I finished the piping for the fmic today, went for a test drive and was only getting 2 lbs of boost (HRC stage 1). figured it was from a pressure drop

I put the turbo XS mbc on, and was overboosting (and blowing couplers off, so i i torqued em all down and they stopped blowing off), then i readjusted it to the starting point in the instructions and ended up getting 2 lbs of boost again. i tried turning up the boost via the mbc, but everytime i turned it another turn, i was still only getting 2 lbs of boost.

is it possible for a mbc to break or something? i get the same boost with it on that i do with it off, even tho i adjusted it for what should be more boost.

theres no leaks in the fmic piping, i tried the "put a piece of cardboard over the piping" method and the engine died from no air like it should.

i was worried there was something wrong w/ the turbo, so i went back to a regular stage 1 and i was getting the usual 5 lbs...

anything else im missing???

thanks!

hm strange. I have a really ghetto piping (heh used parts of an aem cold air intake lol) for my fmic, and i get shy of 7psi on stage 2.

Best method is get your intake piping pressurized to really see what the problem is. Also, get some hose clamps from RRE that are the tough mothers...not the regular home depot clamps. They help a lot.

I dont have home depot clamps :)

I have hi-torque clamps that RRE sells, but you can get them thru napa for a lot less than RRE.

also, i thought u were supposed to check for IC pipe leaks by placing a piece of cardboard over the end of the piping and if the car dies, then theres obviously no leaks cause the engines not getting any air. how can i pressurize the pipes to check for leaks under boost?

If you're positive you're not having any boost leak, then ~3psi is the amount of pressure loss your intercooler and piping are causing. It's a bit confusing to me (to a degree), but every intercooler and its accompanying piping causes some degree of pressure loss. That pressure loss is a normal byproduct that causes the compressed air to lose its compression and go back to regular atmoshpheric pressures. It's mostly because of the turbulence and other absorbing qualities of the intercooler that would make your otherwise boosted 5 psi leaving your compressor housing to become 2 psi in your throttle body on the way in. Intercooler designers are always having to make the calulated decisions of how much turbulence they desire to effectively cool the compressed charge versus slowing spool up time and lag with accompanying pressure loss.

I've seen the way your intercooler is oriented and it's an effective cooling design (being 2-way), but may, at some cost, cause you to have a certain degree of pressure loss. I wonder how loosely based your intercooler is compared to the HRC intercooler with its internal design that results in both inlet and outlet pipes on the same side.

Can you post a picture of it here?

3 psi of pressure loss still seems excessive given the OEM Starion intercooler is only about ~1 psi.

oh hmm interesting, I have my boost gauge T'd to my boost signal hose (no MBC) and I get 5 psi like I should and sometimes 7 psi. I never see a pressure loss eversince I got it, it just drives more linear. So if I plumb the boost gauge to the intake manifold I should see how much pressure loss I'm getting? I rather have the boost gauge on the signal hose though cuz it the needle doens't move as much.

Hmm if you have a MBC you should be able to turn up the boost. It might be your MBC.

Yea, n/p

heres the FMIC:



im wondering if mbc's can go bad?? im gonna put the mbc on w/ the stage 1 piping and see if it works...thatll at least eliminate or suggest 1 part of the system.

cool how'd you get all those couplings? How much didja pay for em?
hehe here's how my beast look compared to urs


We should have a post of pix of our cars without bumpers and FMICs installed hehe :P

the couplers are from the rubber hose from RRE...think its like 10-12 bux a foot...something like that


about my problem, with no IC on and no boost controller, i get up 7 lbs of boost. With the boost controller on i get 7 lbs of boost no matter where i set the controller, altho it does come on sooner and more linear.

so does that mean there something wrong with the mbc that wont allow me to incree boost? or could like cracks in the wastegate signal hose or something be the cause?

Do you mean no matter what you set the MBC to you still get 7psi? Screw in all the way and screw out all the way? If that's the case I'd guess the MBC is faulty or it isn't hooked up properly.

-Paul

i was noticing theres a a few lil cracks in the signal hose from the turbo to the mbc to the wastegate, near where they connect. im gonna replace those and see if i still have no way to increase the boost, if so, then its the mbc