Need thoughts... really weird problem.

Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
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38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Lets do some history.. I am providing this so you know what was done as it may shine some light onto the issue....

1. Put in a new shortblock 7MGTE, had the head and block prepped and installed a MHG. At this time added RC 550 injectors and had my engine harness gone through and repaired to ensure I had no wiring faults. Put on a 57Trim CT26 turbo, LIPP AFM and HKS EVC-S boost controller. Exhaust was upgraded to a Raptor DDP mated to a HKS catback. Catalytic converter and EGR were deleted. Aeromotive AFPR installed and an AEM UEGO Wideband installed (had to add the second bung to the DDP).

At this point.. the car ran wicked... was hugely fun.. but the turbo started smoking badly... so sent it back to Driftmotion for a refund.

2. Couldn't wait for a replacement turbo so picked up a local 60-1 CT26 from a guy locally. At same time, had ordered and received the Driftmotion new 7M Intercooler (CXracing actually.. but DM sells it). Had purchased a HKS 3000 pipe (on the car presently) and had the top pipe fabricated because the DM version wouldn't allow me to go through the stock fender location (bad angle.. you think they would fix that... but no...). So, at this time, the car has a 60-1 CT26 and an intercooler upgrade.

So, car ran fine but was running at 5-7 psi without the boost controller doing anything. The 57 trim ran 11 psi by itself.. so I was concerned. Knew that there was a pressure drop with the new intercooler, but it should have been 1.5 psi maximum.. and that's stretching it... so I was concerned. The car didn't feel like it did with the 57 Trim and the stock intercooler.. and it would constantly hit 12 psi and then spike to 14 psi and hit fuel cut. It sucked. Also, I had earlier installed a MKIV Denso fuel pump (currently in car) and we figured out that it was overfeeding at upper end so turned down the fuel pressure (this stopped the smoking at the end of boost as it was just washing oil off the cylinders). This is where I decided to go T4.

At this point, someone in Alaska (I am getting story second hand here) convinced HKS to make a 7M chipped HKS Fcon Vpro 3.3. Before it was delivered, the engine died, and the guy went 2jz. So HKS was stuck with a one-off HKS Vpro. My mechanic is one of the few HKS authorized tuners in North America and when meeting with them, was asked if he wanted the Vpro. He called me and said it would be perfect for my car... and I said.. "yep, do it!". That's how I ended up with the VPro... and what Reg is doing with this and my engine is really cool.. lol. More on that in my build thread when him and I sit down and go over EVERYTHING regarding it so I get all the story/improvements, etc.. down properly...

3. So.. I bought Leftynridge's SP6267 (.84) turbo with the Tial 44mm Wastegate and 3" vband DP and dumptube. Because of the Vpro, I had to wait for Dr. Tweak to give me a patch cable for the VPro to engine harness (was 89+, but mine's a 88) and found a 90 7MGTE ECU which I swapped into my car (Vpro harness to ECU was 89+ also). All is installed right now and the Vpro sits on a bracket under the passenger seat.

A lot had to be done to Leftynridge's HKS longrunner manifold to bring it up to snuff as there were broken bolts, lots of rust, and general age happening. All was cleaned up and it got Ceramic coated (silver). Because I had some time waiting for parts (okay.. lots of time) I had the valve covers and intake plenum and runner powder coated the same color as my car (Magnetic Metallic Grey). Its slightly darker than my car color, but looks nice and clean..

So.. in the end.. the car gets assembled.. wiring done.. and they were going to reintegrate the dump tube from the wastegate but I told them to leave it as a screamer pipe to see if I liked it or not. (Its going to be reintegrated... now)

4. SP6267 was a tight fit with that 0.84 ar hotside... the Charcoal canister is removed and the hose has a filter on the end and has been run down to the subframe to prevent gas smell. Car gets done, initial NA tune done (if I hear right, the engine runs about 220 rwhp NA with the Vpro). There were no maps for the 7M so it was all done from scratch. (all this is second hand.. Im not a tuner). The cold start injector was removed because my car is tuned to start running at 12:1 Afr and then over 22 seconds cycle down to 14.7:1. The aem UEGO Wideband was taken out and replaced with an Innovative Wideband. 550's were removed and Injector Dynamic 1000 cc injectors installed. The world was at peace. My car ran like a champ (in NA mode).

