As anyone ever had a WG actuator fail? I'm having huge boost spikes (hitting fuel cut) with my TD04 and have tested or replaced pretty much every control component including the boost map itself. My actuator seems hard to move by hand, the flap is moving freely though.

Any thoughts?

 

Yeah,it can happen overtime the actual arm gets contaminated with water and start to stiffen (rust) up inside making it move less when it should be opening the wastegate it might be doing a partial opening that would definitely give you boost spikes.SJ.

 

Yeah my one on a VF35 was knackered... bought a Kinugawa one from ebay and was spot on

 

Thanks for the replies guys.

What symptoms did you have?

 

Mine was the opposite of yours... wasn't building boost without massive wastegate duty...

 

In your case it Sounds like the spring was shot and the wastegate was open all the time.SJ.

 

Thats correct

 

My spring/arm seems hard to pull out and sounds dry or rusty. I'll remove the actuator and bench test it with the air compressor. I assume it's a standard 0.5bar/7psi actuator, should it be fully extended at 7psi or just starting to move?

 

If that's the case it probably is not even moving at all and its keeping the wastegate closed,be careful in those situations especially on full throttle runs.SJ.

 

I run an external wastegate now... bit overkill but much nicer and sounds awesome

 

That's definitely the waymuch better boost control.Only downfull is the price of the setup.SJ.

 

To be honest, is so easy to make, I did it myself, just welded on a v band flange to a japspeed up pipe which the wastegate went on to, welded the turbo internal wastgate shut and its done tial 38mm wastegate was only thing I had to buy at approx £200 which is worth it in my opinion... Future proof too.

 

Quite like the idea of that, and I have a new up pipe to fit some time. I could mod that one for an external WG. Did you pipe back in to the down pipe after the WG?

 

Nope, I just vent to atmosphere! Love the noise

Gimme a shout if you need any help

 

Haha! Nice!

Yeah some photos or something might be of help. I have a MIG at home and have already welded bosses and so on to my exhaust for wideband and EGT sensors so welding a section of pipe in shouldn't be any hassle for me.

 

Excellent... Will get you a photo of mine. Have to get the angle and placement just right so as to avoid the steering column spline thing.

 

Just starts to move at 7, fully open at 14/15.

 

I actually tested it earlier. Starts to move at 6psi and is fully extended at 13psi and appears to work pretty normally. I don't have another one to compare it to though.