Hey, guys.
It's Andre from the High Performance Academy. We're here at Innovate Motorsports with Adam, and he's going to give us a bit of a tech tour, bit of a talk about their brand new boost controller that's just about to hit the market. So, Adam, let's hear about this boost controller, obviously boost controllers are nothing new.
What sort of innovations have you guys managed to fit into this new product? Adam: Well, basically, I mean, there's several, obviously several basic boost controllers on the market, and some more advanced units.
We wanted to kind of build something that had some of those more advanced capabilities plus some capabilities that you haven't conventionally found in boost control, yet still kind of offer something to the end user or the self tuner so they could have some of those capabilities without having to spend an arm and a leg, and, you know, not have to worry about you know, having 10 products when 1 product can have all those features. Andre: Okay.
So let's talk about some of those capabilities that you've added in there. Adam: Basically, what it is, it's a small form-factor 52mm self-contained gauge with a very simple interface. We use a black and white OLED display, and it has an integrated wide-band O2 sensor controller, similar technology to what you'd find in our LC-2 unit, which you have some experience with already. The same 0 to 5-volt output capability to wire into your ECUs. You're at a 5-volt input for logging the same wide-band data.
The gauge displays your wide-band O2 information and Lambda air-fuel, whatever your preference is, which is fully configurable in the gauge. It's also a full-function basic electronic boost controller that can control up to 4-bar boost, and you can configure its display in kilopascals or psi, depending on whatever you'd prefer, so metric standard. Yeah, I mean, it just an all-inclusive product that leverages the wide-band technology for safety functions. Andre: Let's talk a little bit about that.
I mean, it's a great product that you've managed to combine the boost control strategy as well as wide-band, which you're well known for. Adam: Right. Andre: Let's talk about the safety strategies. How can you use the wide-band technology to help provide safety? Adam: Yeah, absolutely. There are products out there now that will cut boost or your ECU will cut boost based on O2 sensor feedback. That's been a common thing, but what makes this interesting is that as a standalone product, if you're, say, remapping your factory ECU or it's an older car that was originally not force induction, you're remapping that stock ECU, for example, what it'll do is it'll take that O2 sensor feedback, and based on a user-defined air-fuel threshold, it'll actually cut boost pressure, or rather cut wastegate duty cycle to spring pressure. Andre: So we're talking, the car goes lean, you're on the full boost, all of a sudden, the boost controller will recognize that situation.
and it'll cut it back to wastegate spring pressure to minimize the chance of any damage to your engine? Adam: Absolutely, but on top of that, that would have been the easy thing to do, but keeping in mind that, you know, we're tuners, we mess with cars ourselves, there's times where you may want to run slightly what would be considered an unsafe air-fuel ratio in positive pressure. So above and beyond the fact that, yes, it will cut boost, and you can set the threshold, the air-fuel threshold,
you can also set the pressure threshold to reference that value, so let's say I have a lean spool strategy to spool a larger turbo on a smaller displacement engine, I want to get my EGTs up, so I'll want to run it a little leaner.
Obviously, on a forged engine or even a stock engine, it may be safe to, for example, to 4 to 5 pounds of boost to run it in the 13s air-fuel to spool the turbo. You can actually set that threshold, that manifold pressure threshold, so you can say, up to 5 pounds, I don't really care if it's at 13 to 1 air-fuel ratio because it's going to help me spool that larger turbo on my small engine. But, over 5 pounds, you know, that would be unsafe. Say I want to run 18 pounds of boost, or 1.3 bar, whatever. I would definitely want that air-fuel safety active and fully functional, so at that point, you'd be exceeding that user-defined threshold, and if it's leaner than 13.0, if I set that as my air-fuel lean threshold past that pressure value, it would cut boost all the way back to spring pressure. But on top of that, we also have a conventional, or semi-conventional overboost protection
where if the vehicle sees a pressure higher that the user defines would be safe, but the air-fuels are still okay, let's say a particularly cold day at the track, you wouldn't necessarily want to pull all of your solenoid duty out because if you have a 7-pound spring and you're at 18 pounds of boost, that could be a little sketchy on a big turn. You're at the track, so we add a value specifically for overboost that is superceded by air-fuel, but specifically to overboost where you can set what percentage of duty cycle you're pulling out if it's an overboost condition, or where it's maybe going up 2 or 3 pounds, but air-fuel wise, you're still safe to the point where it wouldn't engage your air-fuel safety, and it'll pull down a user-defined duty cycle, so instead of going down to 7 pounds, it might go to 12 pounds instead of 18, making the car a lot safer, you know, mid corner, as opposed to just cutting boost completely on the user.
Andre: Those are some pretty intelligent and complicated strategies for safety, which is great, and these are all programmable as well, you don't need to hook a laptop up to this thing, it's all programmable through there, that goes through the user interface, correct?
Adam: Absolutely. All of the functions in the gauge are completely user-defined in the actual gauge itself. They're all simple, it's a single-layer menu, so basically, you'd depress the programming button. It would bring you into the programming mode, and you would just tap the button to go through each menu. Each menu is clearly defined, and the values can be increased or decreased depending on which button you depress. It's very simple. Andre: So this product's brand new.
You're promo-ing it here. It's not quite ready for market yet. When can we expect to see this on the shelf? When can we buy one? Adam: We're hoping early Q1, and we think that that's going to work out.
I'm hoping February we'll be able to actually get them out. Andre: Is it too early to release a price point for this product yet? Adam: Our estimated price point right now, or projected price point is in the 369 range. That's where we're kind of hoping to be.
It's definitely going to be under $400. Andre: Okay, well that's a lot of product for that money where you're combining an electronic boost controller with a complete wide-band controller. It's an exciting product, and I can't wait to see that hit the market.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to us today, Adam. Adam: Absolutely. No problem. Voiceover: For online tuning courses,