problem admitting that I am a complete novice when it comes to real performance driving and I look forward to really learning everything I can. I actively try to identify my weaknesses in every area of my life because there is no other way to improve.

Definitely look forward to you joining us at the track in the future.

Nice set up, hopefully I can get my engine back together and participate in some events with you soon.

You're also planning on going EFR like myself right?

Where in Tampa are you?
I'm in South Tampa