"First off the intent of this thread is to educate people, not to sell products. There is allot of he says she says floating around on this subject so I'm just going to explain it from the Darrell Cox Racing stand point. Keep in mind who we are and what we do. We build performance Race, Turbocharged Engines. We have been doing this professionally for a LONG time, both as a Mopar sponsored NHRA Pro Race team and as a Vendor supporting car communities.
Ideally you want to put the BOV as close to the compressor wheel as you can get it for longevity of the turbo. Why? Air will dead head once the throttles are shut. At this point the air will take the path of least resistance. as hard as it is to realize the typical path of least resistance is back through the compressor wheel.
If the BOV is placed on the up pipe next to the throttle body it will not relieve as much air as if it wear closer to the compressor. The damaging portion of the air will expel back through the compressor wheel. If the BOV is placed on the pipe just after the compressor discharge it will catch much more air (consider the Inter coolers volume) but it's still not the ideal setup.
There is a reason more and more turbo manufactures are moving toward the integrated bypass valve like Mitsubishi did on the Caliber Compressor housing. It's designed built and tested to relieve the most amount of air as possible from traveling back-wards over the compressor wheel.
The best and most ideal setup is to just convert the factory Bypass Valve to a externally dumping Valve, AKA The Mopar Blow Off Plate (Blue plate, Rice plate, etc.)
we use the Mopar Blue Plate and no it does not leak. We have run the car up-wards of 28psi. the stock spring pressure does not matter, it's just there to keep it shut under vacuum. The solenoid feeds it air from the compressor discharge (highest PSI in the system) to the back of the diaphragm, so it's never going to leak unless it's not installed correctly.
Depending on the placement of the BOV, In theory you have more of a chance of an Aftermarket BOV leaking if it's receiving it's reference from after the inter cooler/TB due to pressure drop. Add in more clamps/pipes/connections and the chance of a leak is even greater.
Just because a product costs less or is a more simple design does NOT mean it is not as good as a more expensive/overcomplicated version.
We PROVED the blue plate to over 28psi on the Caliber...
We PROVED the blue plate to 12.5 @ 117 on the Caliber...
The only thing that would matter is the sound. Either you like it or you don't."