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No, 17psi doesn't sound high to me at all. When you do all the math doubling the HP put out by a car only increases the stress on the connecting rods by 20% to 30% not 100%.... BUT as I said, it's not just one thing that's going to destroy something, it's a combination of factors. I think you're fine as long as ambient air temps aren't excessively high. Running a VSV on a thermostatic switch to bypass your boost controller and pull the boost down to 14 or so would be a good safety. Some controllers (not many) have a trigger input to switch boost settings.

To put some perspective on this I've blown holes through TWO low mileage stock pistons at 12psi on a 1.5mm HG running with a mixture of 11:1 (onboard wideband). That really should have been a very safe setup... Matched injectors flowing 480cc/min, new fuel pressure regulator, stock intercooler, full flow oil cooling circuit, REAL cold air intake... Should have been fine. I didn't go lean, had no knock issues BUT I was running GE electronics as a base and the much more aggressive timing map may have been the entire problem. Now, had I been running a more efficient turbo, pulled ignition advance, used water/meth injection, had a better intercooler this probably could have been avoided.

You're being a little more descript than is necessary and I think it's giving me the wrong picture of what you actually have setup. So you're using a narrowband piezoelectric element and offsetting the mixture via creative plumbing to read an approximate range with the 200mA window? If so.... that's madness. Get a real wideband on it and let us know what the mixture is (datalogging hardware would be well advised if you intend on going beyond 18psi). At full boost at that pressure you should be richer than 12.5:1... up to 25% richer. At ~10:1 you really shouldn't have to worry too much. I would recommend you first focus on getting a good intercooler in place, a full flow oil cooling circuit and any intake which DOES NOT pull air from the hot engine bay (stock or aftermarket setup with the filter getting cool air from a neutral or high pressure area (not a wheel well).

I have little experience with water cooling. It is something I want to experiment with soon myself. I do think it would be an excellent addition and would really help ensure that you're getting more of the power that you should be with far less risk but you know all this. Do yourself a favor and look around on the net for information about water/meth injection before the turbo too. I'm kind of of the opinion that running 10 to 20% through a pre-turbo nozzle and the other 80 to 90% after the IC may be very advantageous. I don't think spraying a large volume into the compressor would be a good idea in the long run though (as it's most likely to condense and pool in the IC).



Much to my wife's chagrin, I don't charge for help here and it's really not something which we would allow anyone to do. If someone wants pay for the help they would otherwise give here they should open a shop or start their own web service. As for the 'tip jar' just something I saw used on other forums and since none of the staff here are paid or compensated in anyway well, we took a vote and decided that it would be ok. If we see anyone trying to sell info they will be banned.