So I saw a video about the twin engine mini racer and a thought jumped into my head. That car had two intercoolers for its two engines. Makes perfect sense. But has anyone ever tried running two intercoolers for just one engine?

I see tons of people getting $500+ IC's to upgrade over the small OEM IC's so there have got to be a bunch of unused OEM intercoolers lying in mini owners' garages and lying around used part vendors' shops... Anyone ever tried a Frankenstein project of stacking two OEM IC's up front and essentially doubling the volume and flowrate of your IC system without buying an expensive aftermarket or a cheap chinese knockoff?

Probably a crazy idea, but I couldn't think of any reason that it wouldn't work... and probably save a lot of money. If no one has ever tried it, and no one can think of any reason it would fail... I may just need to find myself an extra OEM IC and do a build... with copious amounts of documentation of course. Cause its only science if you write it down right?

 

sounds like an interesting project. one thing youll have to consider is the total volume of the intercoolers. im not sure what volume of air goes into an aftermarket, and how muhc goes into an OEM. im assuming your talking about the turbo mini's. but if theres a drastic change in volume, there could be a bit of lag introduced, but if two oems have less volume than an aftermarket, you could be finding something interesting here.

were you thinking of stacking them?

finding a silicon Y pipe is preety easy as well.

i say go for it!

 

stacking is the plan yes. And from pictures alone, the volume of two stock to one aftermarket seems comparable. Especially when you see ones like this:

http://www.tyrolsport.com/files/foru...s/DSC_0416.JPG

So yeah, thinking of doing a few spot welds to hold the two together coupled with probable some metal tie downs at say the ends and middle. Then its just a matter of getting a housing built that takes the usual hot side tube and splits it to mate up with both IC's and the same on the cold side...

Anyhow, Will definitely post results (in a few weeks probably... need to find another IC first) and let you guys know.

So, anyone with a reason why these two (IC's) should not be wed?

 

Alta's first gen1 ic offering was basicly a pair of stock ic welded together, side by side..was a flop..too much volume...introduced lag...Not sure what was done to the underside of the hood diverter wise....but it did do WORSE than stock...a few pics are around...it did look cool...
The GP basicly added a couple rows off a stock ic, to increases capicity a bit....you can see the welds...
On a turbo you might have better luck since a turbo can build boost more than a sc, but then you get into a space issue.....mini's have very limited space!! Good luck...sounds like an interesting idea!!

 

well now that concerns me if a double the volume approach was a failure... I will have to look into it. I already and looking around trying to compare core volume between different aftermarket and stock IC's as well as the volumetric flow rate through them at different Boost pressure (some manufacturers give that information, and I sent an email to Forge seeing if they would share).

If the information comes back and dual IC's is too much volume, then I may abort and try and think up another idea. They have a lot of small IC's out there that are maybe 1/2-2/3 the size of a MINI IC and are very cheap. Like 100 bucks. I may consider those as an alternative option.

That said, I am now trying to figure out how it would mount. Went in and checked out the car and realized that the stock IC is actually sort of overlapped with the radiator, not below and forward of it as I had thought. So a dual system would have to be mounted forward of the current location.

lots of things to think about. please post if you have any ideas or solutions

 

Not to mention the plastic end tanks of the stock IC.

 

I think that pipes from my local muffler shop and a little time with a welder should be able to make a nice 1-into-2 connection to mate up the stock silicone boost tubes with a rebuilt/modified intercooler.

 

Your going to have space nightmares. There's not really the room to stack two on top of each other. The aftermarket market intercoolers get thinner when they go in front of the radiator.

Here's a photo of the stock setup:



and the aftermarket forge. The upper section is much thinner than the lower section (about half the thickness of the stock intercooler IIRC).

 

You know, MORE isn't always better.

 

there is a guy that has a spreadsheet of a bunch of mods for r56, i took a look at it, there are a few intercoolers that are over 100% larger in volume, and there was two with 200%. i think youll be ok with two intercoolers. youll have double the surface area and double the volume. sounds preety decent to me, and i know that the oem has a decent design, its just not meant for lots of mods =)