As some of you know, and many of you will learn in your ventures with turbo cars, boost leaks can often cause a car to run rich, lean, a bit of both, or just cause a laggy turbo.
Either way, testing for boost leaks is something that we started to make a habit of doing with our race car back in 2006, and let me tell you how much of a headache it saved many many times. Pinhole leaks in intercoolers, couplers, or big leaks at what seem to be good coupler connections are all things we found on just our relatively simple race car.
Give us your input and tell us how we can improve our design. Quite simply what we have here is a turned billet aluminum piece that is designed to work with 2, 2.5 and 3" couplers. Included with it is a gauge and a schrader valve. Simply remove your intake right at the compressor inlet and slip this bad boy in, clamp it and fill it up with air using a typical tire chock type fitting. Let the gauge go up to 15-20psi and listen for leaks.
If you cannot access the compressor inlet you can also take any joint apart and insert the boost leak tester there, just remember you won’t be testing that joint for leaks obviously.
Give us your input kids!!
Our prototype is in development now and we will post photos as soon as it is complete.
See!! this is the shit im talking about, if you’ve had a boost leak you know how much of a nightmare it can be to find it, and make sure you’ve fixed it.
Looks pretty damn good to me. Dustin made something similar that he uses a lot and it works incredibly.
His works a bit differently however.
I’m not sure what it’s called, but Dustin’s compressor has a valve in it that will regulate the pressure to whatever you want. The difference is that his stays hooked up and you just set it to say 20psi and keep it connected (his has a direct connection for the air hose built in to it so you dont need to sit there and hold it).
This also lets you test not only for leaks but for how many psi your connections are good up to. I guess yours technically does that also in a less user friendly way.
Just something to consider - maybe going a bit more baller and putting some sort of regulating valve/gauge in there with an adjustment and a connector to took the hose right up to it.
The only disadvantage to Dustin’s method vs. this one that I know of is that his is more noisy most likely and therefor harder to pinpoint leaks… especially if you have a small compressor which is kicking on and off constantly.
see i made mine out of plastic (pvc or polly i belive) and i used a nipple and the regulator of my paint gun… it worked good but i only used it once or twice…
thats one of the aluminum plugs i made, the tester had the same grooves for the gear clamp insted of groves like yours… i could make you a bunch if you want.
Using a regulator is for sure the best way, but i think keeping cost to a minimum is the only way these will sell. A regulator and line is going to raise the price another $40 easy!!
With this you just fill it up to a huge pressure and find the leak, fix that leak and test again. Simple!
We will have these for sale through some distributors as well as directly through SG. If you guys are interested and want to own a useful tool which we feel is a good addition to your toolbox, stop by in a few weeks and pick one up!
SG regularly tests for boost leaks in customers cars and we are surprised how often leaks are found and the extent of the losses which are a direct affect of the leaks (up to 700RPM of spool delay). This boost leak tester along with the VQ35 Long Tube Headers are a start of what we hope to be a very function filled product line to improve your tuning lifestyle by making jobs easier and making you go faster!
