Yup, they look a little shaky ( at best ).

Intense, is there anybody, near by, that has a flow bench? If so take the ICs & you can measure the presure loss. These numbers will be reliable.

 

uh, inappropriate, for air flow testing. Like other said, you just want a Tc junction in the flow, with fine wires too!

There is an easy way to test pressure drop, but it's not done to calibrated flow, but repeatable ones. Look at pressure drop vs RPM (hold RPM steady till you get a good reading) with the car stationary... Some of the data points aren't very good, but those stand out when you fit a curve to the data, and you can repeat the measurements at will till you get good stats.

Here's a good probe for this type of work...
http://www.omega.com/ppt/pptsc.asp?ref=TJFT72
Or if you like to "roll your own" then get the right Tc wire and insert a nude junction. I like the probes in a body so that I can put them through the IC boots and get them to the center of the airflow.

Matt

 

Thanks for the info Matt is there a certain RPM that you would suggest? around 3-4000? Or just go through the range

Thanks

Rob

 

Then fit a quadratic (Ax^2+Bx) to the data, forcing it through the origin (Excel will do that nice and easy... Forgot to force the zero for the GTT data). The really bad data points will be a long way off the rest of the curve, and you'll know that you have to repeat them again.

FWIW, I had a Magnahelic differential pressure gauge to do this stuff, and it didn't like transients so I had to do some steady state measurements to get the data shown. The other thing is because it's not a flow bench, I don't have absolute air flow numbers to use. The third problem is that the data is from a no-load test, so airflow through the IC is way lower than you'd get a full throttle and boost. So it's reading minimum pressure drops per RPM, not pressure drops at WOT that would be worse. I tried to esitmate the WOT pressure drops, but the numbers didn't make much sense....

Anyway, have fun! Try not to keep the RPMs at 6000+ for very long, with no airflow through the radiator, the cooling system doesn't stay happy for long. After the high RPM runs, drop down to about 1500 RPM for a bit to keep the water flowing through the system. I don't think you get much flow at idle....

Matt

 

Ok,

I just spoke with Peter and we discussed soldering the the wires together and think it will work fine. I'm going to do that tonight and test it out to see if it works. If it doesn't, Peter has offered to send me different probes.

I'll keep you posted

Rob

 

thermocouple metals don't really tend to solder too well. Make sure you have good flux so that they wet to the solder. Really, you want to weld the tips.

The good news is that it's not that critical. Like Big Howe said, the metals just have to be touching for the effct to work. So twist them tight. The nice thing about welding is you can make the junction realativly small volume for fast response.

Matt

 

Thanks for the tip Dr. O I have a machine shop right across from my work. I'll take them there tomorrow and see about having them welded together.

I'll mess around with them tonight and see if I can get accurate readings with them twisted together. If I can I might just try it that way

 

Wow man, sorry to hear about the scare but very happy to hear that you're a lucky man. Have you considered playing the lottery today? . Keep your chin up.

 

Seriously man.... I've thought I might be pressing my luck by continuing
If I had a lottery in Utah I would have bought a few tickets for sure.

Should be fine without the plates on the ends of the probes tho.

 

Don't scare him too much. That little plate could have only been a few G's in repairs.

 

haHA! YA, a few G's into a new RMW head is what would have happened if mine was damaged

"But honey I need a new head anyway.... might as well ship the car to Jan"!
....oh hell, I could see it now quaif, head, cam, shorty header, stage 2 clutch.... what else was on that list? Then double it for "mods for the wife"

 

440 Injectors and I'd make that a stage 3

By the way, there is never enough for the wife.

 

Props to INTENSE.

If you need some help while doing the testing (even if its to splash water in your face while rushing to switch out intercoolers) let me know! I am always dying to do MINI stuff. Now that I got my MINI back I am ready to go!

 

Matt,

Would I be able to gather this type of information using a scanguge II? I don't have a Magnahelic differential pressure gauge nor do I know what one is The scanguage is the only other measuring device that I have that I could do something like this with. From what Ive experienced using the scanguage, its accuracy is less than desired. The only way I could do something like this is hovering for a second or two at points in the rpm range, then rev after the scanguage updated. It doesn't update fast enough to free rev thru the rpm range.

The only thing I was going to be able to really use the scanguage for was starting pressure, max pressure and possibly vacuum when off the pedal after hitting redline. Everything in between would be to inaccurate.

 

Thanks Davin and everyone else thats been supportive You guys have been awesome and very helpful and I appreciate it!

Davin man, you know your more than welcome to come over and join the festivities! I sure coulda used some cold water splashed in my face last Sat man... I want to try doing the testing again this weekend. I just have to talk Roggenmini out of a family trip to do it

 

 

Boy the family trip does sound fun! Camping in the mountains, riding 4-wheelers, and eating Smoes! You should just come along!

 

Dude it does sound fun indeedy!

Well, looks like the testing will be pushed out another week or two. Sorry folks, looks like Roggenmini would rather spend time with his family instead of riding shotgun with me, his computer and a bunch of probes

EDIT: We might try to get the testing done after work for a few nights since summer weekends are proving difficult

 

 

You could measure the T-MAP readings.... I don't know if the SCII can get the upstream pressure gauge (it's not an OBD required data field). If it can, you just rev to RPM and read each value. If it can't just do the T-MAP values and plot a boost curve for each IC.... It won't directly measure pressure drop, but the deltas between the different ICs would be informative.

If you got both the pressures and the temps, you could plot air density (remember our friend the ideal gas law?), but without the car moving, it would be a dubious value....

Matt

 

The only thing the scanguage reads from is the MAP sensor in the intake manifold. It measures temp and pressure from the MAP

The only way to get an accurate reading would be to rev from idle to say 2000rpm then from idle to 3000 then from idle to 4000... you get the picture.

It will give a pretty accurate reading if I do it that way. Just revving through the rpm range wont. Will doing this with each intercooler then plotting a range on a graph work for each intercooler?

 

or just step through values, you'll get the same data. The sensor should put out absolute pressure. But that's basically how I made the graph I posted.....

Yours will just look different. Instead of having pressure drop vs RPM, you'll get pressure vs RPM. No way to know what it will look like till you plot the data.

The car may just open the TB a bit more for the same RPM settings, and keep manifold pressure about the same. I really don't know...

But that's the fun of not knowing the answer when you start. If the graph shows something that makes sense, great, if not, you have to look deeper.

It's also why it's not cheap to test well, as the car is equiped with stuff to run the car well, and OBD data is just barely passable to really quantify anything, so good testing requires good tools. Good tools means money.

Matt

 

I'll try it and see what I come up with.

Thanks for the help Matt

 

Finally!

Today was the day, we finally were able to do the testing on all five intercoolers. We had numerous problems getting the probes to read right but we plowed thru it and got everything working.

We tried doing the boost graph like you suggested Dr. O but we could not get any sort of accurate data from the scanguage. It simply will not update fast enough.

Anyway, The data we were able to collect was
Intercooler Inlet Temp
Intercooler Outlet Temp
Intake Manifold temp
Max Boost pressure per intercooler

I'll start a new thread after we get all of the data sorted out. Give us a few days to sort the data and graph it.

 

glad to see you got the testing done. thank you
can't wait to see what you found