
as with any electronics, usually if the board is going to go bad it will do so early. as for assembling the board and the circuits, they do require some skills and some decent equipment. you can however buy the computer already built from this place;
http://www.diyautotune.com/the prices are reasonable. also check out these forums;
http://www.msefi.com/index.phpthey have a lot of good information, and like this place a lot of people willing to share their experience.
one bit of advice when tuning your system, when you do your tuning maps, document everything each step of the way, regardless of how small the change, that way you have something you can go back to if the change you made doesnt work. also dont be afraid to revisit changes in the future as sometimes a change you made earlier that didnt work in one combination, might work great in another.
one more bit, make one change at a time, and avoid large changes.