I am SO in the wrong spot on the pricing. I was thinking R56, and thus made the error. My apologies!

On the second half that is not exactly what I am saying. What I am saying is that it is a GREAT upgrade in ALL climates etc. But in areas that are very hot, or you do a lot of uphill driving, etc. they OEM intercooler reaches heat soak faster than a client living in Alaska at -25 deg. F. Does that help clarify?

 

:-)

 

This doesn't clarify anything for me about "your" intercooler Adam. All your stating is that the OEM intercooler heat soaks quickly in hot climates, and it does, as do all of them in hot climates... In hot climates you want one thats going to cool efficiently and recover quickly.

Given the large mass of the Alta V2 its my opinion that it will take much longer to recover after being heat soaked. The main reason I asked you the question was because you or Jeff have stated on these forums either in this thread or my "Inter cooling test thread". That the Alta V2 does "not" perform as well in hot climates, but that it will shine more for users in cooler climates.

 

even though i know nothing about the product, i can answer the 1st three.
1 this point occurs when air begins to flow through the dfic when just sitting, the dfic is a horizontal box, that has a "top" and when heat dissipates naturally, it goes up. this box will cause the heat to stay in the intercooler, and not dissapate as the heat would naturally in the stock intercooler (somewhat), especially on a dino where the hood is normally up. (should be solved by using a fan)
2 the cfm number probably is not that high, just enough to capture the heat that would natturaly dissapate off the stock intercooler.
3. probably not that fast. if the backpressure from the dfic is not great, then a few mph should solve the problem.

in my opinion, i dont think any aftermarket intercooler is worth it, unless your track driving, then a w2a might help. my reasoning is that unless you do something like the dfic baby scoop, and give the air a place to exit out of the engine compartment, thermal efficiency is pretty much maxxed as is. (the w2a intercoolers are usually bottom mount which does allow the post intercooler air to exit out of the system under the car easily)

also with pressure drops, all i have to say is some of it may be the part, the pressure drop is also because of the decreased air temp. simple equation.
PV=nRT
p=pressure, v=volume, n=number of moles of gas, r=rate constant, t=temperature in kelvin (C+273)
so, if the temperature of the gas decreases, the pressure has to decrease (or volume (not happening) or number of moles increase (impossible, unless you add more to the system via the supercharger which would mean spooling it up more, but at a certain flow rate through the supercharger, not gonna happen))
just because the pressure dropped, does not mean there is less gas, its just mroe dense, and can be viewed as putting less stress on your supercharger by decreasing back pressure.
my point being, there is no such thing as an intercooler that will increase pressure and decrease temp assuming it is the same size as stock ( you scould increase pressure and ovolume potentially if you put all the air through a 1" pipe section as the intercooler that was being cooled by liquid nitrogen, btu thats just extreme, and is kind of the theory behind w2a i believe(smaller internal internal intercooler volume, and increased thermal efficiency because of waters 4.18J/C))
anyways, im just rambling and tryign to procrastinate from writing a hamlet essay thats due tomorrow. oh well. if im wrong,(which im sure i am on something) dont be afraid to lay out what was wrong about what i said.

 

I'm not sure you caught the context of my post.

 

Since there isn't a thread about ICs or IATs that I haven't contributed to, I will go out on a limb here and say that there's nothing new in this thread, period. The thread reporting Intense's road tests is about as definitive as a NAM thread is going to get on this topic, and asking for more is simply going to generate more "arm chair" physics like post 754 above.
Now all of you, grab your Mini keys and go out and drive...

 

Your sig is freaking awesome Dr.P! What a statement, reminds me of that miss teen America contestant

 

arm chair physics is my best subject lol. more of a chemist and a calculus person. just taking AP physics C (electricity and magnetism) this year. ( im still in HS)

 

Since I dragged this thread out of mothballs i will share what i decided to do. After much input from you all on here (specifically "Intense") and help from Eric at Helix 13, I have come to the basic conclusions:
1) The Larger Intercoolers offered by many after market companies are, in a vacuum, a great thing.
2) However, with the placement of the intercooler atop the engine, heatsoak is a very big problem.
3) Any benefit of a larger intercooler is negated by the larger I/C's inability to cool back off.

I'm sure you all know this but in the event of another less scientific person like myself, this sums up all the jargon into a neat and tidy package.

I opted for a thermal coated stock intercooler. A GP Intercooler, based on my research was the only option that would've been better.

With more money a custom front mount would've likely been best. Maybe a liquid to air but I don't know. In the end (for me and my needs) this was the best option. Also, this is heavily based on the price of $70.

 

what did you use for a thermal coating? Just curious and I agree the larger IC's seem to act more like an oven then a "cooler" in anything other than perfect situations a.k.a. vacuum

Steve

 

www.cradin.com. I've had them do a few ICs and they have the best pricing I've found.

Matt

 

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I don't know what they used. Its a thermal insulating coating, looks almost like its painted but theres no way it was. I just got it yesterday but I cant get it on until the end of December.