Help with decision

[stryped]

Hi,
I have a bone stock 1990 mustang I have had for 20 or more years. I still drive it almost every day. It is exactly the way it came from the factory, stock v8, aod automatic, 308 gears. Needless to say it is underpowered compared to cars no a days but it still gets about 22 mpg which is better than the 17 my truck gets.

I miss my hot rod days and thought about one day putting and fabbing my own turbo set up. I cant afford a pre made kit and I cant afford everything at once so I would have to purchase piece by piece as I can afford. I have a small shop, welders, and a lot of equipment to fab myself. The thing that has always worried me is I hear that you have to get a "tune" or blow up the engine and living in Kentucky with amish neighbors, I don't have the luxury of a tuner nearby.

I have been reading extensively about megasquirt and quarterhorse. I have been contemplating one of these as my first purchase toward a "turbo" build. (If I do it at all). Cost is a major concern which has me leaning toward a quarterhorse. (quarterhorse = 239.99 + tuner studio = 39.99= 279.98. But the build it yourself megasquirts intrigue me. The cost of those is not too bad. I can also get them on AMazon, which I have a gift certificate toward. But there are so many different kits and I get confused on what would be required for what I am wanting to do. I know I would need both fuel and ignition control. I know it would be neat to have the MS3x and fab individual injector control and maybe even a coil for each cylinder but due to cost I would probably never do it.

These are the benefits as I see it on quaterhorse:
Uses existing computer. Can always go back to stock
I would assume normal driveability might be better with this system because of the above.
Cheaper.

These are the bad I see:
Quarterhorse uses a battery. if the battery goes out you are stranded unless the quarterhorse is removed. (This really concerns me) I hear the battery lasts five years, but like I said I have had the car over 20 years and drive it a lot.
I would think there is a limit on what you can do to program for a turbo since you are limited to the information in the stock EECiv

Benefits on MS:
More programing options. I see you can add controls for water injection, nitrous and a lot of different things.
Possibility of taking it and using on another vehicle in the future. (And does not necessarily have to be a ford)
I hear it is easier to program/work with (But I am not sure on that.

Negatives:
To be able to afford it I would have to assemble my own kit. (Which I don't mind at all) But there is a risk of frying something.
Potentially cost.
Possibility of having to cut into the existing wiring of the car. (A big negative). But as I understand it there is a harness available to eliminate wiring. (I would not think that would work with individual injector firing however)
Less driveability of the car in normal stop and go driving (As comared to the stock computer). I may be wrong on that but I have heard reports.
Maybe less mileage?

I appreciate any advice. WIll either of these make a noticeable difference in power or mileage or driveability in a stock engine?

I appreciate the help!

[DonTZ125]

I'd never heard of a Quarterhorse - I'm a bike guy - and it took some Googling to find out what it was about. An interesting little device! There is one huge "Whot the?!" however, and that is as you mention the problem with the battery. On their support page, there is an article about battery life which includes the comment that "While many people think of the QH as a chip and leave it in their vehicle full time, the QH was never intended to be a permanently-installed piece of gear. It was intended as an emulator, a tuning tool, something to be tethered to a laptop for use. In cases where the vehicle will no longer run on a factory computer, a dead battery on an emulator will strand you unless you have a laptop handy to re-load the tune. Like all of our other emulator products, we recommend that a chip be used for long-term operation."

This is all well and good for a simple external plug in device, but when - according to their recommended "How to" article - you have to dig out the computer from its nesting place, unbolt and open the enclosure, unplug this and that AND THEN put it all back together, both to install and remove the device, it's a ridiculous notion.

The MS may be a little more expensive and involved, but there are numerous "how-to's" on installation and tuning, and a well-set-up MS will run just as well as the stock installation. You do have to be prepared to put in the sweat equity, as you don't have a team of factory R&D types spending $$$$$ on tune and test runs.

[kjones6039]

quarterhorse = 239.99 + tuner studio = 39.99= 279.98

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no way that Tuner Studio is going to work with this product as far as I can tell from a brief look at their site.

Ken

[TomR]

You cannot use Tuner Studio with the Quarter Horse.

You can use BE (Binary Editor) and Tuner Pro RT. There might be some other stuff. I used Tweecer RT (which comes with FREE Calcon and Caledit) and ($$) BE.

Be prepared to spend lot's of time and some money to get things going with your stock EEC. You will for sure need to have a wideband o2 system.

I'm just changing from the Ford EEC in my 89 to the MegaSquirt. Just cranked the MS system tonight for the 1st time. I had to ditch the A9L Ford because my new cam is well over 7000 RPM, and the data overflows the capacity of the A9L and it just goes dumb for a few seconds when I get near 7k RPM until the engine dies back down.