Stage 2 WGA on Stage 1 ECU

I have a brand new AGP WGA sitting in my garage that I got really cheap with a bunch of other stuff. I wanted to try the Stage 2, because when you go AGP, you pretty much have to take it off ECU controlled boost by rerouting your vac lines. Or you will have horrible PTB.

Was Mains driving his in cold weather too? Damn, not going over 10 psi for 200 miles is too much patience for me.

whitefwdsm did you have any sort of boost controller or any different vac line setups?

I am all stock when it comes to my vac lines right now. I am thinking about giving up on this WGA and selling it. Throwing my stocker on. I don't want to hurt my car with these insane spikes. But I can limit that.

If I am driving it normal I won't see any boost at all, I don't want to randomly give it gas and go up to 10 or so psi and let off for 200 miles, to find out I needed more or less preload.

Blah, I just want a couple pounds of more boost and be able to hold is safely for a decent price.

Lol, maybe I should try this and get her up to 140. :stretcher: Just hold WOT in 5th gear at say 60 mph. Damn computer, you would think it would calibrate faster!

 

When running an s2 wga you must run the stock lines (pcm control boost). I ran mine without any boost controller, etc. It was ran with the stock lines. So the black line you take off the stock wga was put unto the s2 wga.

I wouldn't worry about "hurting" the engine. When I installed the PTP wga on my car about a month later after owning the car (ah I was such a newb then)... when I went to tune it I was on stock pcm and I was literally spiking over 20psi and throwing overboost codes. By the end of the day I had it in the safe range. The key is to not stay in that type of boost level, you spike and let out of it your okay but if you keep your foot on the gas on that level then you should worry then.

As far as PTB, just have to learn to live with it. You drive and stay out of boost or you go all out. I know plenty of owners that have PTB/surge and deal with it. There's a vac re-route that I learn limits PTB when using an aftermarket wga.

Patience is the key here. If you have very little patience then you'll never get it right. Constantly resetting the pcm will not provide what your wanting. You reset the pcm once, then adjust from there.

Also you DO NOT go WOT and hold it there and the pcm will learn and adjust. That is just asking for trouble.

All the ones I've done I hopped on the highway from one exit to another which are only about 2 minutes apart, came back around the highway and went home adjusted and did the same. Bam, haven't had problems except for one AGP wga install I did that the AGP wga was mal-fuctioning.

I will tell you this, your s1 pcm if new or used with just a recently acquired reflashed it must be driven on the stock wga for the 1st 1k miles. During that 1k mile period the pcm is learning your driving habits.

 

I did a skim rekey on my s1 not a reflash. Hmmmm I wonder how that plays into it.

I tried a few different methods of programming my s2 and so far it has always taken a long while regardless of preload for the ecu to learn the wga.

 

Oh crap thats good to know. When I had my used S1 ECU flashed at the stealership it had the Slowboy (PTP) WGA on with rerouted vac lines.... Had the installed over 8k miles ago...

Okay cool. I am gonna keep the Stage 2 WGA on the car and drive it normally. I do not have PTB, or any that I notice like I did with the Slowboy. I can drive the S2 with out going in boost. But when I do I will make sure I am at or a bit above 2500rpms when I get on it. Letting off before 15 psi. Right away. Hopefully all turns out well and my spikes are lower. I heard horror stories in that other thread about people still getting those high spikes even after 200 miles.

 

a flashed ecu doesn't need to be driven on a stock wga. it should be driven with whatever mods you have and how you drive so that it gets used to what you do.

 

Well I talked to a friend that had the Stage 2 WGA on his car with similar mods as mine. He kept it at 0 mm preload. Took the car around 80-100 miles to get used to it.

Since I have such a free flowing system on my stock turbo. 3'' 02 housing, 3'' downpipe, 3'' exhaust to SEE, 3'' AEM SRI, and the CTI Chargepipe it will take the computer longer for it adapt to everything so I was told. So I will report back in 150 or so miles and let you guys know. =)

 

A lot of my info is sourced out through a friend who's been in the Neon scene before the SRT-4 came out and is highly knowledgeable on these cars (SRT-4's) and is well known.

I might put on my s2 wga on this week to let you know how long it took my pcm to learn it.

 

that's great. my info comes from my own experience with three different ecu's on my own car, two on my boyfriends, and who knows how many on friend's cars. not to mention some other "well knowns" in the neon world lol. i have never changed wga's when changing ecu's, and neither has anyone i know. why would you want to? the ecu needs to learn how you drive, which includes whatever mods you have. so let it learn that from the begining. these computers are smart enough that they can figure it out! haha sometimes they're too smart....bastids lol

 

I too have had several experiences with these pcms, as I have delt with stock, s1, s2 (My car) and even s3 (My wife's car and a couple friends). The pcm learns your style of driving within the first 1k miles whether new or used. But yes you do have to give them time to learn your driving style and your mods. I just never had a problem nor any of the SRT-4's I've worked on in which it took so many miles for the pcm to learn unless of course your slapping so many mods at once.

