HKS EVC VI boost controller

23 April 2009 By admin 1

Electronic boost controls allow much nicer control of boost pressure and usually visual feedback also helps. I`ve had not so good previous experience with MBC (manual boost controllers), and the spring performance varied under different temperatures, so I decided to get EBC for better spool up and more precise control.

In april 2009 I installed HKS EVC VI, 6th generation Electronic Valve Controller or EBC (Electronic boost controller). The choice was made after the really successful HKS EVC installation of Rene from turbocelica.nl , I must admit that his stock EVC6 looks much better than my orange/amber one, see his installation here: http://turbocelica.nl/hksboostcontroller.htm

Here is how I`ve installed the HKS EVC VI

removing center air vent

removing center air vent and clock

air vent removed

air vent removed from center console

Celica air vent&HKS EVC6

HKS EVC 6 boost solenoid

HKS EVC 6 boost solenoid top

HKS EVC 6 boost solenoid top view

EVC engine bay hoses

EVC engine bay hoses. turbo hose, wastegate hose, vacuum hose for hks ssqv blow-off

EVC solenoid installed

EVC solenoid installed between battery and air box

I spent most of the time trimming the air vent. The HKS EVC6 doesn`t fit right in. I had to carve and polish out the inside pretty much. In the middle part the rotatable vent is so thin that it has a few holes through, but its not noticable in car.

air vent trimming

air vent trimming to fit the HKS EVC 6 main display unit

air vent carving

air vent carving/trimming to fit the HKS EVC 6 main display unit. notice how i have carved it half way inside.

Then comes the wiring. The cable for HKS EVC6 is VERY long. so its not a problem to wire it from one car side to other and back. I used the big grommet on passenger side to route the wire through firewall to interior

Engine bay grommet

Engine bay grommet, this is where I route most of my wires

Firewall grommet

Firewall grommet. see the HKS EVC6 main cable already through it. its really tight, but doable.

Routing the cable

evc enginebay cable

this is how i route my hks evc6 enginebay main cable. its really long cable!

..to interior

EVC main cable

here is EVC 6 main cable that is coming from the engine bay grommet

The main cable connects to many other cables. there are two going to the display unit - main display cable and scramble boost cable. As you can see in the picture below, there is no seperator between the two vents, so if there if you plan to use the heater often, you have to create some separator and disable the bottom opening (the black parts in the back)

evc cables / air vent

the evc main unit cable and scramble boost wire installed in the vent. just drill a hole through the bottom of the vent box

air vent installed

air vent box installed back in dashboard, see the EVC main cable and SBC wire.

HKS EVC6 display

HKS EVC 6 main unit display just installed in the air vent. the orange color is kinda annoying comparing to the standard unit.

EVC VI wires

HKS EVC 6 wires. lots of them and very long cables to stuff behind the radio. just bunched them together and tied with electrical tape and tensioners

Here is the final pic! Took about 5-6 hours to do it properly :)

HKS EVC 6

HKS EVC 6 installed and running. also notice the scramble boost control function button near the shifter. It`s pretty useless in that position, should be on the steering wheel.. Anyway, I see no use of it..

CONFIGURATION:

The manuals that come with the unit explain almost everything. But still there are things unclear. Like, how is the boost limiter easing so the boost doesn`t overshoot? It just damps the spool-up which actually hurts performance. There is some mysterious feature "BOOST OFFSET". This is what really brings up the boost.

Since the unit has two settings for boost A and B, I could test the unit pretty easy. The weird thing is that I set A boost to 10psi and B to 20psi and it didn`t make much of a difference. Then I set OFFSET for A to 200% and now the spool-up wath maximum fast. And of course the offset let the boost climb to its limits, so I let off the gas as it hit 15psi.

How to get good spool-up and still maintain boost limit? Here comes the warning function. Just set it to 10psi and leave warning drop boost feature to default. In this way the EVC switches itself off and leaves the control in hands of the turbo wastegate, so it drops to stock boost limit. Of course there is a slight boost overshoot for 1/4 of a second, but it shouldn`t hurt that much. Usually it jumps to 12.5-13psi.

Now there is another problem - the boost and power curve is fluctating, since the HKS and wastegate are working together with the warning function in between. It really doesn`t feel good and smooth. So there is an option - to control the BOOST OFFSET map according to engine RPM. It is possible to set 5 different points on the RPM axis and set offset for each of them. So when 4500-5000rpm are reached, the offset can be easily set to 100% since the spool-up to 10psi is pretty fast with the wastegate and EVC normal smoothing.

There are other ways to set different boost and offset maps according to car speed and throttle position, but I chose to do this way. If I have time, I will test it more. The offset setting should be the key. One possibility would be to install an electronic pressure sensor and connect it instead of the throttle position sensor cable. Then it would be possible to adjust the offset according to actual boost. e.g. 200%offset while off boost, 100% offset, when target boost is reached. But that`s just a thought :)

Turbo Celica ST185

HKS EVC VI boost controller

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