Edit

If you are still on stock ecu with nothing controlling your fuel, you will go boom. Where to start is everything on this site. Really, there is no how you find out what is on your car tutorial or walk through. You need to read read and read here. No one is going to hold your hand and give you cliff notes on your car. But post some pictures and we may be able to help get you started.

Would the ECU had to have been modified to a certain extent for the turbo to work? or would the absolute untouched stock ECU still allow me to run?

There's gotta be some bandaids, or it woulda grenaded by now.

I was thinking that too, it was installed about 20,000 miles ago. How would I check to see how it's been modified or is that something only a dyno shop can do?

You don't need a dyno, you need a competent mechanic.

And in terms of getting it tuned, could I avoid going to a dyno shop where they charge $100/hr?

Unless you want to tune it yourself, pay some random guy to street tune it, or pay a shop to dyno tune it.

Step 1 is figure out what parts are on your system

Turbo, injectors, engine management... And so on. There is only so much people can do over the internet because we know even less about this car than you.

Now I have to learn how to identify everything in the bay.

Where are you from

Wha

CA

The Greddy kit comes with a Vortech FMU (rising rate fuel pressure regulator) that is actually decently well tuned for 5-8 psi. As long as that is installed and you are running 5 psi wastegate pressure you are fine.

That turbo doesn't make power until 4k rpm and it is probably not slower below that than a stock car, it just feels that way because you are used to the rush of power that comes on when the boost hits.

Don't modify anything from where it is out of the box unless you have a VERY good idea what you are doing. You will need a higher pressure fuel pump, a timing retard device and a really, really good clutch to go any farther and above 8-9 psi you will need a replacement computer. Above 10 psi with the FMU you will start locking up the injectors from the high fuel pressure anyway, so don't do that.


My advice is to leave it alone and enjoy it until you learn a lot about turbo miatas and turbo systems in general, or find a VERY competent friend/shop that has done turbo work on a miata before.


Source:
Former 1.6L Greddy Miata owner.

I owned two other miatas before this (stock and they were 1.8L) and my brother currently has a 1.8L as well. I'm more than positive that the speed before it is much slower than stock, I can tell something isn't working efficiently (the acceleration is terribly terribly slow). I'm not sure if my mpg would be another indicator of that or not but I measured it at 21mpg, I don't know if it should increase or decrease with a turbo kit.

On a side note, the only other thing that may be wrong or could be a factor in all of this besides a leak is my gas pedal, it's really tough to press down but still responsive and it's not sticking per se.

I bet whoever did the turbo retarded the base timing as a bandaid so it wouldn't ping. Do you have a boost gauge and wideband gauge? If not you should get them both and make sure you're boosting where you should be and are fueling appropriately for the turbo.

All forms of diagnostics are useless until you get a way to measure what the engine is doing.

Nope, interior is all stock except for my stereo :D
Where should I look to purchase one (or both) of those? and how would I go about setting them up?

Boost gauge, something like this:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/atm-2601/overview/

Wideband, something like this (I recommend this one, it is excellent):
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/avm-30-4100/overview/

There should be adequate instructions on here if you search for info.

Out of curiosity...Do you have any other suggestions, that are more conscious of a college budget? If not I'll have to just wait and save up for a whiiiile- not impossible.

Those are the budget ones. The best advice I can give you is that if you are going to tune and modify, save for it and do it the right way once.

You should be fairly safe at 5 psi regardless as long as there aren't any underlying maintenance issues with the car. Once you have a wideband and boost gauge you can get a handle on what is going on.

Thank you so much for all the help. If there are any websites that come to your mind right away in terms of helping me educate myself more in an organized manner please do share them!

Again, I appreciate the help!