If you are going to be experiencing CAT 5 storms on a regular basis I would go with the oiled foam filter, it sheds water like a duck! I am not sure about the dry-flow filters as we have not tested any of those here.

As for the UNI-chip box hooked up, that must have been why we saw a sudden jump in power one day We will have more details on it in the future. We are tuning it to work with a couple of our new products and will have details soon.

 

If you just buy the PFB and not the RAS, will the PFB have the window cut in the top of it exposing the filter? I would think that without the RAS that this opening would decrease performance.

 

Like a lot of things when it comes to tuning a car, some things are not intuitive. Knowing that there was a running change in the hood scoop openings of the R56 we tested temperatures around the engine bay. Fortuntately our test mule is a later car that had the holes in the factory "grill" in the hood scoop. We tested using digital thermometers with remote leads that we could place throughout the engine bay. Two areas that we particluarly looked at were the temps at the ECU and the top of the valve cover. We will post a complete graph of the temperatures in the future, but the quick answer to what we saw is a decrease in temperature at the ECU. The temperature readinga at the ECU on a 76 degree F day with the stock pieces in place averaged 95.6 degrees F or 19.6 degrees above ambient. Once we installed the RIS we saw the average temperature drop to 85.7 degrees F or 9.7 degrees F above ambient. The valve cover readings saw a drop also although the test mule with the RIS on it only saw 2.5 degrees F lower temps than the stock readings. We never saw a condtion where the temperatures with the intake in place were higher than stock.

A lot of the testing with this intake used our Omega HHP-201 Digital Manometer. For those that are not familiar with what a manometer is, it is a device to measure pressure, in this case, air pressure. Using this we can measure the pressure inside the engine bay in defferent configurations including stock, with the scoop removed, and with the RIS in place. We took readings throughout the engine bay during different driving conditions and compared those measurements to each other. We did this because of a concern that we had with just leaving the vent completely open, when the factory had part of the hood scoop closed. There is a reason that BMW also did not completely remove all of the grill and why there is most of it still there. When you remove the restriction from the factory scoop and allow a straight shot of air into your engine bay, it raises the pressure inside the engine bay, a good thing, right? Acutally no, it is not a good thing, the radiator and intercooler depend on differential air pressures for the air to flow through them. The higher you raise the pressure inside the engine bay, the closer the pressure inside the engine bay and outside the car become. The closer those pressures become, the less flow through these two you will see. So by completely removing the factory scoop and raising the entire pressure inside the engine bay, you have lowered the efficiency of intercooler and the radiator. Although this allows the temperature at the filter to be 7-10 degrees above ambient, which is not bad, that temperature at the filter continues to climb and never stabilizes during long accelerations, we stopped when we saw temperatures at the filter 60 degrees above ambient! That is why we went with a scoop on the hood of the car to direct this air in a focused direction. Now when that air comes in it is funneled into the air filter and into the PFB. The unique thing about our intake is that excess air can exit through the bottom of the intake, behind the engine and under the car, this creates a flow of air through the engine bay and that is why we actually see a decrease in temperature in the engine bay.

We also thought about the car at idle so on the RAS there are some small holes just above the turbo on the front lip that allows air to escape when the car is turned off to keep that heat from being trapped. A minor detail but one we thought was important also.

Hope that answers everyone's questions about the underhood temperatures and just some of our testing procedures. Please let us know what else we can do to help.

Dave

 

Are these holes present on the pictures you provided? I can't seem to find them. Also, wouldn't these holes allow the heat from the turbo to rise up into the scoop and thus be carried in with the ambient air during driving? Thanks!

 

So the scoop isn't sealed to the airbox?
Is the normal intake tube that hooks from by the radiator to the airbox intact?

 

Wow, should have known you guys have done your research. Thanks for the answer Dave!

 

From what we have seen it will have similar performance to a intake with the filter exposed. You could then add the RAS later to get the benefits of the cool air.

 

They are there, but they are on the vertical lip on the front of the scoop, pretty hard to see with that picture. The reason that the hot air does not rise up into the scoop during driving is that the scoop has higher pressure inside than the engine bay, so the air goes down torwards the tubo, not the other way around, good question though.

 

There is molding that seals the PFB to the scoop when the hood closes. The plastic intake tube that hooks to the radiator area is removed during installation.

 

So there's still a bypass to add air behind the radiator and intercooler? This leakage does exactly what you said was bad about removing the scoop grill, and decreases pressurization of the airbox-potentially losing power.

I thought Alta had done similar measurements, and had also seen lower engine bay temps when totally removing the scoop grill.

Neither address the decreased efficiency of the radiator and intercooler by allowing air to come in through the scoop (although yours goes through the airbox first, then exits through holes)

In addition, when the intake pipe is removed, is the hole plugged? Or is that left open? If so, that would also allow air to bypass the radiator and intercooler (although engine bay temps would further decrease)

 

You need to wait no more....

 

very nice!

 

good...

so i can order da RIS and stress bar together? r they fit together under the hood?

