blackenedwings

Well, I have no idea how the nipple on the compressor is closed off, I need to check it tomorrow... but I know nothing is run to it because the line from the actuator the EBC valve is the only vacuum line down there.

I went back and double checked the way the line is connected to the pipe and don't know how the vacuum works for the pipe its connected to actually. I was still thinking naturally aspirated when I looked at the location because its the pipe that feeds the throttle body that the vacuum line from the valve is plugged into. It's the same pipe the BOV is on in front of the throttle body though. That pipe should have positive pressure in boost. It might not be an ideal spot to connect the line, but its not the unpressurized pipe I was thinking. Here is a picture of my engine bay with the EBC valve circled on the left and the line plumbed into the pipe circled on the right.



Would this be overboosting because the pressure is low from going through the intercooler before getting to the vacuum line where it is located? Not even counting any issues from the increase in pressure from throttling off and the loss of pressure when the BOV vents...

chickenwafer

iTrader: (9)

Yeah that is causing all your issues. The pressure drop with all the charge piping, intercooler, plus the closing of the TB and BOV messes things up.

Kane

iTrader: (1)

Jesus Christo..... that is bad news.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

nothing wrong with that spot at all for the solenoid valve pressure source .
It's where mine is plugged into and it works perfectly . It actually works to your advantage (albeit minor) at higher rpm .
At about the same time the wastegate starts to get forced open by exhaust gases there is also a bigger pressure drop across the intercooler (due to choking of the intercooler) thereby giving less psi to the solenoid control valve and thus the actuator .
This allows you to hold a little more boost for longer on the same EBC setting . In my case I gained about 10g/s over a 1000rpm rev band by piping it that way vs straight off the turbo .

BTW you should stop referring to that tube as a vacuum line - it isn't . It's a pressure line .
There are 4 areas of intake tubing
*Intake - pre turbo - always under slight vacumm
*Charge tube -post turbo - pre intercooler - pressurised
*Charge tube - post intercooler - pre throttle body - pressurised but a little less than pre intercooler
*Inlet manifold - upper and lower - post throttle body - pressureised when throttle is open and turbo spooled - in vacuum when throttle closed .

What exactly is your problem again ?
From what I understand - you can floor the throttle with the boost controller off and get more boost than what the stock (9psi) actuator should allow . Is that it or is it only at part throttle that you have this issue ?

Also , is that a greddy type RS VTA BOV you are using ?

blackenedwings

Thanks for explaining the pressue for those areas, I'm still learning some of this stuff. (clearly heh )

The problem I'm having is basically what you said, I can turn the EBC completely off and floor it and the boost rises steadily over 12 PSI with a stock (9 PSI) actuator. I'm not experiencing any other problems except areas of the tune are too rich; partial boost and high g/sec areas in the upper gears. There is no fluttering of the boost, no problems holding it, it just goes up and up and up. I've been shifting 3000 rpms early before my boost rises too high to avoid any engine damage. I found that by enabling the EBC and tweaking the SET values I can actually make it harder for the boost to climb than with the controller off, so I have it configured that way to give me a wider range of safety.

blackenedwings

Well... I fixed it.

I tend to work late, so I rarely get a chance to look under the hood in the daytime during the week, hence some of my shitty detective work in this thread. I went out early before work today to see if I could puzzle out what in the world was going on. PF Supercars attached the wrong pressure lines to the wrong ports on the solenoid valve.

A shop specializing in turbocharged rotaries turned over the car with the pressure sensor line plugged to the actuator and the actuator line plugged to the pipe. I stared at it for a while before I realized it. I swapped the lines... no overboosting. Pressure holds steady around 9 PSI, as the RPMS continue to rise the car starts choking on excess fuel, so I clearly need an update to the tune now as those rpms were never being hit before because boost would rise too high and I would have to throttle off, but boost never goes over 9 PSI.

First off, I apologize for my inconsistent understanding of the setup of the car, and I really appreciate everyone's suggestions helping me track it down and learning more about the car. If I hadn't relyed on a shop to do the installation I would have known all of this myself, but I had really hoped a professional shop would avoid some of the newbie mistakes I was worried I would make. So much for that idea.

Essentially PFS turned over a high compression turbocharged rotary to me with NO wastegate. It's a miracle I haven't blown my motor. I'm so happy that I found the issue, but I'm so incredibly angry at the condition the car was turned over to me in. The list of things they screwed up was so long and included so many basic things. They ran my car for two days on the dyno trying to learn how to tune it with software they didn't understand with a completely screwed up MAF setup, crosswired injectors, and no wastegate.

blackenedwings

This was really the last straw for me... the work PFS did was so half-assed its a miracle my engine wasn't blown before it ever got to me. The only reason the car didn't overboost and blow on the dyno is because the MAF and injectors were so badly set up the car couldn't reach more than 8.5 PSI if we tried. I have contacted Ray Wilson from PFS and will be arranging a reimbursement for the labor costs I paid or they will be hearing from my lawyer.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Great to hear .
I'm a little confused as to why that would cause your problem though as I didn't realise that valve would block flow if piped in reverse .

So basically they just had the "COM" and "NO" ports reversed ?

EDIT : They must have hooked one of the pressure lines into the 'NC' vent port - is that what they did ? If so that would explain everything ....

blackenedwings

Yeah, COM and NO ports were reversed... I didn't even think to check that really because it was so basic. It apparently doesn't work in reverse. My boost would rise and rise and rise...

