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If it's Alex Hickson you're referring to I can absolutely recommend him without any hesitations. He's great.
I should also point out there are remote tuners for MS3 ECU's right here on the forum.
I'm in the north west of England so don't have much experience with tuners in the south east. I've always heard good things about Abbey Motorsport in Oxted. That's not far from you and they have a proper dynapack hub dyno.
If it's Alex Hickson you're referring to I can absolutely recommend him without any hesitations. He's great.
I should also point out there are remote tuners for MS3 ECU's right here on the forum.
I'm in the north west of England so don't have much experience with tuners in the south east. I've always heard good things about Abbey Motorsport in Oxted. That's not far from you and they have a proper dynapack hub dyno.
Yes it's Alex Hickson. I've heard great things.
Yes, Oxted is very close and I never knew about Abbey Motorsport! Glad I asked. Will enquire about ME442.
Originally Posted by yossi126
I can probably take a hit at remote tuning his car. Only a two-hour time difference so no biggie.
As per PM, I'm yet to pick an ECU but may well take you up on your kind offer.:-)
I'm probably going to go for the ME442. I come from a history of swapping engines from 90s hot hatches on my parents' driveway; just getting my head around turbo charging is aIready a steep learning curve; I certainly know nothing about programmable ECUs, so will leave it to the experts and get it mapped by someone once finished. For that reason I reckon I'm best off with ME221/442 over here in Blighty. Though I admire you self-mappers a lot.
Go over to https://evansperformanceacademy.vhx.tv/ and sign up for a month. It is $50 and well worth it. Watch all the EFI basic and advance classes. Then watch all the MS video's and the live dyno tuning. After that you will have your head wrapped around everything. Even if you have someone else tune, you will at least know what questions to ask and know what to expect.
My first turbo setup was with a Begi GT2554R, running 12 or so PSI. It was an absolute blast - instant power at anywhere in the rev range, no lag and just a whole lot of fun. Probably somewhere around 190whp on a standard engine.
My second turbo setup was with a GT2860RS, running a bit more. It was faster, but also a little laggier and started to demand respect as the power delivery was much more brutal. It was probably somewhere round 230whp on a standard engine.
My current setup is a GTX2860R running a whole lot more, somewhere north of 300whp. It's probably less laggy than the previous one, but it's a bit of a handful - in the wet it will go sideways at motorway speeds if you aren't careful, but it's blisteringly quick.
The first setup was probably the best fun for a road car on 'spirited drives' - it didn't feel like it wanted to kill you, was still fun in the wet and wasn't so quick that you risk your licence every time you drove it. It had the character of an MX5 still, but with enough power to make it fun.
In terms of ECU - ME who were once the darlings of the UK forums seem to have taken a bashing there recently as well due to issues over ongoing support. There's a few threads on here which ME contributed to (and were subsequently banned from) which make interesting reading. Despite the claims of how extensive their network is, there are probably 2-3x the number of tuners in the UK who are more experienced with megasquirt compared.
There are some very good basemaps on here that would get you up and running should you choose MS, certainly enough to get it to a dyno / expert to do the fine tuning if you didn't want to. Abbey Motorsport are supposed to be very good, certainly well regarded in the Nissan/Skyline world. I've used Horsham Developments (near Newbury) a few times with good results..
I think I've come to terms with the fact I'm not going to uprate the rods, so will be looking to make the most of a standard engine. Was thinking the full Bofi GT2554 kit, but I've been offered my pick of parts from a breaking TDO4 kit. Thinking of just taking the Kraken K1 manifold, turbo and intercooler for £300 (bit dubious about messing around with used turbo and ECU). This does mean I'd be committed to a TD04, but I'd be saving a lot of money.
Unsure now about what ECU to go for. The UK facebook groups are all over the ME stuff, but with this forum it's all about the MS. I've also been tempted by Shuiend's idea of training myself up on self-mapping; do many people on here rely purely on their self-mapping and not bother with a rolling road tune?
I have emailed Abbey Motorsport. They have no experience of ME, but say it looks straight forward. Should I be looking for an experienced ME tuner? But you make a good point; there are a lot more experience MS tuners about. So much to consider!
