Oh no...Not another BOV thread

[D-RobIMW]

Bisi is the laughing stock of the Honda performance world; he's a washed up has-been that is desperate for attention in a market that has passed him by. He can talk about "working with Honda directly" all he wants, but all it does is make him look even worse. If he has "worked with Honda", he should have a much better understanding of how the ECU controls boost pressure using the bypass valve in addition to the pitfalls of venting metered air on literally ANY airflow-based fuel model.

Let's start with why this video is flawed.

Any time you are dealing with an ECU that uses an airflow meter (MAF, AFM, whatever you want to call it), any 'leak' after the sensor will result in an incorrect allocation of fuel to the engine. Not only does it use this for fueling, but on the 10thGen Civic platform, the ECU also used the MAF signal to partially determine load for the main ignition table.

The video shows lots of high throttle loading, a slow sweeping ramp test, and some quick jabs of the throttle on and off. The big problem with swapping the factory bypass valve comes when the ECU decides to cut off the pressure signal to the top of the valve's diaphragm in an attempt to vent air to eliminate pumping losses at part throttle (for fuel economy), or on spool-up in the event of a boost pressure target overshoot event. This can be observed best with a short WOT pull in a lower gear on these cars, where the wastegate doesn't have enough time to open or close quickly enough to achieve the boost target., so the ECU closes off the pressure reference to the valve and differential pressure alllows the valve to open to regulate charge air. What happens if the bypass valve spring pressure is changed and takes more pressure/force to open? There's a delay in response time, and you have yourself a situation where the wastegate can't act fast enough to open and bleed off exhaust energy to limit boost to the target commanded by the ECU... especially when used with the fast-spooling, tiny factory turbo that can make significant pressure at low engine speed and light loading.

If you're venting air the ECU has accounted for, there will ALWAYS be an error in fueling that can be seen clear as day in fuel trim (short term trim usually, but in the event that the bypass valve sits open at idle, this will transfer to long term trim and learned fueling as well). The ECU does act very quickly, so you probably won't see the change in AFR if you're using an external wideband or sniffer on a dyno, but rest-assured, the ECU sees the change and responds with a sharp negative trim.

There are some people that are content with things that "work fine," and some of us that are only content when things work PROPERLY. Guess which one Bisi is.

P.S. My reply to his YouTube video contains no profanity. He just can't stand being wrong on his own platform.

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[kefi]

I just found it very shocking somebody I have much respect for would come out saying these types of things in the first place.

You and me both. I enjoyed some of his technical explanations on other subjects. All the more reason why I know this video is an ad. He knows this shit isn’t ideal and didn’t need a dyno to show it’s a myth, only to pull the wool over the viewers that think only HP gains and tailpipe AF ratios are important.

 

[COOL COUPE]

No love for my BOV plate? I feel I should get extra credit for using stock parts with stock parameters to get my pppppsssstttttt on? No?

 

[kefi]

There are some people that are content with things that "work fine," and some of us that are only content when things work PROPERLY. Guess which one Bisi is..

I now understand why you put #lolbisimoto in your Instagram posts ?

 

[zspeed]

How about this one?

 

[kefi]

How about this one?

Same thing. If air escapes to atmosphere in any form, it’s a problem.

 

[zspeed]

Same thing. If air escapes to atmosphere in any form, it’s a problem.

Damn! And they’re still promoting it on their IG. Smh!

 

[Syntek]

We love you @D-RobIMW , sign my tiddy.

(Btw it's because of your post in one of the Facebook groups where I jumped off the Hondata California Bandwagon and made my way over to @KTuner )

 

[Conika]

Imagine risking it all for fashion over function lmao.

 

[fkseven]

bov vent to atmosphere are snake oil


Change my mind

 

[COOL COUPE]

I simply do not understand ??? All I ever wanted was to show pride in boost and VTA? We seem to turn on each other instead of Honda? Marketing and sales ... Had Honda's marketing capitalized on the pppppsssstttttt mystique... Perhaps the coupe would not have died. It's incredibly sad to me that ... No one listened to what I wanted in a combustion engine. Now with the political power moving to the left ... It's over .... By 2035 the combustion engine is done. I am 54. Youth is wasted on the young.

 

[fkseven]

I simply do not understand ??? All I ever wanted was to show pride in boost and VTA? We seem to turn on each other instead of Honda? Marketing and sales ... Had Honda's marketing capitalized on the pppppsssstttttt mystique... Perhaps the coupe would not have died. It's incredibly sad to me that ... No one listened to what I wanted in a combustion engine. Now with the political power moving to the left ... It's over .... By 2035 the combustion engine is done. I am 54. Youth is wasted on the young.

We don’t turn on each other unless someone installs a bov in a 2016-2020 civic 1.5t.

