AEM EMS Guidebook/Controlling boost

Idiot’s Guide to setup AEM EMS boost control using GM boost control Solenoid

1. Hook up your GM solenoid as described in the AEM manual. Try to have as low a wastegate spring possible for easier setup and a good tune to insure you don’t blow anything up.

2. Open up Aempro and go into the boost control template, in here you will see a WG Base Duty map and another box with some settings.

3. First thing to do is select the entire WG Duty map and set everything to zero and on the other window, set it like this with a fuel cut to your liking.

4. In my example, I’m using a 6psi WG spring which makes it easier to tune.

5. Now don’t change any other boost control settings and go for a drive and be sure to keep a close eye on your boost gauge and do a short run, if you go past your WG spring pressure, just stop boosting right away as to avoid engine damage. This means that 0% duty equals max boost. Now if you hit wastegate pressure and it doesn’t boost any higher, you know that 0% equals minimum boost.

6. Now if you set the WG duty map to 100% across the entire map, you should see the opposite on your boost gauge. 100% equals min boost or 100% equals max boost for the other guys. Hope this makes sense.

7. Now that you know to add or subtract duty to add or subtract boost, you can setup your WG invert to help it make more sense.

8. If when you set the WG duty map to 0% and you were at min boost, leave the WG invert unchecked, but if you had the WG duty map set to 0% and you hit more than WG spring pressure, check the WG invert box so now 0% will equal min boost.

9. Now on to actual tuning of the boost

10. Set the entire WG Duty Map to 50% in all cells

11. Next, open up the VSS boost template, or the TPS boost template, I’ll use the VSS template for this example.

12. Now, setup the VSS boost target table to a low boost amount slightly over your WG spring pressure, for my example I’ll use 7.20 psi.

13. Now, on the right of the Boost target speed table you’ll see a table named Boost Target Comp Table. That graph is what’s going to help control your boost. Make sure to check the 2 boxes on the right of that graph,

14. Now back to the Boost Target Comp Table. To tune with this is best to have another person driving and you tuning it, or get on a dyno (more safe). You want to adjust this really low for your target boost like in this picture

Make sure to adjust the Comp for your boost target that you put in the Target speed table earlier. Take it for a drive, test the boost in a higher gear like 3rd or 4th, use the AEM to monitor boost to get a more accurate reading. Now keep adjusting the Target Comp table for that boost target until you can get as close as possible to your target boost.

15. Once you are pretty spot on with that target, go back and change the Target Speed Table to a higher amount of boost, say around 13.46 (the highest you can safely take the car) and then set the Target Boost comp table at 13.46 to a low % duty.

16. Now go tune it again for that load and try to get it as spot on as possible using the AEM to monitor boost.

17. Now after you are pretty spot on that boost, open up the table that accompanies the boost target comp graph and select the 2 load points that were used and everything in-between and then right click and click calculate.

This will interpolate any values in the middle to make it a linear slope. You should probably get something similar to this.

After setting this up you should be pretty good to go if you want to have VSS dependent boost anywhere between those 2 targets.

18. Now to add some fine tuning in there you can adjust the WG error duty map to get even closer to your target. This map is the one on the bottom of the VSS boost Template. Basically you want to check that check box that says “Boost FB on error” to enable this graph to work, then you can set it up something like this, but I wouldn’t go too aggressive because it may throw off your Boost target comp settings, but it may also help with spiking and wandering boost. Well I hope this guide helps out some people struggling with controlling boost in their AEM EMS.