I suppose the next question is what you are planning on using the car for - general fun, drag, drift, trackdays etc, and what are you starting with (NA / NB / 1.6 / 1.8 / VVT etc)
Keeping standard rods sounds like a reasonable plan - depending on what motor you are starting with you should be able to get to a pretty decent power level without having to upgrade a whole load of other stuff to cope as well (probably just clutch, injectors, cooling) rather than anything major...
To be honest - if you can get the manifold, exhaust, turbo and intercooler for £300 I'd jump on that, as long as it comes with all of the other bits (pipework, downpipe, oil / water feeds, clamps etc) - if it's complete that's a very good deal. You can get the turbo checked out easily enough, or flog it on ebay and get a new one if you have concerns - but from what I have heard about TD04s they are fairly robust and parts are available, so if there's no damage and bearing play you should be OK, just make sure everything is well flushed through and clean before you fit it.
I'd then spend the money you've just saved on a decent set of injectors (no dodgy RX8 injectors from ebay please!) and a decent ECU. From what Bofi sell, I'd probably get the MS3 Mini / AEM wideband package or keep an eye out for a decent second hand MS as they come up on here pretty often. The exchange rate is reasonable at the moment, so it might be worth pricing up ordering from DIYAutotune as well.
Pretty much any mapper will have tuned MS at some point or another, and there's a huge amount of help for all of the little niggles available here. In terms of mapping yourself - if you can get the ECU installed and the car running, then you put yourself at a big advantage - you can get the car running without the turbo as long as a good basemap is available, then learn the quirks, get knock sensing setup etc with a reasonably 'safe' environment. Then install the bigger injectors, get it running nicely with those, install the turbo kit, drive it gently and get all of the mechanical stuff shaken down - oil leaks / water leaks etc fixed, so if you do decide to take it to be dyno tuned they you aren't paying someone else to do all of that for you. It also gives you a chance to learn the setup naturally aspirated with a much larger margin for error, and you can choose to try and map it yourself then get someone to check it over and tweak for power on a dyno, or let them map it fully...
If you can get the Kraken TD04 mani, turbo and intercooler for £300 then bite his hand off. You'll not do better than that. Get the downpipe too if you can. Of course that assumes the manifold isn't cracked anywhere and the turbo isn't on its last legs etc. Yes you take a risk buying used parts but a little common sense goes a long way and Kraken stuff is quality.
Get the ECU your tuner is most comfortable working with. I had a pretty unpleasant experience with ME support and would not use them again. Alex Hickson is the sole reason I could recommend an ME221/442. If you do go the self-tuning route I would strongly advise you to get an MS3 purely for the support here and elsewhere online.
Sorry, I meant Kraken K1 manifold, downpipe (not turbo) and intercooler for £300 - didn't mean to write turbo. Still think this is a good deal though.
The car will purely be a weekend B-road toy. The MX5 I have bought is a solid 2002 1.8 VVT Phoenix with Torsen LSD, Tein coilovers, organic Exeddy clutch, and 2.5" Jetex backbox. I've done a compression test and got: Cyl 1: 175 Cyl 2: 171 Cyl 3: 180 Cyl 4: 175
So I think it's a pretty good base to turbo. I've spent the last weekend checking it thoroughly for rust and doing a bit of bodywork.
I'm finding the help and advice on here really good, so I'm slowly coming around to the MS3 mini ECU that is more popular here, as opposed to the ME biased UK Facebook groups. Do like the idea of having a go at tuning the thing myself even though I'm a total novice; really don't like the idea of having to rely on a tuner at £300 a time and a 6 week wait.
You only have 1 spare 0-5v input (plus flex fuel?), and a few extra digital inputs/outputs compared to quite a few of each on the full fat MS3 derivatives.
If you aren't planning on going bonkers with extra sensor inputs, it will probably never cause you any issues (and you could always add these via CAN if you really wanted to).
The MS3 mini is the BOFI offering which is why I had picked it. Can it control the VVT? What inputs does a man need for straight forward standard engine setup that he intends to tune himself?
05-18-2021, 07:37 AM
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