If you followed my latest thread I was having problems making boost. Found a small leak at the throttle body, but still could not make over 12 psi of boost. Blamed it on the intercooler, but found out that it was the mufflers (something I hadn't considered as I knew they were straight through turbo style, turns out they were chambered and
very restrictive).
So now I'm making boost, lots of boost................... too much boost!
No problem, I had springs in the wastegates for 19 psi plus lines from the turbos to the top of the wastegates to further hold them closed, so seeing the needle peg at 20 psi (was going higher, that's all the gauge would read to!) made sense.
So I dropped back to my 13 psi springs and since I wanted to run about 15 psi on the street I figured I'd dial in the extra 2 psi with the manual boost controller. Problem was I was still seeing 20+ psi. So I dropped back to 6 psi springs, still 19 psi. Re-checked the boost controller, it was backed all the way off.
I went to call Tial who made the wastegates and they referred me to the dealer I bought them from. I called them and their turbo expert asked me if I could hear the wastegates opening; I was confused by that, as they are plumbed back into the downpipe, not sure how they'd be heard. He said that was my problem, they have to be open to atmosphere to work properly; in other words, every time they open to control boost you'd have two 1.75" open exhaust pipes under the hood, wouldn't that sound cool...........
So I called Tom Nelson. He immediately told me what to try and gave me a brief explanation of how the boost controller actually controls boost. So I pulled the controller and added compressed air to the inlet and adjusted the knob to see what happened. Turns out that all the way off on the controller is actually all the way up as far as boost. Turning in the direction of the "+" sign on the controller reduces boost, so I had the thing turned all the way up which added 12-13 psi of boost to the spring rating in the wastegates.
It's great to have supporting vendors who give great customer service. This wasn't the first time he's helped me either, so I just wanted to give props to Tom and Nelson Racing for the help.
Jody