these arrived in the post,
I first tried the medium boost Borg Warner actuator, which is rated with a minimum boost setting of around 9psi. Instantly the difference between the old and new actuator is felt, making nice smooth power all the way to redline.
Using the locking nuts on the actuator rod I could add pre load to the bw spring to raise the opening threshold (which raises the peak achievable psi limit as well) OR fit the good looking turbosmart unit which allows for swapping the internal springs for a higher minimum boost setting. I chose the 12psi setup as that gives the dyno tuner a range of 12-24ish psi to play with, should be enough!
Back to Anthony https://www.facebook.com/tunedbyanthony/ for the full psi tune. My goal for the tune is based on the limitations of the parts I am using. At this point I am keeping the very quiet (81db) 2.5" exhaust (3" dump into 2 1/2" at down pipe) as I spent good money on the euro4 cat and I am happy to draw out the process with this car, plus I am interested to see how quick it can be at this fully engineered and legal state. So between running 98 and a very restrictive exhaust I am hoping for as close to 300whp as possible, the turbo will run the boost but knock will be an issue on 98, not helped at all by back pressure from the euro4 cat etc....
I made up up a little kit to test how much oil vapor was being generated under full load as the silver car used std pistons and had significant blow by pumping large volumes of oil through the catch can setup, it was a real issue that even caused the ms3 map sensor to get clogged with oil residues. This time its something I am watching more closely.
Here are the results, there are two tunes over lapped for the picture, one is the "low boost" 11psi wastegate tune triggered using the fog light switch near the drivers door. The second set of lines is the full gas tune, limited by some knock creeping in, we spend lots of time with the ignition map making it safe.
Out on the street it feels super fun, I could only do half a dozen squirts before the egt probe nut worked loose and came off leaving me with a noisy drive home with a leak out of the hole where no 2 cyclinder egt probe was... off to get some end caps...but...the car feels very playful and comes on with a very real urge the sound is delicious.
Not sure I want a whole lot more power from mine ( 
well - maybe just a bit more 
) but am certainly liking the idea more and more of the smoother power delivery available with the tuning.
