Upgraded Bypass Valve for 2016+ 1.5T Honda, Introduction
Wait, I know what you're thinking. These guys aren’t trying to design and come out with a blow-off valve for the 1.5T Civic are they? Everyone's told me that they’re bad for my fuel trims (not as bad as you might think) and that I should leave the stock bypass valve on.
Well, let me tell you this blog is not about a blow off valve…phew.
What we’re designing here is a fully recirculating OE style valve, but built for performance, reliability and style. A true upgrade. And one that won’t have any negative impact on fuel trims or anything else for that matter.
What’s A BPV?
Ok, so let’s talk about the valve that Honda uses from the factory. It’s actually used across a wide variety of Hondas and Acuras (1.5L and 2.0L). The valve is controlled by a solenoid and uses pressure to open/close.
Say you’re driving down the road full throttle and building all that boost and then you go to upshift.
When you release the gas pedal to shift, you’re closing the throttle plate and now that boost pressure is trapped. At this point, the charged intake pressure is still rising as the turbo is still spinning. The valve opens to relieve that pressure back into the intake tract right before the turbocharger compressor. This is why it’s called a “recirculating” valve. All of this air or boost pressure has not been sent out of the system, but rather reused and the ECU can accurately keep track of it.
It’s a well designed system and many if not all modern turbocharged vehicles employ a similar system.
Our primary goal here is going to make sure we keep the same boost control characteristics as the OEM valve. This means that the valve can hold high levels of boost pressure without leaking and that pressure relief is just as fast as OE.
We’ve been testing our design for a long while already and we’ll post our results in our next BPV blog.
The OE valve's overall design is fairly simple but not very eye pleasing.
You have an internal diaphragm that opens and closes via spring when enough pressure is applied to it. This is all housed in a stamped steel body with a barb fitting at the top. Let’s just say that Honda did not spend any length of time making this look pretty. It’s designed to be functional and that's it. No flash here. Depending on what year Civic you’re looking at, the valve is attached to either the turbo inlet pipe or the turbocharger itself using just 3 screws.
The 27WON BPV will work with your OE factory turbocharger or our upgraded 27WON turbos like the W line for 10th Gen cars and Gin turbos for the latest 11th Gen Civics and Integras using the 1.5 L15 motor.
Our team is already hard at work behind the scenes testing pre-production parts. Here is some CAD models to give you a sense of where this is headed. More details to be published very soon including actual BPV shots. For now, we’ll leave you with some teasers.
And that concludes our first look at the development of our upgraded bypass valve for 2016+ 1.5T application. Till we meet again.
REDEFINE the Aftermarket
-Vlad