Whilst trying to sort out the wiring mess in my cabin, I found a black box with no identifying marks/brands/anything on it in the footwell on the driver's side.

It has a tube that goes through the firewall, into the engine and connects with the intake manifold, sharing a Y connector with the boost gauge. It has a wire going towards the wiring in the dash. The wire goes into a connector (male and female jacks like you find in audio systems), then goes through two fuses and I don't know where it goes after that (I will be looking more into it tomorrow).

Inside the box is a circuit board with a couple LEDs and a controller with "+" and "-" buttons.

Car has basic bolt ons (none that I think would be related).
GReddy Full Auto Turbo Timer.
Command electric AP500 cruise control (appears to have been professionally installed but doesn't work, I've located the infra red receiver and the cruise control unit for this).
Gizzmo Launch Interface with shift light (uninstalled, wasn't physically connected to it).

Anyone have any ideas what this could be?

 

Pull both fuses that it runs to and start car. If something doesnt work then you know that was it. I know on most vehicles sold now here in the U.S. there is a box that records so much data while driving to when there is an accicdent the data can be downloaded and showing how fast you were going among other things. Not sure if they do that in other places though

 

We have that sort of stuff but only in really new vehicles and it is usually factory installed. I don't think it is any type of recording hardware, as it only has data from the intake and one other wire and the circuit board is pretty basic. I'm also fairly certain the box is aftermarket. Thanks for the response.

Bump for more suggestions, I will get some pics up soon.

 

The contents of the black box, the grey wire is the one that leads into the dash wiring (picture below, wire changes to red). The black tube is the one that runs into the engine bay and into the intake manifold (picture below).




The grey wire turns red and heads upwards into the dash. You can see the OBD-2 and white reflashing port down the bottom for location reference




The hose that enters the intake manifold. The white hose is for my boost gauge, the black hose running from the upper left goes into a Y connection (behind the strut brace), then into another Y connection (leads to turbosmart dualport BOV) and then into the manifold.

 

Adjustable BOV

 

^^^^ yeah, looks like a boost controller of sorts

 

Looks like a boost gauge sensor to me

 

My boost gauge is mechanical and is wired independently (apart from the Y connection in the hose). Thanks for the response.

Edit: It does appear to read boost, but only whether it is above or below a certain pressure or vacuum. The box however doesn't appear to send the information anywhere.

 

I've learned that the brass fitting with the hose on it is attached to a pressure switch, it has an adjustable screw (one the top between the electrodes) which adjusts the pressure at which the switch is activated. I've played with the screw now so I don't know what the setting is.

Turns out the grey (into red) wire is power in, further up it has an earth connection. In the setup it was in, it wasn't functioning - no voltage. I connected it to a power source (one positive and one ground) and the light on the controller works when you press the buttons. The two LEDs light up when you press the buttons also, the two buttons light up one LED each when pressed.

So the sum total of connections to the box are
-positive power
-ground power
-hose to intake manifold

The switch doesn't appear to control anything.

 

The spring rate of the dualport is adjustable, but it is manually adjusted.

 

It looks pretty budget for a boost controller

I hope that's not whatever the person who did this was trying to achieve.

 

A bit more info on the wiring.

Grey goes into a male/female jack connector, splits, one goes to ground.

The other goes to a connector to the red wire, then goes to a splitter and splits into two red wires.

One goes into a fuse (tubular) and then into power-positive.

The other goes into another fuse and then ends, connecting with nothing.

 

Ok, I've had an idea.

My car has a varex exhaust installed with a butterfly valve in the muffler (would've mentioned earlier but I didn't think it was relevant, my bad). The valve is remote controlled, I searched for images of the remote and an older image came up that looks like the controller in the box.

Is it possible the remote has been hardwired to a pressure switch that will cause the remote to signal and open the muffler valve when I reach a certain level of boost?

 

Sounds like it. Possibly controlling the butterfly valve based on the throttle position and boost of turbo. Cool system really, just like the corvette butterfly valve in the exhaust

 

I've played around with the controller from the box. Pressing the buttons cause the something to tick aorund the muffler, the motor or the receriver or something. I didn't look too far into as the butterfly valve doesn't move (I may have seen it move a little bit), so the motor is likely seized or broken. I've disconnected all the wires to the box and tidied everything up. I have left the box in the car as the pressure switch is blocking the hose and if I remove it I will end up with a massive boost leak. I might repair the butterfly valve or remove the hose properly in the future.

Thanks for all the responses guys.

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