Boost control problems and resolution
So, I have been battling boost control issues for a few months now. After my hatch back was tuned last November it ran great for a while. Then, gradually I started having issues with the electronic boost control that is managed by my Hondata s300. The initial symptom was the car hitting boost cut instead of the boost stopping at 20psi and holding like it should. If I went full throttle the turbo would just spool to the moon and never stop, very annoying. I was able to “fix” it briefly by lowering my boost solenoid duty cycle in the Hondata Smanager software but it did not last long. Gradually it would go bad again and not hold boost, once again shooting straight to boost cut and the wastegate would never open. After much troubleshooting and testing that did not get me anywhere, I decided to try a brand new boost solenoid from Hondata. After I put in the new solenoid everything worked perfectly fine again! So, on the surface it seemed that my old boost solenoid just went bad or maybe got damaged from heat. Well, not so fast, as my over boosting problem returned only a couple weeks after I had the new solenoid. Back to the drawing board…again after more testing and troubleshooting I did not get anywhere. Luckily I got a tip from a member of d-series.org about a possibility that the filter on the front of the solenoid could be getting clogged up and not releasing air fast enough. This filtered port on the solenoid regulates the air pressure in the top chamber of the wastegate, and if it gets clogged up it cannot release air pressure fast enough causing too much air to get stuck in that top chamber. What happens then is the wastegate never opens, and magically you have no more boost control and will over boost. So, with that tip, I unscrewed the filter cap on my solenoid, said a prayer, and took off driving again. Much to my amazement, the boost control was working again, yay! So after weeks of fighting my boost control issues, and 2 solenoids later, the problem was solved by simply taking off the solenoid filter. Why both my filters got clogged up so quickly I’m not quite sure, although they seem pretty restrictive to begin with, I guess it doesn’t take much to make them worthless.
So, cliffnotes…if you’re having over boosting issues and nothing else has changed in your mechanical or software environment on your car. Then don’t forget to check those stupid filters on the solenoid! You don’t even have to put them there in the first place if you want to avoid it all together.
