Only boosting 5lbs. huh?

[asiandude15]

S14 blacktop sr20det. Boost guage is only reading 5lbs. I thought stock was like 7lbs. So I hooked up a manual boost controller and turned the boost up. It still reads 5lbs? Weird, any help would be appreciated.

[Walperstyle]

lol. You do your own swap? Do you know what turbo you have, and what size of pipes you have? what do you have for electronics?

it probably is 5lbs for your situation because of one or more reasons

[spikNspan]

hmmm... you sure the gauge is completely sealed off? maybe there is a tiny leak somewhere that is venting off the extra 2 psi it should be reading? make sure everything is secure and sealed up tightly and also check for other vacuum leaks. how does the car run?

[cotbu]

maybe your gauge reads in (bar) .47 or .48 should be about 7psi and maybe you hooked the boost controller up wrong.

[Sileighty_85]

are you running the Stock W/G Solenoid?
With the MBC you need crank it up to around 25-30 clicks

[asiandude15]

The swap was a DIY. The car runs great, it is a DD. The turbo is a T28 and FMIC withn 2.5 inch piping. I figured that the 5psi was because of pressure drop as the boost guage line is hooked up after the front mount. But after the boost controller was hooked up and I turned up, the gauge still read 5psi. The boost guage is brand spankin new, line and all.

[GSXRJJordan]

If the boost gauge reads the same, I'm guessing the boost never got turned up. Does the car have more power after you "turned up the boost" with your controller?

[mxsx25]

a friends car had the same problem after he installed a big turbo kit which had an external wastegate... no matter what he did, shit wouldnt go over 5-6 lbs... problem ended up being the fact that he routed the vacuum lines to the wastegate incorrectly... no harm no foul, fixed it and cranked up the boost! lol idk if you have an ext. wg. but idk, maybe this will help

EDIT: didnt see your post saying you have a t28 which means no ext. wg... sorry gl though.. i would try swapping the wg if you have a spare or a friends known good one?

[Flipzide]

i have a similar setup except its a t28 on a redtop w/ 2.5" piping on fmic +mbc.

definitely check the vacuum lines connected to the MBC. i'm sure thats where the problem is.

if not, then go with what gsxrjordan said.

[aNskY]

a friends car had the same problem after he installed a big turbo kit which had an external wastegate... no matter what he did, shit wouldnt go over 5-6 lbs... problem ended up being the fact that he routed the vacuum lines to the wastegate incorrectly... no harm no foul, fixed it and cranked up the boost! lol idk if you have an ext. wg. but idk, maybe this will help

EDIT: didnt see your post saying you have a t28 which means no ext. wg... sorry gl though.. i would try swapping the wg if you have a spare or a friends known good one?


internal or external, doesnt matter, all gates operate on the same principal.

OP- where are you pulling your vac for the gate from?

[jquest]

if you feel a power change in the way the car drives then go over the vac lines. you either have a leak or you may have the line hooked up behind some sort of a restrictor that keeps it reading at 5 psi. cause even if you have a minor leak in your boost piping the turbo will boost up enough to compensate for the small leaks till the boost is enough to open the waste gate. unless one of your pipes is just barely hanging on. whatever psi waste gate is set to must be seen by waste gate. so intercooller must charge up to 8 psi to get 8 psi in total boost piping, before and after cooller.