Need advice on buying and boosting Miata!
 

Hey everyone! Firstly, I apologize if this is already stated somewhere. There is so much info and I feel like my situation is unique. I'm very new to the Miata scene (I came from mustangs) and I'm looking to get into a Miata as soon as possible. My plans are to buy a decent Miata, daily drive it for a little, then slowly turbo it and turn into a 200-250whp drift machine. My question to you guys is what year Miata should I get? Definitely a 1.8 because drivetrain. I was thinking 1996 or 1997, however it has OBD2 which I love for diagnosing, but people say you have to "piggyback" the stock ecu to pass emissions. I heard its harder to pass inspection as well. I'm in NJ and don't really care about emissions (I have a guy to pass my inspection) so not a concern there. Now I'm thinking 1994 or 1995 because OBD1 and I love the idea of running standalone Megasquirt and forgetting the stock ECU. I also heard when piggybacking, you max out the limits of the stock ecu and can't make as much power as say a standalone setup. My other question is can you run a standalone setup on a 1996 or 97 with obd2? If that is the case, I'd prefer that because I like obd2. I'm under the impression that standalone is only possible with obd1 miatas. If someone could shed some light on this for me that would be great! Thanks in advance! :D

This situation is not unique. Time to put in some leg work and read up on more posts here.

To answer one of your questions, OBDII isn’t going to be used when you go to a standalone ECU, so I wouldn’t personally let that factor into my decision.

Piggy-back? What are you reading? Whatever it is, stop immediately, and start using the big search box up there. It is not up there to make the page look pretty.

Okay I'm going to do some more research on this page. My apologies I'm super new to all of this and I thought I figured some stuff out.. I guess not. Thanks!

What? No one has mentioned Powercard yet? Y'all a bunch of slackers.

There's stages to figuring it all out haha. For what it's worth, last year I was in your shoes as well. I'd recommend reading through a bunch of build threads on here and you'll start seeing a pattern of how the turbo-ing process works.

My car is far from the sickest one on here but here's my build thread https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...-block-107372/ Might provide some insight for you as it starts just after I installed my Megasquirt. Also, I'm running a '95 and have never once yearned for an OBDII port when the car was still stock.