AVCR Review, as promised ! BWW

[Mike2kS4]

Here it is, in it's overstated Japanese glory. It's probably the blingiest thing I own. I temporarily mounted it to the dash, because when it lived in the glovebox I was pulling it out all the time and messing with it. (Still getting over the fact that I have something that says "Type R" on my dash, lol.

Here is my engine compartment, none of the AVCR components are visible here. And yes, I have a new coolant reservoir but haven't felt like putting it in yet ;P


Here is the solenoid valve, tucked against the first firewall. I replaced the fragile T's in the boost control circuit with brass and ran 1/4" fuel-grade hose to the AVCR.

I mounted the pressure sender between the two firewalls and used the line I already ran for my AWE boost gauge. This line should be kept with the sensor inlet pointing down and away from excessive heat.


Here are a couple shots from the drivers seat. Easy to see and use. I still have to get used to how it looks. The brightness is adjustable and it automatically dims, kinda like the V1 does.


This is one of the reasons the AVCR is awesome for a modded S4, adjustable duty cycle and boost in 500rpm increments (Which is plenty if you see how fast my car can bury a tach!)


The other reason: Gear dependant duty cycles. 1st and second go by so quick under WOT that there isn't enough time to build up full boost, at least in my car, so duty is increased. For the higher gears, less and less duty is required to mainitain a given boost level due to time in gear. 5th and 6th are treated as the same gear, fwiw.

Other install notes: I had to tap into the vehicle speed (pin 54)and engine speed(pin 37) pins on the ecu, very easy. This connection is very important to use the advanced features of the AVCR. Oh, AFAIK our throttle position is not a standard 1 or 3v signal so I didn't connect it. The other wires are just power and ground.

Well, I'm still tweaking it, and it's so easy to tweak! The menu driven adjustments are wonderfully simple and it holds everything in NVRAM so when you shut it off and turn it on, it's exactly where you left it.

I started off around 70% duty cycle and tweaked the bottom and top of the curve upward to compensate for spool and TIP, respectively. This is a "plug and play" boost controller, in that you don't have to adjust it all the time to make it work. It will control boost immediately, with no silly learning or anything... though it DOES learn and adjust the curve, first few runs you will feel it.

You also have to learn the gears, which is very simple menu driven process. Just drive at around 3krpm in each gear and assign the displayed value. I did it, literally by going through the gears on the highway by my house... took less than a minute.

Now, after a couple weeks... it's very stable and quite unobtrusive. Excellent smoothness, as good as N75 control and much better than MBC. My heavy midrange boost curve meant that MBC was controlling my boost before, though the N75 was in parallel. Oh, and it hits like a mutha at any RPM in any gear. Even moreso than the MBC, which would flutter in the midrange to keep boost in check.

It exceeded all of my expectations.

[My2ndS4]

[My2ndS4]

[VerrÜckt]

[Mike2kS4]

24.5 at 3k tapering to 22.5 from 6k to redline, which gibes with the K16 map. You could also look at the luminescent bars showing my self input boost curve

[lemieux@curbside]

[PSmalls::DoggieStyle]

1.65 bar!?

[Mike2kS4]

Thats with a full tank of gas and crap in the car, going uphill, lol. And with craptastic oxygenated gas, which is costing me dearly in timing Seems about a couple tenths faster than MBC, but much smoother.

I ran a 2.89 with ~98 octane, almost empty tank, no spare on a 60 degree morning with IC's that had yet to see boost that day. I think this should do about the same, when I get off my arse to get some octane

[S4mig@PEB tuning]

[Mike2kS4]