e85 soon

 

shawn church recommended one of these solenoids to me. anyone hear more about them?

 

Why try something that is not well known when the GM solenoid is a proven (many times over) great performer?

 

did a bit of research. after buying the solenoid from a parts store... then fab'ing a bracket.... then finding a pig tail and wires to fit and wire up.. and this is the same ohm load as stock, which helps, right?
$145 seems pretty fair. it's all done for you. assuming it works. i haven't researched building other solenoids to work. are they much cheaper?

 

he doesn't strike me as the type to just randomly recommend a product. he's been tuning our cars for years and i trust him 100%.

are you saying this solenoid can't possibly be any good?

 

mrfred, I'm curious, did anyone ever send you one of those to test? At $145, I'm quite certain I'm not interested, but data is data, and I hate seeing people get suckered in by over-priced re-badged OEM products like this.

 

It could be the next coming of the lord. Or it could be garbage.

No quality test data means it's not a worthwhile alternative to the GM BCS, at least for some of us. At $45 for the solenoid and another $18 (on the high side) for the pigtail, and frankly, how good the GM BCS performs for what it is, it's a no-brainer for me.

 

Let me re-quote him for you and we can read it together:

No, he didn't say "this solenoid can't possibly be any good". He said the GM is proven and cheap.
-----
On a side note, I don't know anything about project import... but I know if I had created a product that made me money, and was a business... I would definitely try to sell it. Does that say anything about the product? No... thats just business.

 

No one offered to send one. Don't blame you for not wanting to spend $145 on something that is unlikely perform any better than the GM.

For kaj: My comment about the solenoid performing no better than the GM is founded on the principle of how 3-port solenoids work. All 3-port solenoids have the same boost control range by virtue of the 3-port concept. At 100% duty cycle, all 3-port solenoids block 100% of the boost pressure from reaching the WGA. It impossible to have any greater boost holding effect on the WGA. What makes one 3-port better than another is how they perform at less than 100% duty cycle. There are several features that are important:

1) It is desirable to have a linear relationship between between WGDC value and percentage of the boost pressure that's being bled from the WGA. A linear relationship give best control over boost when WGDC is at less than 100%.

2) It is desirable to have a minimum amount of pressure fluctuation on the WGA that is inherent to the on/off nature of solenoids.

3) Consistent response.

4) Fast response time.

The GM does great in all these categories. I didn't go into this in my first reply to you because I covered this in my solenoid test thread.

 

Hey mrfred, since the MR version of the evo's came with dual boost control solenoids (meaning 4 ports) , would their ability to bleed more boost be greater than a 3port solenoid?

Also how well do you rate their ability (the dual solenoid setup) at holding 22psi with all stock pills in place when compared to the GM solenoid?

 

None of the USDM MRs came with dual solenoids. I think it was only the JDM MRs. Anyhow, the dual solenoid setup will not have the same max boost capability as a single 3-port. The 2-port solenoids are a "bleed" design rather than the "interrupt" design of a 3-port. A bleed setup can never completely divorce the boost pressure from the WGA diaphram. The dual 2-port setup can probably do pretty good though. I imagine that there are pills just before the solenoids like in the USDM setup, so those pills would need to be removed to get a wider boost control range. Based on testing I did with a setup similar to the dual solenoid setup, it should be possible to hit as much as 28 psi at 3500 rpm, hold 26 psi out to 5000 rpm, and then you're at the mercy of boost taper out to peak rpm.

 

yes mrfred there are pills inline off both solenoids...if i set the duty on the 2nd solenoid to 0 it gives me boost typical of gsr's, meaning 19psi then tapering....by increasing the duty cycle on the 2nd solenoid when the boost starts to taper should help keep the boost flat....will have to test....

 

Yes, I think you'll probably find that the simplest solution is to max out the WGDC on the 2nd solenoid, and then do all your boost control tuning with the 1st solenoid. The "Help" spring mod for the WGA works well in combination with this setup. Should be possible to hit 32+ psi at 3500 rpm and sustain 21+ psi at 7000 rpm if the "Help" spring is added.

 

I think this may be the best method as well....just to clear something up...those duty cycles..are they the maximum that the ecu would allow or are they the minimum? Meaning if I max out solenoid #2 and set solenoid #1 at (lets say for arugment sake) 80%, does that mean that the maximum duty cycle that solenoid #1 can run is 80%??

 

If you have a dual solenoid car, then the ECUFlash table names for the boost control tables are outdated and have names that do not reflect the actual function of some of the tables. "Max WGDC" is not the correct function of those tables. Those tables set the "baseline WGDC". Solenoid #2 will always do exactly what is in its table. For solenoid #1, the ECU will start with the baseline values and make adjustments based on whether or not the load is hitting the target load in the BDEL table. There are other tables that limit the range of adjustment away from the baseline values. They have not been posted yet for your ROM. The stock setting limits the max upward adjustment (from the baseline) to 10% and the max downward adjustment to -64%. I think the baseline WGDC tables allow values up to 127%, but the physical limit of the solenoids is 100% WGDC, so no point in putting in more than 100%.