HKS EVC Maulfunctioning

[spikesnstuff0905]

Alright, first things first. I bought a 91 Turbo about three months ago. I got to drive it for three days before it needed work. I started to notice things going wrong almost immediately after i bought the car, but i refused to sell it. I've always wanted an mkiii, and i knew i would need to do some work when i bought it. The first thing i noticed was the coolant. Whenever i drove the car for more than a few minutes and shut it off, my res. tank would boil and dump about a gallon of coolant onto the ground. A friend of mine was driving behind me and said that he noticed steam coming out of my exhaust whenever i accelerated. I checked the oil cap. Milky white. Problem number one has been identified, i have a BHG.

Around the same time that im noticing this, i feel the transmission acting very clunky. My motor will rev to 5300 or 5500, jump the redline for a second or two, and then shift up, but very heavily. It felt like i was in a manual car with someone who didn't know how to drive. the next day, things got worse. I punch the gas foing around 10 or 15mhp, and hear the turbo spool up. Intake sucks in air, exhaust note climbs... (Aaaahh, thats a nice sound.) I get to around 55 or 60mph, and my car... dies? The motor is still on, the car is still running, but it wont go over the current speed. The car lurches and i get jerked forward in my seat over and over until i let off the gas. Heres what i find confusing. I hopped on the beltway a few hours later, and got the car to 120. It seems that this only happens when im in boost. I figured it was my transmission, but i don't know. When it works, it works flawlessly, but when it DOESN'T work, its terrible. I figured it was something electric, so im probably going to replace the transmission solenoids and the control unit. My question is, What else could it be? I thought the car might be in limp mode because of the BHG, but doesnt it just stay in one gear when that happens? It shouldn't be shifting at all!! My next thought is what brought me to the realization that caused me to start this thread. "Is it fuel cut? What boost is my car running, anyways?"

So, i hop into the car and look at my boost controller, an HKS EVC iii (It's a million years old) And i notice something. the readout is in bars, not pounds. what have i been running the last few days? A full bar. A full bar on the stock turbo, with no supporting mods and a stock headgasket. Thats almost 15psi. Then i notice that when the boost controller is in the standby mode (where it should have a constantly changing number on the screen to tell you what your boost is currently) nothing happens. No numbers on the screen, no boost readout, nothing. Either my solenoid is sticking, or the control unit got wet, or something, but it doesn't work anymore. Awesome.

So, I just installed a cometic MHG with arp studs. I'm working on the last few steps of the repair (sensor on my thermostat housing is broken and i broke a clip on my harness when pulling it out.) Once i get everything together and ready to start, can i just remove the boost controller? I feel as though since this dude didnt take the neccessary steps to mod his car in the first place he probably hasn't gotten it tuned, so can i just pull everything that has to do with the controller out and rely on the wastegate? Thanks in advance, and all help is appreciated.

[cre]

Originally Posted by spikesnstuff0905

can i just remove the boost controller?

Sure, just bypass the actuator... run the vacuum line from the nipple in the turbo housing right to the actuator, just like stock. That boost controller isn't connected to the ECU at all; Restore the WG actuator's vacuum source and unplug the controller and toss it in the closet.

That much boost, I'm sure you were hitting fuel cut... so you had a bit of a safety net..

[spikesnstuff0905]

cool. I'm going to remove the evc until i get everything running smoothly, and then im buying a mbc from a friend.