Lneenyo

Hello, all.
I joined recently because I am interested in doing some work to my '90 Classic Red. I've had it since '05 and unfortunately it has been sitting (covered) since winter '08 because of money issues and College. I recently graduated and my desire to modify the second love of my life has been reignited.

I'm thinking turbo.

Here are some before and after pictures of when I first got it and when I painted it in school.

Any general suggestions insider tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

-Seth

weezerfan5487

Dude great job on the repaint! Thats the one thing I'm kind of afraid to do yet. My car's paint isn't bad but i would love to get her repainted and let the white shine WAY better!

arctct

iTrader: (1)

welcome... most of the guys here will insist you go with a megasquirt... DO IT.

how much mechanical experience do you have? can you work with metal and make your own shizer or would you see yourself purchasing a kit?

also, you may wanna upgrade to a 1.8L diff...

lastly.... what are your power goals?

Full_Tilt_Boogie

iTrader: (1)

May want to? lol

weezerfan5487

I've driven my buddies 1.6 with the viscous. After a few min of drifting it acted JUST like an open diff and was a total pain to get sideways. I have the 1.8 with the torsen. Even with the low hp and tq I could still get my car sideways and controlled pretty well. Didn't matter how many times I beat it up either!

WonTon

iTrader: (17)

Lneenyo

Sorry, I've been really busy and haven't had time to reply. I'm not a one-post chump.

@ weezerfan5487- Thanks! I worked really hard and fortunately for me I had the opportunity to paint the car when I was at school. Unfortunately, it does not look as good as it did after I did it because about a month after I painted it I had an accident and it has some rear quarter damage.

@ arctct- I would probably not get a kit. I am the type of person who cannot easily justify buying a bunch of stuff that I could make myself. I work in a machine shop and I have 2 degrees in the automotive field. I can MIG and I work with someone who is very good at TIG so I should be able to do the piping. I would probably just purchase the turbo, manifold and fuel management and build the rest myself.

My financial situation is a little gloomy at this time. I just moved and I had to do a lot of repairs on my car so it would be a while until I would be able to start this project, which I suppose is a good thing since I'll have time to put some real though into it. I think, conservatively, since I don't really want to go ***** out on my first turbo project and spend a TON of money, 150 Hp would be a good goal (?). I like to think that i would be able to achieve this easily without significant modifications to the engine. Although i plan on rebuilding the head anyway.

Keep in mind that I have close to zero turbo experience. Would I be wrong in saying that I would just need something like the Voodoo box from FM and then the other obvious essentials (turbo, mani, piping, WBO2)? I have read a lot of posts on this forum and it seems like there is a laundry list of crap that I would need in order to achieve proper engine management but I can't see what else I might need.

...That's it.

curly

iTrader: (25)

For engine management, you need four things. The actual MS, which can be built for ~$200 I think, a wideband for roughly the same, an air intake temperature sensor (ait) for $20 and bigger injectors. These can be source for $75-$150, but anything below $125ish will most likely need a rebuild. You can get away without that for a bit though.

weezerfan5487

Man I wish I had the resorces and materials to fab up my own tubes and exhuast. My brother is a pipe fitter and builds ALL his exhausts and roll cages at his work for almost nothing. Super jealous man.

Lneenyo

@curly- sorry I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the acronyms on the site, MS? Same as FMU or a piggy back comp? You said "built for". Would it be best to have one built and not go with something like the voodoo box?

@weezerfan- I am pretty lucky because the people I work with are huge car and motorcycle guys and very liberal when it comes to usingthe shop. My boss is actually in the process of turboing his bike. Should be fun.

curly

iTrader: (25)

MS stands for MegaSquirt. It is a complete stand alone ECU that will replace your stock computer completely. It controls your fuel, spark, timing, fans, boost, traction control, etc. Those first three features are a must, after that it depends on which version of MS you have (the newer they are the more inputs and outputs they have) and how many things you want to actually hook up. For instance a manual boost controller can be made for about $10, or bought for about $15 from ebay, and many on this site will say it works more reliably than electric boost control, and it's much cheaper and easier to install.

It is completely programmable from your laptop. You plug in, tell it "I want a 7199rpm rev limiter, not 7200", click "burn .msq", and in 2-3 seconds you will now have a 7199rpm rev limit. Once everything is tuned properly to your liking, disconnect your laptop and go have fun. BTW the program is incredibly simple (and free) so you don't need a state of the art computer to run it. Many of us buy brand new $250 laptops to run it, if you don't already have one.

P.S. you need the WB with the MS.

I say "built for" because unless you spend $500 on a pre-built unit, you get (for $187) a bare circuit board with a bunch of stuff you have to solder on. There are a few people on the site that will build it for you, for roughly $300-400, which includes the price of parts. Braineack is the real popular one, although I know Wayne_Curr has built a few, among others. Ask around.

We will ALL suggest that you do nothing but focus on buying and building a MegaSquirt and to get it installed, running, and tuned before touching ANYTHING else on the car.

All the information on the MS can be found here:
http://www.diyautotune.com/
and here:
https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquirt-18/super-important-megasquirt-threads-17498/


P.P.S. the whole "@ curly" thing when you reply is INCREDIBLY ******* gay. Keep that **** on twitter. Use multi quotes here.