My budget high school build!
 

Hey guys. I'm a noob 'round these here parts. I am in high school working on my senior year while working just a bit over minimum wage. I'd like to share my turbo build as I go along the process with my 1990 Miata with 188k miles. So far what I have done are a few low-budget budget supporting mods, such as a Manzo cat-back, Tein Street-Basis Coils, Kraftwerks FMU, and an adapter plate to run a 3" cone filter (I only have the ebay filter, I plan to upgrade to a K&N since I hear the middle part tends to fall out.
Some parts that I have collected as of today (1/28/18) is a Garrett T3 turbo which is externally wastegated and an ebay T3 cast iron manifold. However since the turbo is older than me and needs to be rebuilt, I do not have the budget for a decent wastegate with a manifold that works with it, I will be trying to sell it and purchase a brand spanking new Ebay T3 (I know, sounds awful right) but hear me out. As I go along, I will be learning some of everything I need to know for the future where I want to build my own 1.9 VVT motor and turbo setup. Any tips would be appreciated and I hope all goes well! (If this thread is in the wrong place, I'll delete it and put it in the right one.https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dfc68637b3.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5dd005830f.jpg

Fuel control. How are you doing it?

I will be using a rising rate FMU from the Kraftwerks supercharger kit to add pressure as it builds boost. Eventually I’ll upgrade to bigger injectors.

This is going to be a bad time.

Don't

Welcome to the forum. Sell everything you have now and spend some time reading.

Sell everything you have and wait 6 months and buy all my 1.6 stuff at the end of summer. It'll be a far better kit and complete and right.

With all due respect, what's your plan after high school? It may be worthwhile spending that time researching, and just doing fun suspension, brakes and tires. Then when you have stable higher pay, indulge with your bank software knowledge and all the development that will come in the future.

Right now my plan is to go to college for Cybersecurity. My problem is that I’m very impatient 😂 I probablly wouldn’t get much from selling my current parts, so it wouldn’t be worth it to try. If I were to do suspension I’d want to try a racing beat tubular sway bar in the front with a solid in the back. From what I’ve seen, a beefier sway bar in the front makes the rear end more predictable. Right now for brakes I have power stop calipers which from what I can tell are stock brakes painted red (I got them for free with the car). I like my Teins because they are a good mix between stock and firm with little to no bounce (hell of a lot better than the ultimos i bought from a YouTuber that I wasted money on).

Do it right or do it twice...
Youre just asking for ridicule with a thread like this...

There's nothing to learn, we can tell you everything you need to know about your intended plan and it sucks. Id rather see you get an MS1 for about the same money as an FMU, and "learn" to play with that while the car is NA. THEN add bigger injectors... THEN boost......Trust us, we know what we are talking about.

Because you're broke and impatient is not an excuse to do something half-assed.
It's not a learning experience if you know from the beginning what's going to go wrong.
We've all been young and made bad decisions.
You have an advantage in that you have some of the smartest people you're ever going to encounter giving you advice for free.
Listen to them.
Learn how to budget and save.
NOW! Not when you're up to your eyeballs in student loan and credit card debt, which is where you're heading, I assure you.
Listen to our recommendations and succeed, or cut corners and lose.
Your call.

alright, I’ll take your guys advice sell my stuff and find an ms1 for sale

If you can afford an FMU, you can afford a Megasquirt. It just takes longer.

Eat steak, not McDonald's.

Sounds like you already experienced what happens when you buy crap, why didn't you learn? You won't learn anything from doing a "broke and boosted" setup, you'll just reiterate why it sucks.

I did learn. I would have waited to buy better coilovers but since my Miata is my daily driver now I had to settle with what I could afford at the time

You got that wrong, though.

You had to settle, since you were impatient. Not because your Miata is your DD. ;)

But this is also why you shouldn't be boosting that car either. Turbo miata DD = bad time. Especially if you don't have the money to fix big ticket items in a hurry.

My normal daily is being used so my original plan was once I have it back I was going to boost it. What type of functionality does ms1 have vs ms2? I’m looking at DIY boards and I’m wondering if the MS2 would be worth the extra cost off the bat

DIYPNP is the way to go for Megasquirt on a budget. MS2 technology, but you don't have to make custom circuits without good documentation. With a DIYPNP you just populate the circuit board and wire some jumpers according to a pinout and it's a plug and play ECU. It will run exceptionally better than an MS1, there's plenty of comparison threads around here to explain specifics.