Haltech for Turbo Miata or MS PNP?

I have a buddy who is a vendor of Haltechs. He is pushing me hard for a Haltech and is giving me a good deal. $1300 with the harness.

My original plan was a MS PNP for $800.

Goal is to do a sub $2500 turbo install that makes 225Hp-ish on the 1.6L motor in my car.

I can fab up exhausts and intercooler pipes myself pretty well. I would buy the manifold and turbo (maybe used?). I would need injectors and a wideband o2 sensor. He has an intercooler which might fit at least based on initial measurements. I think I can still do it within my original budget? maybe?

Thoughts? Any experience with haltechs? He would help me tune it. Even if I got MS he would help tune it.

If you're trying to do everything for under $2500, then MS is going to be the way to go.

If you want the most support you can get and don't feel like dealing with tuning or fixing the standalone yourself, then tell your buddy you'll go with the Haltech. (Chris?)

I run a Haltech Platinum Sprint 1000 on my Escort. Haven't had a ton of changes to mess around with it since the car blew up after about 7 minutes of idling, but from what i'm seeing, it seems to be pretty user-friendly.

But i'm also having the guy i bought it from support it, so as long as he can tune it well, i don't really care.

On my blue Miata, i'll be using a Megasquirt since i'll be doing it all myself.

The hot tickets for turbo Miatas seem to be Megasquirt (bonus points for MS3X) or AEM EMS4. (Probably a little cheaper than the Haltech.)

$500 is 20% of your budget- just for a different name.

they do the same thing, and as far as I can tell, equally well.

the only thing I would lean toward- if you are good at reading code, the MS will be better, since you can actually see how the code works, and make it work to the ability of the system.

Megasquirt, unless your friend is going to tune it for free as well. Haltech is more expensive, and less widely supported...not sure why you would consider it given your budget.

calteg wrote: Megasquirt, unless your friend is going to tune it for free as well. Haltech is more expensive, and less widely supported...not sure why you would consider it given your budget.

There's two kinds of support: Internet, and face to face. I'd argue that Haltech is better supported in the latter.

And no real "tuner" tunes anything for free.

If you can tune and install yourself, it is a bit silly to not go with megasquirt these days. If you're not going to be doing either of those things yourself, then you go with whatever the person who WILL be doing those things for you is most comfortable with.

Tuning would be for free. He is a close friend from college. I would have to pay for dyno time though as he doesnt have a dyno.

I am capable of tuning and installing either myself. The friend who is the dealer and I were on Formula SAE together where we built the Kawasaki 600 motors for the race car and then dyno tuned them.

I just am not sure I see where the value is in the extra $500 for the Haltech.

I have no expierence with either ECU at this point we worked with Performance Electronics and Motecs when we were in school.

The one point he makes (that I kind of like the idea of) is the ability for the Haltech to run anything I want down the line. Like if I decided to swap a V8 in the Miata. I know Megasquirt can as well but I am not sure whats specialized besided the connectors on the PNP version.

I also have crazy dreams of building a FSAE car for the street/track some day and I could pull the ECU from Miata plug it into homebuilt car and load the new setup/map files and take it to track day bring it home swap it back to Miata for summer driving fun.

Swank Force One wrote: If you want the most support you can get and don't feel like dealing with tuning or fixing the standalone yourself, then tell your buddy you'll go with the Haltech. (Chris?)

As he's talking about an MSPNP - if it needs repairing, I'd be handling that one (or one of the other members of the DIYAutoTune tech staff).

As MSPNPs are designed to be plug and play, they trade some flexibility for their plug in aspect. (A plug and play Haltech would make the same sort of trade off, although IIRC they're not out for the Miata). So the other project car would need similar sensors, etc in order to allow swapping over the MSPNP.

MadScientistMatt wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: If you want the most support you can get and don't feel like dealing with tuning or fixing the standalone yourself, then tell your buddy you'll go with the Haltech. (Chris?)

As he's talking about an MSPNP - if it needs repairing, I'd be handling that one (or one of the other members of the DIYAutoTune tech staff). As MSPNPs are designed to be plug and play, they trade some flexibility for their plug in aspect. (A plug and play Haltech would make the same sort of trade off, although IIRC they're not out for the Miata). So the other project car would need similar sensors, etc in order to allow swapping over the MSPNP.

Oops sorry Matt, missed the PNP portion, my mistake.

In reply to MadScientistMatt:

Haltech makes a Patch Loom Kit. That supposedly makes it a Plug and Play installation.