I'm confused. So when the stock boost solenoid is closed, that is when your engine would make boost, when it is open you would have vacume. If there would be a vacume leak then the solenoid would stay open more and therefore I would not produce as much boost, correct? Maybe my thinking is backwards though. I heard from someone else that sometimes they just go bad and that i would have to just get a boost controller either mechanical or electrical. Recently I have hit just above 7 on the stock boost gauge. I know they aren't that accurate, but before I was getting close to the 14 mark, so I'm obviously not making as much boost. From what I can see all of the vacume lines look good, but I'm sure a pressure test wouldn't hurt.

What you heard was correct. It's not a boost gauge at all. Just a calculated guess that the ECU believes given the amount of air the MAF is counting. It's not even close most of the time. You'll understand once you get a real boost gauge and can compare the 2.

The reason you get 6psi is because that is the the amount of force needed to press on the spring in the wastegate actuator to open the wastegates and let the exhaust pass by the turbo instead of going thru it.

What a boost controler does is it bleeds off some of the boost before it gets to the actuator. This keeps the wastegates shut longer which builds even more boost.

What Samco was saying is the stock boost control sollinoid is just a valve which bleeds off some of the pressure so you get 12psi. On older cars, the sollinoid gets stuckopen and lets all the pressure away. It was a rough weekend and my thinking was backwards on this for some reason, but thanks to Samco for setting me straight.

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06 Blue EVO 9

The solenoid could fail in a sort of "open loop" mode which I am going to use for simplicity sake.

This will send air(or vacuum) to the wastegates directly. The waste gates have 6 psi springs in them. Thus, when under boost the waste gates are closed until the pressure from the turbos goes past the 6 psi setting on the spring. then the wastegates open and you stop building boost.

If that's what's happening. you don't have a boost gauge so we can't tell.

you could replace the soleniod.
you could get a manual boost controller
you could get a electronic boost controller
you could replace the springs in the wastegates to your desired pressure.

EDIT: Greg was quicker on the draw.

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so a vacume test would not fix this, its a bad boost solenoid?

Most likely yes.

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06 Blue EVO 9

do you have a used one, or know someone that does that has one that we could use to replace mine and see if that is the problem?

I'm afraid I don't have one right now, but I'm sure someone has one they're not using. Make sure you get one out of a 2G (94+).

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06 Blue EVO 9

yea, i just wanna make sure that is the source before I go out and spend 300+ on an ebc

greddy profec from ebay can be had for under 250.

or a mbc if your a loser. 15 bucks from ipo.

ebc's are teh win. get one. that is all.

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lol, I mos def want an EBC, but I think just to get a quick fix on it i'm gonna go with ipo one just so I can set it to 14. I am pretty much stock and from what i've heard 14 is the limit anyway. So that will be fine for now.