the reason u make more power is because ur increasing effeciency of the motor thru breathing mods..

both thru air in and air out..

exhaust systems, and intercooler pipes, FMIC itself, CAI etc will all help get the air where it needs to go in a faster smoother more linear way...

even if the ECU (not cpu) compensates for the assoc. increased boost, and returns it to it's previous point.. u will still make more power especially in the top end where the motor actually creates a vacuume in the intake because it is "inhaling" faster then the the intake can replace the air

and exhaust back pressure prevents the motor from expelling it's gases fast enough..

FMIC's will help prevent Heak soak.. which will keep IAT's lower for longer periods of time.. and their benefit is more noticable the longer u use it.. (long pulls, or quicker drops in temp after heat soak)

design of FMIC plays a role as well.. such as bar and plate vs tube and fin for example.. Pressure Drop, as well as CFM flow

 

I would definitely do an intercooler and boost tubes next. There is proven horsepower to be made there by making things less restrictive. The boost tubes alone are capable of 10whp! You could also replace your turbo inlet hose and get rid of some restriction there! Check out the dyno charts on those mods here:


Intercooler
http://www.altaperformance.com/produ...r-Upgrade-R56-
Boost tube upgrade kit
http://www.altaperformance.com/produ...be-Upgrade-Kit
Turbo inlet hose
http://www.altaperformance.com/produ...rbo-Inlet-Hose

 

Wow, from your website:

10 whp from the intercooler
10 whp from the boost tubes
10 whp from the inlet tube

total 30 whp. Just doing the simple math. Jarid, Is that correct?

 

no. simple math doesn't work in this case.

 

I wish it worked that way!! How we dyno our products is normally on a stock car....bolt the parts on....dyno...and remove. ALL of the products I listed have been DYNO proven to produce power. Installing these parts on you MINI will increase your horsepower/performance but is limited by the boost the turbo/ecu is allowed to produce. I'm sure if you swap out the components listed your "butt dyno" will definitely feel the difference! Please let me know if I can be of any more help!

 

Don't trust manufacturer dyno claims. I'm not speaking about ALTA as I have no experience with their products but I am basing this on my experience with numerous other aftermarket manufacturers. They have a vested interest in only giving you their best-run data. I've noticed manufacturers' claims are usually 2x what you actually get. So if they claim 10 HP expect 3-5HP. If they claim 20 expect 7-10. Always look for data from the guy who doesn't have anything riding on the results.

Likewise power gains aren't additive. A cold air intake worth 10 HP plus a catback worth 20 HP aren't going to give you 30 HP total.

 

Great point! Luckily when we "dyno" a part we first start off by doing roughly 7 runs to get a baseline/warmup on the stock car. After that is done EACH part gets 4 or five runs to make sure the numbers are consistent. When a part is dyno tested....the best to worst runs are literally only 1-2hp apart! As an example....the turbo inlet tube on an R56 was tested 8 times initially. From best to worst dyno run there was LESS thank 2hp difference!! Hope this helps all!!

 

Amen.

The OEM software in the ECU is far smarter than the aftermarket and likes to see all things within the OEM programmed parameters. The moment something reads differently -air temp/velocity etc- it assumes a system failure and programs back to safe levels.

Note above that Mr. ALTA_Jarid is cautious to refer us to our butt dynos and to state that HP gains are limited by the ECU.

I am not willing to consider the assortment of the Alta parts unless they have a certified third party install them on a car, run them at 5250 rpm for 15 minutes and then take three corrected readings without rpm reduction between measurements.

I suspect that any performance gains will be shown to be derived from the weight gains obtained by the lightening of the customer's wallet.

 

why 5250? (peak torque i assume)

why not the whole rev band..

 

Constant 5250 so as to allow for the validation of the several hundred monitoring points processed by the ECU at the peak performance of the engine with the same parameters and correction factors.

 

I am aware the three HP claims from different parts cannot be added to give you a final HP number. I just wanted to see how some sales oriented vendors justify buying these parts together. Unfortuantely, it is diffcult for them to because there is no real independent test of the parts together. Anyway, dynos claims are OK, but for me it is the improvements in 0-60 mph, 30-60 mph, 60-90 mph etc times that matter. Since I track the car a lot, so it is no use for me to buy all these parts that do not make the car any faster and perhaps even slower!

I have tried all three types of parts on my car, each by themselves and all three together. And after 5 track days this year so far, I found the only one that seems to work is the intercooler.

 

That is good info. Like I said I've noticed some ridiculous dyno-proven claims by manufacturers that no one else can reproduce. Did they actually get those results on the dyno? I don't know. It certainly is easy to stack the deck in your favor though.

Dynos are a tuning tool and what someone else gets with the same mod you may not get. Likewise someone may dyno higher than you and actually be slower on the track.

 

I understand what you are saying. I think as suggested by many in NAM, that is a need for side by side independent testing.

One clarification is that I tested the parts installed on the track but not on the dyno. For example, at WGI, I looked at my top speed just before the bus stop at same brake point 6.

 

Apples to oranges comparison, but Car and Driver did a test recently on a WRX with bolt on's (CAI ,free flowing aftermarket exhaust, ECU tuning).

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...u_wrx_gear_box

To summarize there were noticeable gains with the CAI and the exhaust, but not in tandem without tuning the ECU.

 

And another apples to oranges comparison of my own: 2006 Mazda Miata NC with the MazdaSpeed CAI and exhaust. Zero improvements documented in several dyno runs on three different dynos.

Submitted a claim to MazdaSpeed, they sent an engineer to collect data from my car (several hours of runs stored in his laptop) and a month later I was given the message that my car was running within the ECU predetermined specs. Not a word about the claimed HP improvements which have since been removed from their website and the manufacturer's (AEM) website.

Subaru's ECU appears to have a wider tolerance range which allows for some gains to be realized, at least short term. Subaru, like Mitsubishi, Toyota and Honda, have an open ECU code which allows the aftermarket to make adjustments.

 

The computer controlled engines are tricky. A tuner showed me on my Dodge how he would tune the car for max HP/TQ and shortly afterwards it would use adaptive learning to drop HP/TQ.

The term we used for the Dodge/Chrysler computers was "Hal", like in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey. You tell Hal to do something and next thing you know there is a mutiny.

 

Some merchants would use this knowledge to sell you a bogus black box with a set of before and after dyno sheets. You are fortunate that your man is honest.