 

Today I finally decided to get on it in 2nd to see how the computer was progressing on the learning of the wga. After about 200 miles I am spiking around 19-20 but good news is my AFR's are at 11.4 so I am at least back into a safer realm. Gonna turn it down 1 more notch and see what happens.

I am also curious if their is any real difference between a skim rekey and a total reflash as far as pcm functionality goes. Gonna go have the dealer pull the vin on my ecu and see what it comes up with. :thumb:s

Well it makes me wonder if you are doing something that others are not. I hate the fact that it takes so damn long to learn sometimes makes me wanna yank off the wga and just buy stages and not dink around with the other stuff.

Step by step how exactly do you train your cars?

 

Yeah its frustrating, can't really have any fun in the car. To tell you the truth I think its all in the weather... Myabe the PCM goes in tard mode when its cool out. Its supposed to get up to like 64 tomorrow so maybe the warmer weather will take it out of tard mode. Who knows.

Kingnate. You are running the AGP WGA... I don't believe anyone has run that successfully on stock lines.... Correct me if I am wrong. I remember reading that huge Vacuum rerouting diagram thread on srtforums.

I honestly want to learn how this all works and how the PCM calibrates this stuff with the WGA. I know the Stage 2 WGA has a 8lb spring, stock is 4lbs I believe. Maybe not having the Mopar BOV that is recomended for the Stage 1 and 2 kits play a factor in it not calibrating quickly?

AGP has a 13lb spring I think...

 

Mightey whitey has been running an agp on stock vac lines for a about a year IIRC, with a s0 no problem.

I doubt the BOV plays a part in it but that being said I have been running a forge for the entire time I have been dinking with wga's.

I read a write up on making a smaller bleeder to help control the PTB and spike with an agp on stock lines. Probably gonna try it this weekend I'll let ya know how it turns out.

 

I'll explain it step by step, I even explained it to Mains via AIM lastnight. Every SRT-4 I've worked on that I had to install a wga, leaves my house with it already tuned and spiking to where it needs to spike. I've installed more wga's then I can count on my fingers, both hands lol. Give me a few and I'll write it.

 

I understand its fustrating. PCM actually limits boost when its cold out if your on PCM control boost. If your off PCM control boost then it can't control your boost and since it can't you should be able to set it spiking to whatever you want. During colder weather if your spiking high off pcm control boost, the car will run leaner.

Actually there is way to do it that a lot of people don't want to do as far as on an aftermarket wga. Because everyone seems to think removing almost all, if not all the vac lines off the solenoids is the way to go. Actually what you can do is...
1. Reset the pcm (disconnect the negative battery terminal for about 30 min).
2. The green line going into the solenoid is actually a 2 piece line and by the turbo its connected by a rubber piece of hose. Cut the hose, put a vaccum "T" on there between both green lines.
3. Run a hose from the "T" to the wga
4. The black line that ran to your stock wga, put a vac cap at the end of the line (do not put a vac cap at the solenoid... I mean you can but I don't like to since they ports coming out of the solenoids are fragile).
5. Connect back your negative battery terminal

Bam now the PCM still thinks its controlling everything as all the solenoids are still functioning. When infact the pcm is actually not controlling your boost. As far as the tuning after the install, I will post a step by step shortly.

The Mopar Bov doesn't have anything to do with it. I will explain more shortly.

AGP is 13lb at "0" preload.

 

The bleeder comes with any new AGP wga. They recommend to use it to hold more boost longer. It is though a boost leak. I ran it on my AGP wga, when I did a boost leak test... boost was leaking out of the bleeder of course haha. I took it off for a while and currently I have it back on as I'm running a few tests on my AGP wga. There's a few things I like testing on these cars and one is being wga's and how the vac lines can be routed and so fourth. Everyone seems to follow most of the diagrams posted on SRTforums but there's a couple/few ways you can route it depending on your mods.

 

Actually the mod I am looking at doing is this, minus the red line part.

 

Interesting. But what doesn't make sense to me is why make/create another bleeder. As I was informed that the rubber fitting with the plastic filter on the bottom of the solenoid is infact a bleeder. If you were to take it off and cap it off on an s2 wga you will only get 3-5 lbs of boost. This is from experience on another friends car that happened to remove the stock rubber fitting with the filter and put a vac cap on it.

Not doubting the information as I would like to give it a try but I don't get the part of making another bleeder. I would be concerned about AFR's and keep an eye on them when testing out this mod.

 

Can you post the pictures, if they are available as to what the guy you quoted is talking about.

Thanks!

 

you don't create another bleeder you just make the stock one smaller.

I'll give it a shot and post a write up and pics if it works.

 

they are just red x's sorry