 

[boosted180sx]

i am done with you @dallasjhawk

 

[edgeautosport.com]

I'm sort of scared to post about this lol. It seems like if you say anything other than "don't get a BOV", you're getting flamed. Trust us, we're not interested in advising you to do anything harmful to your car. I see us mentioned a few times in a couple threads and I know we have a couple videos out on the subject so I figured it'd be appropriate to chime in. However it gets taken is fine, I'm certainly not going to judge you for having a correctly setup turbo system.

I was originally surprised by the hysteria of how damaging a BOV is to your car when people started having the BOV discussion for this platform. I don't think I've seen a single post that I disagree with regarding the improper nature of a vented BOV - a rich blip during shifting, etc. I particularly appreciate @D-RobIMW posts, they're very objective. But I kept thinking to myself, how in the world is the 10th gen SO much different than every other MAF based platform when running a BOV? We started off in the Mazdaspeed world (DI, turbo, MAF) and BOVs are no big deal (although they aren't electronically controlled). I've had 3 of those cars and put BOVs on all of them. I have a BOV on my EJ WRX, also MAF, and no issues. EVOs and GTRs are also MAF based to name a couple more. All of them have BOVs running around everywhere. I realize different cars have different controls but some of the problems being talked about exist on all BOV installed cars regardless of how the valve is being operated.

So here's my take. Is it a proper way of setting up your car? No. It never has been and never will be. What I think is questionable is the hysteria behind it on this platform in particular. We've sold hundreds of BOVs and adapter plates for 10th gens, not to mention dozens of other platforms. It's not because we're telling people they're a good idea. It's because people like noises. Call it whatever you want, but it's just a style thing some people care about and some people don't. Most of them probably won't post about it because they know what the response will be like. We have yet to have someone tell us they suffered catastrophic damage directly as a result of a BOV. Do I agree that it could cause long term damage? Theoretically, yes. But what I'm trying to say is that in the actual practice of putting a BOV on your car, I just don't think the hysteria is warranted. Somebody on one of our videos mentioned that we only think we know what we're talking about, which was sort of funny to me. The amount of issues we've heard of and experienced ourselves is almost non-existent and has been for about 10 years now since we started. I can't really even remember any issues off hand that were directly related to using a BOV. The one thing that I think I'd like to test on our own and figure out how much of an effect a BOV has is the normal operation of getting in and out of boost and how the ECU logic treats the BOV since it's controlled electronically, outside of just the throttle closing. That info is definitely worth finding. Up until this point, we really haven't cared to find it because we haven't experienced anything that told us we should. We spend a ton of time with Focus ST's which have electronic valves on the turbo but they're speed density tuned from the factory so the car doesn't really care. But with all this discussion, we'll probably do some testing on the dyno and logging on the road just to see what's happening. We'll be glad to report back with whatever we see. I also want to acknowledge that I understand there are other benefits of keeping it recirculated outside of just fuel trims and not dumping extra fuel in the cylinder. Transient response is always better and if you're competing on any level in your car, you should definitely recirculate. This is more of a "street" mod, for sure.

Anyway, if you want to have a correctly setup car, don't vent the BOV. There are obviously no disadvantages to doing so. Some cars seem to increase power (like FA20 WRXs) because the stock valve actually leaks under boost. That doesn't seem to be the case in the 1.5T, at least based on our experience. If you want BOV noises, then I don't think you should be scared off of getting a BOV. I just don't think it's as big of a deal as it's currently made out to be. The car has been out for over 5 years now. By now, there would have been significant evidence if it was that harmful. A datalog that shows rich blips does not suggest the car is being significantly harmed. Sometimes cars come out of the box running as rich as some of these blips but during WOT. So a blip in that range is not necessarily throwing up a huge red flag.

If I am ever proven wrong, I will be the first to admit and make sure to retract my opinion. I'm just trying to be realistic, not hysterical, like I've seen so many people be about this.

 

[gtman]

All the pros here like KTuner designer JR, Doug MacMillan of Hondata, Derek, Vit Viper etcetera have simply said not to use vent to atmosphere blow off valves. They know the potential for issues.

I get it, vendors that sell these don't want to hear that. It cuts into sales. But there's a reason these guys say not to use them. That "chasing sound" as Derek likes to say isn't always the smart move.

At this point, it boils down to one thing. Do folks have more faith in the vast majority of 10th gen tuning experts or the vendors that promote and sell BOV's.

I run the community's tuning reliability survey/thread. In it, the vast majority of tuned owners have done well. But a common denominator to failures tends to be throwing more and more bolt ons and not monitoring or ignoring logs. Things start going south and one day... out of nowhere... failure.

No one has said putting a BOV on your car will cause instant issues. But, if you add one, you should damn well monitor things and not assume they won't cause problems.

By the way, you keep using the word "hysteria" in regards to folks who say not to use BOV's. It just so happens that the majority of folks don't think they're a good idea. How is that hysteria?

You even said in your post that adding a VTA BOV isn't the best way to set up your car. That it's a style and sound thing. And I totally agree. What the 10th gen pros are saying is err on the side of caution and get your sound from a CAI instead.

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