When I floor it from a stop my boost takes forever to come up and sometimes never reaches full, 8psi, boost. It will only go up to 5 psi or so. On the same drive I wil slowly get into the throttle and it will climb to 8 psi but if I floor it and in kicks down the boost drops.

Any ideas?

 

i see in your sig that you have the 5 to 9 psi boost controller.. maybe something is stuck in the boost controller to make it stick in the 5 psi selection or do you have it switched to 5 psi maybe...

sounds like something is wrong with the boost controller maybe electrical

 

I just had the same prob yesterday, I talked to Rick at STS and he said it was the snorkel kit restricting my airflow at high boost levels. He advised only to use the snorkel in bad weather. Also get as big of K+N you can on that bad boy, BTW, How do you like 8 psi?

 

Also double check your MAF to make sure there is no oil on it. You might get oil if the turbo had an air restriction as it will suck a little oil from its housing and push it through the intake piping . A clogged or restricted air intake flow to the turbo will cause this.

 

I love the boost. I was running 9 psi but backed it off a little for reliability. This boost issue just started recently. I will try removing the snorkle and checking for oil tomorrow. Its funny because I just ordered the biggest K&N filter today. So Ill give that a try when it comes in.

 

1st: check your boost controller connections
2nd: check the size of the line used between the boost controller and the WG -- if its too big (like 1/4") you will see those same symptoms.

And make sure you guys are getting the 12" K&N -- you'll drop some IATs for the trouble too.

 

Good advice. Also where is your controller reference hose hooked up? We had the same problem with the Dodge STS. Hemifever played around and found that using the turbo compressor housing ( front or rear ) was the cause. He moved the reference source up near the intake manifold and the low gear boost and high speed/RPM creep problems went away. I know, the increased tubing distance is not optimal but it sure was better than no to low boost in first and part of second gear.
Seems that the faster velocity of air pushing thru the housing at a 90 degree angle to the fitting was causing a vacuum or drop in pressure in the reference hose, thus at the WG too. The WG does not like vacuum and would open up at low speeds.
PM Hemifever for more info and a diagram of how he hooked things up. BTW keep an eye on the boost levels after doing this as he saw more boost at the same controller setting afterwards.

 

Good point KTM -- I forgot that one.

I run my vacuum reference from the spare (capped) vac nipple on the passenger side of the manifold. There used to be a vac line in the STS harness that was unused that I co-opted for this purpose, but you could also just run some new line.

 

My buddy Blackbird came up with that idea. We tried it on my truck and it worked well.

 

glad i ran into this thread....i am only seeing 5#s now which is silly because i have a 12# spring. I have a boost controller but that was eliminated from the equation for simplistic reasons. I am going to have my cats removed as they split at the seem a while back and cause a huge exhaust leak which started stealing boost from me. I am wondering if there is anything else I could check that would make me loose that much boost? As for now the wastegate seems fine, pipes to the intake are fine....

This may be different from the issue above, but I noticed that if oil got near the MAF it would slow down the boost. I was curious as to the boost reading, wouldnt the boost still remain @8#s even if the air flowing to the intake isnt? or is it equal in equal out?