bpitas

So my car ('02 Wagon) ran out of Warranty back in February, so I figured I'd spend some money on it and mod it a bit. I got a nice turbo-back, and an AccessPort and StreetTuner. I've been running a ball-n-spring MBC for years, so I was excited to be able to change back to the FBC and bump up the boost a bit. But when I plugged the FBC back in, I wasn't getting any clicking and was getting wastegate spring boost.

So I thought about it for a while, and back when I first got it, I had built a BoostMonkey from the free plans that whats-his-name had put out on the site, and while it worked for a while, I eventually went to Home Depot and made the MBC because it was more reliable. I left the resistor between the leads to the FBC solenoid, since I wasn't hooking it up and didn't want a CEL. So I went and checked, and sure enough, the resistor was still there.

So I took that out, plugged it all back in, and then tried again. Once again, nothing.

Hmmm... So I thought maybe the solenoid was stuck or something, or wasn't getting voltage, so I took a couple of wires and hooked them up to the battery and ran them across the leads on the boost solenoid to see if I could get it to click. Nothing. OK, so looks like the solenoid is fried or something. I remember thinking "crap, I don't actually know that the solenoid takes 12v - I hope I didn't fry it just now!", but I didn't hear it click at all, so I'm pretty sure that wasn't it...

OK, fine, so I figured it must be a stuck solenoid, and after a little research, i ordered the GM boost solenoid from the Syclone, and I was all set to finally have full control of my boost. BUT NO! Still nothing from the new solenoid!

OK, so maybe the solenoid driver in the ECU is fried or something? So I went out on the road with my multi-meter hooked up to some extension leads from the boost control solenoid wires, and set it to "tone", and sure enough, i could hear what sounded like a duty cycle that increased as I went faster. I couldn't really get a voltage from it though, since my analog meter just barely moved (probably due to the duty cycle) and my digital multi-meter wouldn't stand still long enough for me to read anything. So I don't know what peak voltage I'm getting at the solenoid, and i can't think of any way to figure it out. Well, actually, i was thinking I could change the boost solenoid duty cycle table in StreetTuner so that it's at 100% at idle, and that should lock it open, and then I can read the voltage to see if somethings wrong with the drivers in the ECU.

Any other ideas?
Anyone else have a problem like this?
Anyone in Mass with a 2002 WRX Wagon that has aftermarket electronic boost control wanna switch ECUs with me? :-D

-B