How do I know if I'm ready to start tuning?
 

I'm planning on picking up a MS3X for black Friday this week and assembling it over the coming weeks. I'd say I have a good grasp on how to tune and what tuning is but I'm still unsure if I have a complete grasp on what's coming. How do I know if I'm ready to get into the world of tuning? Is it really that complicated? (Probably) I'm not worried about performance as of now, I just would like to get the car running exactly like stock but on MS.

The car is completely stock for now, so it'll be easy (atleast in my mind) to swap ECUs back and forth if I wanna go drive the car without worry. (I hope)

You don't know until you try.

Just like any other skill, whether it be woodworking, playing guitar, learning a programming language, it just takes time. For me, I could read books on tuning all day long and understand the concepts, but not really "get" it until I started tuning my own car.

My advice? 1. Read all you can. 2. Get a wideband from the very beginning. 3. Don't change eçu settings while sitting at a red light (learned the hard way) 5. Just go ahead and buy the paid version of MLV and Tuner studio, don't think, just do. 7. I figured it out, and I can't even count :)

It's very rewarding having tuned your own car.

I've been playing with MS since 2006. I've had 1, 2, 3. Still learning... but my car runs like a boss.

Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking. I'd say I learn the best by doing anyways. And yes the wideband is going in with MS.

Very motivating. Thank you

If you're good at learning menus and interfaces, it will come to you over time. There's a definite learning curve but with good google-fu you can honestly figure out any problem.
Being adept at troubleshooting is an absolute must, but it is so rewarding to put the time and effort into.

Here's some advice I left on the Aussie mx5cartalk.com forum regarding learning to tune:

As with most things, "learning by doing" really helps, especially when there's a lot to learn.

If you try and watch/learn everything about tuning before you start tuning yourself, you'll quickly become intimidated and never attempt it yourself.

Pick an online video series (eg. pedxing's MS tuning), there's a few MX5-specific ones now, watch each episode a couple of times and attempt it yourself before moving on to the next one. If something is unclear then do some extra online research on that issue only until you understand it, then complete those tasks.

"Baby steps" will help you gain confidence in tuning and there's plenty of online information available these days.