 

Wow, that looks good.

 

Very Nice Strut Bar, and very insightful info on the intake. Thanks for keeping us up to date!!

 

dwjj: With the testing we have done, we are very happy with the results of engine bay temperature and pressure when compared to stock, and more importantly the temperature and pressure at the filter. I can not comment on other vendors testing, as that is something you need to ask them directly.

MrB: Yes! Both of them can be ordered together! We will have the brace up on the site by the end of this week!

I have also posted a couple of graphs to show what we are seeing at the filter while at speed. We have now tested a total of 9 different intake set-ups on the R56 simulating as many different practical intake set-ups as we could think of. We ran the tests at varying speeds between 25-100mph (closed course, not on public roads). As you can see there is a lot of difference between different set-ups pressure and temperature wise on the car. The dotted line on the graphs is the new RIS and shows that it has the best pressure and the 2nd best temperature by just a few tenths of a degree. I hope this helps everyone out!

 

I know you won't tell but it sure would be nice to know what other intakes the various colored lines represent.

 

No problem the intake set-ups we tested were-
1. DDMworks RIS with hood scoop blocked, without factory tube from radiator connected
2. DDMworks RIS with hood scoop blocked, with factory tube from radiator connected
3. MAF to 90 degree bend with exposed filter, tube from radiator connected, hood scoop closed, NO Ram air scoop
4. MAF to 90 degree bend with exposed filter, tube from radiator connected, hood scoop closed, with Ram air scoop
5. MAF to 90 degree bend with exposed filter, tube from radiator connected, hood scoop open, without Ram air scoop
6. MAF to 90 degree bend with exposed filter, tube from radiator connected, hood scoop open, with Ram air scoop
7. DDMWorks RIS with hood scoop open with factory tube from radiator connected
8. Intake sealed to the hood scoop, scoop open, no other source of air other than hood scoop
9. DDMWorks RIS, hood scoop open, without the tube from the radiator connected


We also just returned form the dyno I will get everything scanned and put up as soon as possible.

 

Here is one of the dyno runs from last week testing the DDMWorks RIS against the stock set-up. The numbers that you see are at the wheels, not an estimated crank number. The car also had on our exhaust for testing on both intakes.

These represent what seemed to be an average run for the particular intake, not the best runs, not the worse, and so we feel gives an accurate showing of what someone could expect to see when they install the intake. These two runs were done within 15 minutes of each other.

We increased peak horsepower by 7 HP and we also increased 7ft/lbs of torque, but that doesn't really show how much power was gained right in the mid-range of the power band. Just over 4K RPM's we saw 9 HP and 12 Ft/lbs of torque increase over stock, also some other really good increases above 5K RPM's.

We also tested our street intake set-up at the same time and will be posting those results and pics in a seperate thread.

Let us know what else we can do for you!
Dave

 

I'd be curious to see how much of an improvement your system is compared to "homemade" setup that many people have done here. I see that you have tested that option but your graphs are not labeled. I guess my point is HOW much difference is the $60 setup with the block off plate removed versus the $500+ setup like yours?

 

mikeg4572 - I am going to put all of the labels on the graphs for everyone, so that we can compare numbers with everyone else that has done testing. On the dyno though your intake will show very similar power gains to our Race Intake and every other intake out there on the market. With the hood open on the dyno and air able to circulate in the engine bay, as long as there is a good filter on the Air flow meter, you are going to see good power gains on the dyno. Where you will see a difference with the full race intake is at the track, autocross or spirited driving on the street. Your intake is similar to our street intake, in that it uses an open filter that is not sealed. During testing we saw that during like cruise around town, the open filter would see descent temperatures, but once you put the throttle down, the air coming in through the hood scoop is heated rapidly by the air coming in through the radiator and over the turbo and washing torwards the back of the engine bay. The air going into the filter continues to heat up and the longer the full throttle pull, the hotter it gets. Also while sitting at a stop light or waiting for a run in an autocross, the filter is stuck pulling in the hot air from under the hood, affecting throttle response. The RAS that we offer takes care of keeping the intake temperature down while moving, but does not offer the increase in pressure build at the filter that the full race system does.

So for the money that you have invested in yours, it is a good increase from stock, but will see higher than ambient temperatures measured at the filter and no increase in pressure measured at the filter. If ultimate performance is what you are after, there is better out there.

By the way, I can not see by the pic, but what do you have holding the air flow meter and filter in place?

 

Thanks for the detailed answer. I want you guys to know I am not bashing on your product, Just am very close to actually buying it and wanted to clear up that question. Seems to me that the largest gain is going to be in the cooler air that will be obtained through the system. It's no secret that are cars run much better when it is cooler outside

 

I noted that much of the material is steel. How much does the complete system weigh?

 

mikeg4572 - No problem, I have definitely learned that if one person has the question, several more do and just haven't asked it.

apexer - Once we get the production pieces all together I will weigh them with all of the hardware and see what the difference is over the stock pieces that will be removed with the installation and post those up here for you.

 

Thanks