On my '92 I welded it shut.

On my 2001 I have a turn buckle holding it closed.

On my 2003 with the stock turbo its turn buckled.

Seems to work fine in these instances, however I had an HE351 on my 2003 with the solenoid plugged and the wastgate disabled. Working great till one day someone pulled on in front of me while I was making 32# of boost while pulling 18,000# and I had to nail the brakes(manual tranny). The turbo barked/fluttered pretty bad and soon after it was toast.

Both the 92 and 01 were autos and I barked the turbos on them pretty good at one point or another and nothing bad happened.

I'm getting another HE351 for the 03 soon and am wondering if I shouldn't disable the wastegate.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

I wouldn't disable it. I would recommend that you incorporate some kind of adjustability into it. ie. adjustable boost elbow.
Plus you will likely need a boost fooler (if you don't have one already) so you don't set any overboost codes.

I have seen some guys disable the wastegate on 2004.5+ with the stock HE351 turbo's. It's a single keystroke option on the Smarty.
Then the HE351 will make 50+ psi but not for long & it is way out of it's efficiency range.
I would keep the HE351 to about 42PSI max spike, max 38 PSI sustained.
It will easily go higher but that is no benefit on this turbo.

 

I've got the Edge with Attitude so I never had any over boost codes with the old HE351 and the waste gate disabled. Been awhile but I don't think I saw more than 36# of boost. Maybe 38....

 

I'd get something with a bigger turbine/lower drive pressure. I got my a2k used just before ats improved the a3k and stopped making the a2k. I really like it. Craig

 

Not looking for suggestions on other turbos.

The info I'm looking for is the role the wastegate plays in preventing barking and how bad really is it to bark the turbo?

 

Agreed.. With your Edge J/A, you don't need a boost fooler.

Do you have a separate boost gauge also or only using the Edge for boost readings? If I recall correctly since the Edge is using the factory MAP/Boost sensor it can't read over 36 or 38 PSI.
It's been too many years since I last used an Edge J/A in my truck.

Regardless, I still think you should add a boost elbow to HE351 before installing it. Then leave the boost elbow closed to disable the wastegate & try it out.
If the turbo boost goes too high or if it's barking or if there are issues when towing having the adjustability will be valuable.

 

Hmm didn't know that about the Edge and yes thats all I'm using for guages.

So does the wastegate control barking by allowing the sudden surge in pressure to blow open the wastegate and vent the pressure?

 

Wastegate disabled or not isn't going to affect barking all that much.

In the posts, you are talking about two different ends of the turbo. The wastegate opens on the exhaust side to keep the turbo from overspinning above a given PR ratio.

The "sudden surge in pressure" you speak to is on the compressor side. For the split second after you let off the throttle, hot gasses are still driving the turbine but the engine doesn't need the air, it backs up into the compressor and "bark"... it stalls the compressor wheel. By then, exhaust has bled off so it only does it once, maybe twice. But the damage it can cause is real.

If you want to control bark one easy solution is to weld a bung on your boost tube going into the CAC and put a blow off valve in (a good quality hot water blow off valve works fine) Set it just above the max pressure you want to see (say 42psi for your purposes) and you're done.

On my setup, I use dual blow off valves set to 95 psi.

 

Hmm I like that hot water blow off valve idea.

So why don't stock trucks bark?

 

Because they are correctly sized and fueled to prevent this kind of turbo damage.