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Nothing was hooked into the NC port ?

blackenedwings

I don't think so, I'll take pictures when I get home. I charged my camera yesterday. I will take pictures of where all of the lines connect and you can see for yourself since I fail epicly at MSPaint.

blackenedwings

Alright, I printed out the GReddy Profec manual and went to compare the valve and lines to the instructions. Now that I have swapped the lines the valve has a line from the COM port to the wastegate actuator, a line from the NO port to the intake pipe behind the BOV, and no line in the NC port.

I went out driving for a while on some larger roads to take some notes on the changes. The car behaves very differently now, the boost actually falls off in certain ranges which I've never seen before, and holds at ~9 PSI for quite a while. I got a long straight stretch of road and went WOT as long as I dared in 4th and 5th with the boost controller turned off and I noticed that the overboosting is not totally gone. In those gears (and presumably 6th) if I keep holding it WOT it holds on ~9 PSI for a while, it stutters on a lot of excess fuel and then after a time it starts overboosting. It's a very different overboosting than before I swapped those lines though. Before when I would overboost it was like I had a perfectly smooth curve of boost that just went higher and higher. Now its like it plateau's and then when it starts flowing a lot of air it continues going up further.

So the wastegate is opening now, but its not flowing enough? Is it opening too late? What are other things I should be looking for at this point?

blackenedwings

I guess I'm using the wrong terminology for what I'm seeing as well, I'm seeing something closer to boost creep rather than overboosting. I'm not seeing a sharp spike over my target boost level, its a gradual rise. I don't see how I could really be having an issue with boost creep though as both MM and chickenwafer are running more pressure than I am, and chicken has almost an identical setup and isn't seeing this.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

It is normal for boost to drop away somewhat above 6500 - unless you do some additional mods .


by how much ?

blackenedwings

It seemed higher the higher gear I was in, but in 5th at WOT (for a while) it stayed steady at ~9 lbs and then moved up steadily to 11 PSI before I throttled off. I was going ridiculously fast on a public road while watching gauges not the road, and scared as hell of letting it boost much higher so I don't know where it would stop if at all.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

you could try moving the pressure supplying the BC solenoid to down by the turbo outlet as Chicken suggested way back .
It could be that your (stock greddy i presume ?)intercooler is choking and the lower pressure air to the solenoid is having a larger effect than iv'e seen on my setup .

blackenedwings

Hmmmmmm, I don't actually have the stock GReddy intercooler, I have the Godspeed (eBay) intercooler. It's definitely possible thats having a larger effect. The turbo outlet probably has a screw blocking that port because I found the copper fitting in the picture someone posted in a box this morning.

blackenedwings

Because of how damnably hard it is for me to reach the compressor outlet to put the fitting in and plumb the pressure line in there, can I attach the pressure line from the solenoid valve to the VFAD for testing purposes? Is that a big no no?

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

if it's a big intercooler then your pressure drop across it should not be that much - so it's unlikely that changing the hose will make that much of a difference. But I can't think of anything else you could try atm .
BTW - if I were you I would be testing in 3rd gear and logging mass air flow - much safer than trying to look at the boost guage constantly at ungodly speeds ....

blackenedwings

It's a larger intercooler than the GReddy one, I don't have the actual size specs handy. I did my initial testing this morning in 3rd and the problem doesn't seem as severe in 3rd, its really noticable in higher gears at higher rpms. I will do some logs shortly though and see what I can see. I'm going to dip out of work early, take some pictures of the engine bay, and get some data logs.

blackenedwings

Here are a couple of pictures of the valve and the lines:

Here is the empty NC port:


Here is the red line to the wastegate actuator connected to the COM port: (to make this line reach I had to turn the valve box around as the red line is very short)


A top down view of the valve unit:


The blow off valve line running back to the VFAD, with the other blue line coming from the NO port of the EBC solenoid valve:

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

If that is a VTA BOV it will probably cause throttle control issues when the boost controller is turned on ....

chickenwafer

iTrader: (9)

Wow I can't PFS messed something ELSE up!! Crazy man

Yeah I have the same issue if I'm hauling *** in 5th gear. I keep the throttle pinned and with no EBC boost will start to rise above 9psi at around 6500rpm or more, can't remember. Once I started running over 12psi it doesn't happen as much, but it still does.

I did spike 17psi in a 6th gear pull at a touch over 100mph, that was scary.

blackenedwings

Hmmm... well if you are getting boost creep as well it might not just be me. Our setups are almost identical.

One thing I did notice, and I have no idea if this makes a difference or not, so feel free to mock my ignorance... the pressure lines used for the BOV and the EBC solenoid valve are smaller than the 9mm line going to the actuator. Its large enough to fit on the fittings, but its noticably narrower. Is this going to cause issues?

blackenedwings

The wastegate is definitely functioning now, I played around with the car more on the road today and once I started making adjustments to the boost controller I could see more clearly. The boost comes on almost immediately now... if I'm at 4000 rpms and step on it, the boost goes from vacuum to 9 PSI almost instantly like I flipped a switch. I checked my logs and once I hit around 300 g/sec the car just chokes itself. I think the tune just needs to be leaned out a lot up top. I can't do a lot of tuning of the EBC until I can get to the higher rpms to see where its dropping off. Boost creep only really seems to happen if I just stand on the accelerator and leave it at high rpms in 5th/6th.