Actually it's an older FM piece that was replaced with an upgraded/improved unit. Lucky me! Besides being very small, my old actuator had a fairly steep angle on the rod to the arm- which I believe is partially responsible for the failure (even though it was improved upon as delivered).

This new unit has a much larger can and stiffer return spring. So I'm going to try it out without a helper spring, though I've included provisions for one on the bracket. This time around I went out of my way to make sure the rod has a straight shot from the can to the gate arm. That required fab'ing up a bracket to to get the can out in front of the compressor due to space limitations, and extend the rod arm.

One thing I did notice is that the action this unit starts at ~2psi and fully opens by 10psi - but the EBC should prevent any leakage from the action.

Next is tuning the EBC for the new actuator and new muffler. Fun pics and action video below.

 

lol my actuator tester comprises of a football pump, some rubber hose, and an old boost gauge

 

I went back out and T'd a boost gauge inline with the signal line so I could get a more accurate indication of the actuator action vs. pressure. The actuator first "cracks" at 4psi and then continues on until it's fully open at 14psi. I can't recall what my original actuator was like, but does that not seem like a massive spread from crack to open? I'd think something like this would be impossible to run w/o any kind of boost controller. I'm going to try it out with the EBC shortly - that should put a stop to the early cracking by isolating from the signal pressure.

 

well mine first starts to open around 4-5 psi as well, then quickly opens fully at 12 psi

 

OK- then this one doesn't seem too abnormal, but you can sure see how running w/o a mbc/ebc would kill spool.