forgot the clutch in my list
they do not like boost for long periods of time, mine slipped really bad after i got it.

 

How much is the megasquirt? Is it pretty straight forward to use? I keep seeing it come up so I'm guessing it is pretty popular, but everywhere I found it was asking around $800 for it. Is that the going price for it? too much? a good deal? It just seems kinda weird that the little electronic bit would account for almost half the price of the total system. Maybe I'm just being cheap.

 

It's an important piece of the puzzle. The new MSPNP2 is a damn goo dvalue if you compare it to say the Hydra that FM supplies.

 

How much should it cost me?

 

the mspnp2 just came out and is $800. You can do say a diypnp for a bit cheaper at $450+30 for the kit plus whatever someone charges you to build it to spec (~$100)

 

Brain can build you a DIYPNP for whatever the going rate is or you could buy a MSPNP from DIY Autotune. There is also a guy named Reverent (who lives in Greece) on MiataTurbo.net who builds them.

These choices are all about half the price of a mainstream standalone ECU like the AEM, etc. ECUs are not super cheap because they require a certain number of and proper quality of components for reliable operation. They also take some know-how to construct and operate.

Edit: Brain beat me to the details.

 

Thanks for all the help with this. I like both of these options. The DIY sounds like it might be fun to try. Anybody have any exp. with the DIY kits? I have plenty of practice with a soldering iron and don't foresee building one to be much of an issue. Is there any drawbacks to using the DIYPNP vs buying a pre-built one? I have never done any tuning on a fuel injected vehicle and This will be my first turbo build (I have played with my my skyline a little and even replaced the engine and turbo system, but it was already tuned when I got it). [Probably a dumb question Is this something I will be able to work on myself or is it going to require a dyno shop to do the work. I am assuming a shop being it will probably be a home made turbo setup that a shop will be needed, but maybe its more straight forward than I think.

 

The tuning? You'll be able to do it yourself with a laptop and a friend who know's what they're doing as long as you get yourself a wideband o2 sensor and gauge.

 

There are some base tunes available for common fuel injector sizes that you can upload to the ECU. It will still require some attention but you can get it to crank and run with them. I've got one that Brain built but I'm not the expert. I'm still learning as I go.

 

Thanks everyone, I looked over Brian's write up on how to build the DIY kit and everything seems well within my capabilities and it should be perfectly suitable for my overall power goals of roughly 200hp and the potential for 250hp in the future (not really solid numbers, just what seems to be a reasonable goal to start with for such a light car). Not to mention it looks like a fun project to take on. So I think I'll probably end up going that route.