Does any one know, tested, herd about the M7 direct flow intercooler? is it worth 800$? is there any cheaper way to give my car a boost in performance?

 

This is the suspension section and do a search in drivetrain for the DFIC and you will find a ton of info the good and the bad.

 

As someone already said this is the suspension forum, but here's my take...
As a former owner I can offer up my opinion, After hard driving you could cook an egg on the top of that IC, hence I wouldn't recommend it to anyone myself. Some own them and think they make a difference, it's entirely subjective .

For $800 on a stock car there's a lot more I would do before an intercooler. I'm running the stock one with over 230 HP to the wheels (260 or so BHP at the flywheel).

 

try a search "DFIC" - lots of info should pop up.

 

I will not recommend it. Minifini, it depends on your driving style. All you've got to know is that ALL aftermarket ICs lose heat Very slowly compared to OEM ICs. For around $600 you'll get the GP IC which is better than the stock by 20%. Now, for aftermarket IC effeciency within operational temps, some people will say they have higher heat transfer than stock ICs and some people will not. If you drive long and to the limits, the stock or GP IC is your target.

 

You should consider an IC upgrade soon my friend. You are running a reduced pulley which requirers heat solutions to be considered!!! IMO

 

I have one.

Several things,

1) ICs do not produce power but recoup lost power do to heat.
2) All ICs will heat soak so its a question of how fast it dumps heat soak. The DFIC seems to dump heat soak fast.
3) the consensus is that its tough to beat the stock unit. Most after markets either give you increased thermal efficiency or flow thru (less pressure drop) but none so far do both over the stockers performance.
3) The DFIC is more thermal efficient than the stock unit but at a cost of pressure drop. This could be very desirable in hot climates and daily driving w/ stop and go but not the track.

I have owned several ICs and when it comes to daily driving noticed virtually no difference. I live in Florida with lots of heat and humidity and the DFIC seemed to deliver more constant power/performance on a daily driving around basis. M7 has come out w/ a version 2 that apparently drops less pressure but I don't know what effect it has on its thermal efficiency.

My conclusion is that its better to direct the dollars elsewhere and stay w/ the stocker. I would focus more on air management - larger scoop, quality seal against the hood, perhaps some enhanced air diverter.

 

juts another note - when we talk about ICs, seldom do we ever discuss chemical intercoolers (i.e. water injection as an example). There are seperate threads discussing water/meth injection but seldom equated to the subject of intercooling. You don't have to use meth, you can just spray water and that alone will drop temps more than anything on the market. Some of the Florida boys are running an injection system (water or water/meth) with good results.

 

W2A are very expensive, hard to maintain and need to keep an eye on the water reservoir I guess. It's a pain...

 

W2A and water/meth injection are two different things. W2A IC's are a closed system, the water dosen't, well it's not supposed to, have to be toppped off all the time. But you are right, they are expensive.

 

Everyone knows by now I am a big M7 guy and I am going to tell you it works great for me although I live in Washington and its cold here. I noticed better drivability, response and stronger pulls. I also run the areogel heat shields under the intercooler and over the header which makes a big under hood temp difference. It starts working very quickly when in motion. When you are parked at a stoplight, of course any air to air will get hot. That is why recovery time is important. How could you say this doesn't work?

 

With my water/meth system, i could drive really hard in the summer, pop the hood and the horn after the intercooler would be pretty cold while everything before that would be HOT as hell.

 

With my setup, i could drive in the summer and the horn that you see will stay pretty cold, but everything before that is pretty damn hot.

 

how much did it cost you to have such a system?

 

they range from 300 to 800 dollars depending on the sophistication. You can install the sprayer before or after IC or both. What you have to appreciate is that you are also cooling the cylinders w/ the water and if you have meth added you boosting your octane so it can increase HP as well.

makers are snow performance, alta, coolingmist.

check it and read up for this might be ideal for you living in hot climate.

 

How easy are these to set up? I've heard they take quite a bit off trial and error to get right?

I have heard that the ALTA device is really good and I would tend to try them sinmce they have such good customer support.

Paul

 

Some electrical wiring and tapping either the horn or IC. The alta system besides being the most expensive also has the most std features and is proabably a little more work to install but not much. Most units work off of boost - you set the boost when it should come on and how much to spray.

 

When I upgrade it will either be to the GP intercooler or the Laminova. I don't have any heat soak issues as is unless I'm pounding it on a slow speed track.

If I'm moving at anything above about 45 MPH my IC temps stay right around 15-20 above ambient with the stock IC. I see no reason to dump 800-2000 dollars on a new one at this point.

I LOST power with the DFIC (Higher pressure drop, took forever to recover from heatsoak). The stock IC has a much lower thermal mass, so it takes almost no time to cool it down. After 30 seconds of bouncing off the rev limiter at 13-15 PSI of boost I see temps of about 160, 10 seconds later they're back down to 80.

Brian (Longboard) has had a lot of success with the cooling mist system on his car. I'd probably do something like that before an intercooler.

 

The cooling mist system is great. Easy to set up and works really well .

I plumed it into the new IC but haven't used it. The meth had sat for about 2 months and is now longer meth . I have to get some more.

Longboard

 

There is also the option of putting a Co2 tank with a sprayer in the car. Mount the tank in the back. run the air lines up. get a sprayer and make that cool your IC down for short times. Or you could even get a small air tank and a compressor. If your into DIY stuff I think there are lots of options to cool the IC down.

 

The short term benefit of spraying CO2 on the IC would be outweighed by the cost and weight .

Water/Meth would provide more of a performance benefit because in addition to cooling the intake charge it actually raises the effective fuel octane.

 

This entire conversation and not one data point? There's lots of good information here for sure, but no evidence other than testimony. My recent observations regarding recovery in daily driving suggest to me that there are more uncontrollable sources of heat in our Minis than there are those that we can control or influence. Water/meth systems are clearly very effective, but usually only operate at high boost, so are really race-day or event relevant and not all that effective in daily driving where boost is rarely high, or in very short bursts.
There is considerable documented evidence that the stock or GP intercoolers are very effective especially when mated to improved scoops and diverters. How much more effective than stock? I doubt 20% of anything that can be measured, but an improvement yes.

Oh, and here's something to put this all in perspective: I heard of a dyno'd test done on a Prius where a new and innovative set of spark plugs produced a 6% increase in peak HP! There are very few opportunities in the Mini world to get that much improvement, and certainly not by changing out your IC. Then again, 6% of 50HP isn't all that much...

 

I've heard that you only want to spray after the intercooler because the water can get caught in the IC fins and cause corrosion.

 

The water/meth does make add alot of octane to normal fuel. My A/F chart shows how it dips under 10 when the kit is on at high boost. This is with a 15 pulley and 2 crank pulley with stock injectors. The chart is not coming up but its in my gallery.

 

I've seen the same thing on my A/F . Makes me feel real safe when I'm hammering it.

Longboard