5. Tune/dyno time... while setting up for the tune on the dyno, there was no initial response from the turbo. A couple runs were done and then they heard a weird noise followed by the turbo kicking in and spiking up. Safegaurds cut it but scared the guys not expecting this monster to wake up. Spiked to 484 rwhp, but at 5000 rpm. Concern about slow spool at this point. (I have a 1.75" spacer just in case I want to go QSV with this). So... down the rabbit hole we go... Pressure test the system and intercooler.. test this.. check that... pull off intake pipe.. check turbo for play... (okay... it has sideplay). Phone Alamo turbo.. discuss... they say.. any sideplay.. they toss the turbo. I get called down and shown what is happening..

At idle.. turbo isn't spinning... you can flick it and it will spin, then slowly stop spinning. Increase RPM and it starts to spin, but no real boost output.. then it kicked in at about 4700 and the car roars. Yep.. this isn't gonna work for me either.. lol. Pulled the turbo and there is oil in the DP. Turbo isn't gonna happen.. so I ordered a new SP6262 with a .68 AR for faster spool.

6. Turbo arrives, is installed and that's where we are today. Turbo checks out fine, runs fine (relatively speaking), but Im back to the issue of 4-5 psi running off the spring. Turn on the boost controller to make boost and it spikes to 19 psi.

So general thoughts.. possibly HKS EVC-S doing something wonky? Replaced solenoids and checked everything.. its all working as it should.

Possibly an issue with the spring? Pull the wastegate, take it apart, install a 14 lb spring.. reinstall. No change.

So.. here I sit. They have went over everything visible and tried everything short of pulling the manifold apart to see if there is a restriction in flow. (this manifold wasn't on the car when I had issues with the 60-1 turbo)

the best guess is that something between the manifold and wastegate is restricting the flow to the wastegate (if I understand correctly) or the Tial 44mm cant handle what is coming at it.


That is why I am about to put a HKS 60mm ext. wastegate on it. But... will that solve the problem???
 

Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
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38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
The wastegate has been disassembled and reassembled twice. It looks perfectly fine.

Reg has been doing this for a long time, Anthony has been working on 7ms since the beginning...
They have never seen this happen. It kinda defies logic, because this setup should run perfectly fine.
 

Quin

Trans killer
Dec 5, 2006
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Columbus, IN
Not to be that guy but unless your WG opening is teeny tiny or your waste gate is busted you don't have anything left to replace. Seems weird that a shop that builds a lot of turbo cars wouldn't have a tial 44 or pte 46 (same flange) to swap out to test. I do remember reading years ago that either trust or hks manifolds had boost creep issues but that couldn't possibly be an intermittent issue and it wouldn't explain you swapping to a higher spring and not making more boost.

Not to be that guy again but I've had two 6262s go bad in no time flat. First one lasted 3-400 and took out the short block. Second one (when I picked up the car) had shaft play fresh out of the box from SP/Precision. Doesn't spin at idle, either. My car seemed to have spiking issues too, as I am 99.5% sure I put an 8lb spring in it and I hit boost cut on the one and only pull I made in the car (1J). 700 miles in the turbo hasn't gotten any worse and I've been told its fine but it still worries me. This thing spools very fast and hits hard but if I have a single problem out of it its gonna get tossed and I'm going BW or Garret. These things (particularly this size for whatever reason) seem very hit or miss. I know several people like me that have had issues with them and several people that beat the crap out of them for years with no issue.
 

Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
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38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
They don't touch Tial.. the only reason we are doing a Tial is because I supplied it. They normally build and spec themselves because they are HKS snobs.. lol. (for good reason)

Would have went Garret, but I bought this setup from the forums here thinking I was saving money. Then after the manifold clean-up, dead turbo and this issue... any savings I had are gone. Wont ever be doing that again... but I am setup for a SP6267, so to minimize labour costs, I went with the SP6262 so it would just bolt-on. Turbo seems to be boosting fine and would be severely beasty. As a safeguard its limited to 19 psi boost but it would go higher without any issue at all. However... the car is being tuned to run smooth and powerful.. so the boost spike is unacceptable. It is a HKS Longrunner manifold.. and should flow correctly as Leftynridge had the SP6267 on it with a bigger hotside... so from what he tells me, he was making 521 rwhp at 21 psi with this setup.

Mind you.. his head had the exhaust side ported although that shouldn't matter.

This is one of those problems where physics dictate that my setup is fine. Now... physics doesn't account for a turbo issue, wastegate issue.. etc.. etc... lol.

Then.. in the back of my head there is the ungodly poorly packaged shipping.. (was kicked to shit when it got to the shop, to the point the box was ripped and the spacer had fallen out and was lost).
Always wondering if anything got damaged that I cant see....


The other part is... im not doing this hands-on... so any attempt at fixing the issue is very costly... (not fun to fish like this)
That's why I may just go with the bigger wastegate and see what happens... not my preferred route.. but if it fixed the issue.. it would be done.


Also, Im not ruling out anything. The responses are based on best guesses from a distance and are all correct, however, the "maybe"s make it really difficult for me. I was hoping someone had seen this same situation and had a magic bullet answer, but in the end, it may come down to testing each component to find out which one is causing the issue. They couldn't do anything on my car yesterday, so still waiting on results from wiring the wastegate open. Will let you know what happens today because they are supposed to attack it.
 
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Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
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Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Wastegate wired open, no spool... Functioning properly.

So... That brings is to the HKS EVC-S....


Next!!!

Didn't hear anything by end of day... another day to wait....

I was reading and wonder if maybe there is something internal to the EVC-S (or an external switch.. the unit isn't in front of me...) that sets it from Poppet to Swing... seeing as I went from CT26 to an external wastegate...
That may be what's causing all the issues...
 
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Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
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38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
So... the problem comes down to... bad Japanese to English translation.

After going over and over the physics of the issue and "assuming" that Leftynridge didn't leave out any info of what I bought off him... then adding in all the Suprmania "guesses"... we replace the turbo, fiddle with the wastegate, go over all the exhaust side physically and come down to "it has to be the HKS EVC-S". So... I do more reading, more internet research and then realise that all my settings in the EVC-S were based on the 60-1 and it was initially setup for the swing type as opposed to poppet wastegate.

Now.. that little tidbit isn't really huge and RCTS has installed many of these, so they had it all setup correctly. HOWEVER.... (and they have never come across this because they have always setup from scratch), the setting for OVERBOOST is incorrectly described in their manual. (I found this in the EVC-II as a problem and then again in Supraforums with the EVC-S)

So... what it does is, if you have a 10 psi overboost setting with a 14 lb. wastegate... your shooting for 24 psi. If you have boost cut in the VPRO and EVC-S set at 19 psi... guess what? Perfect ingredient for confuse the hell out of the system and blow up your car.. lol.

Dropped the overboost to 5 psi... and voila... perfectly functional engine. Picking it up tomorrow to run for 2 weeks while the weather warms up, then back to the shop for a final tune/dyno. (this also gives a little time for the new turbo to setup nicely...)

Color me happy...
 

Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
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38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I thought they did too, but there were a lot of different setups tried.. lol.

It took me a bit of physics and a nicely drawn out explanation to get to where I was... (ruling out possibilities, etc... ) and the only thing that it could be was the EVC-S... sometimes you have to step through...
 

atmperformance

New Member
Sep 17, 2013
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San jose
Grandavi;2005766 said:
I doubt I will be paying for anything... They installed the evc-s originally and they are the authorized hks dealer... So...
bi-winning.
I've been looking at used ones on forums and ebay to replace my yet installed manual controller
 

Grandavi

Active Member
Sep 25, 2008
2,663
5
38
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I like the EVC-S. Lots of control once you figure it out to fine tune how your boost comes on. Plus having the option for no boost control along with an A and B preset is nice.

oh.. and the problem was not charged for. (as a side note)
 
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