My uncle has been working on cars of all sort as a hobbie since he was younger, i kinda pitched the idea of doing a front mount on my 05 cooper s.

he said it shouldnt be a problem he has piped them before on other cars that were his projects, but said i should have the room to throw one on.


thoughts?

 

Front mounts intercoolers look sick... a few minis have them, most of them are turbos, don't know what gains would it have on the superchargers... you should search for the grs front mount and webb motorsport prototype, so you can have a template... it is going to be a dificult task but may worth it...

 

there are a few supercharged front mount intercoolers out there i hear there isnt much of a gain other than the intercooler looks cool in the front of the car...i think in the beginning when they first started toying with the idea they kept having fitment problems and the setup flexing to much but i dont really rem so dont take my word for it lol...but i know there is a company out there that makes a kit for that now i forget the name tho started with a G its a euro company

 

I saw one on youtube once, but I can't find it now. The thing was very loud. It had flat pipes coming off of the intercooler horns and bending down over the radiator, behind the bumper. If the engine wasn't on polyurethane or solid mounts, then the intercooler would snap off.

 

Sounds like it was the Randy Webb front mount I/C.

 

Im doing a engine swap to about 30k miles rather then my current 155k, the reason i was looking into front mount is primarily for looks, but also since it would be the least costly option since my uncle would be doing it. the new engine will have header and catback, alta intake going for either a 17 or 19% pulley and new ignition system, cant really go too crazy since im going to school in march

 

this is the webb prototype... http://videos.streetfire.net/video/M...S-sc_21092.htm

 

Here's more pictures of the Webb intercooler...









Here's some others that are twincharged/turbo only...

Tuls


Kalbone


Esmturbo


works4me (GRS intercooler)

 

Just be careful in doing the plumbing not to increase the volume on the intercooler system too much. Going with longish plumbs will cause lots of lag. In the above installs you can see lots of care was taken to limit the pipeing used. Going with a r-56 ish styled system would likely cause huge lag IMO.

 

Those are some good looking front mounts. Now does anyone sell the adapter to go from the flat piping of the supercharger to round pipe of th intercooler? If not does anyone know how to make one?

 

Bad idea unless you go turbo... 1) Elevated whine when run with an M45; and, 2) The pressure drop will likely negate benefits until a higher efficiency supercharger is available.

Even then, I would consider something like this if it ever becomes available... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFVUvZG207A

 

so front mount on r53= bad?

kinda getting that vibe from most people posting on here lol

 

GRS does, I'm not sure if you can buy that piece individually though...

 

It was me that asked Graham from GRS to create a FMIC having had success with his TMIC.

The idea behind it was to create something to handle track work having seen very high inlet temps in summer on track with the TMIC and I didn't want to go down the water/meth route. We started with an 8.2 litre core then kept modding it to get the boost right and ended up with a 5.8 litre core. This then made 262bhp/214.5 lbs ft on an independant dyno (AMD Essex) and at a track day at Brands Hatch the inlet temp didn't go above 30C with an ambient around 12C if memory serves me right. Since then Graham has modded it further with smaller pipe work to help boost.

You can read about the project here:

http://www.minitorque.com/forum/f24/...highlight=fmic

http://www.minitorque.com/forum/f24/...-results-1290/

 

Havn't seen any new on the development of Graham's FMIC. DO you know if he will sell a production kit.

My race class rules prohibit the switch to water/air IC. So GRS's TMIC which I have, is the best I can do.

after reading the post and looking at the design. my 2¢.

I suspect it would be economical to make a cnc'd billet fitting passing the charge air directly into the intake, a downward "T" fitting for the CBV. the air could exit up from the FMIC turn 90° back and over the radiator, and then turn 90° Left into the intake fitting.

The Port out the top of the pump is large and perhaps tougher to seal. Coming straight out of the pump goes into the manifold. So Duct would have to route between the radiator and the manifold. This would probably just as much a bottleneck as the Horn.

have to fit a shorter radiator, or use a different pump altogether, or make a silly molded High temp CF manifold. Non of these are economical.

 

I had a custom front mount made for my 02 mcs it stays cooler but there really is not much other gain. It does look really sick though with a big intercooler in the front.

 

it looks very nice, it is more of a bling than a performance mod... But it does look sweet...

 

does anyone know where to get the bells to make a front mount intercooler?? i have a universal intercooler that im fitting in i just got want to make the bells!! does anyone know where i can get them separate?

 

Custom fabricate them....
Fmic installs on r53 were so rare, never heard if a kit....or a place selling parts.
Simply put, a FMIC was a dead end for r53 sc cars....the little m45 roots style sc could not make the volume of air needed with the extra piping to make it work....
You end up with the big lag of the old big turbo's....simply put, it looked cool, but other options were better.

 

do you happen to remember what size intercooler you used?

 

The fact that air is being forced in on the direct face of the intercooler mean it will drive cooler air through the supercharger mean it will be better for the fuel air mixture...more bang for your buck!
Most factory manufactured cars have front mounted intercoolers which sit in front of the radiator and as a result they tend to offer superior air cooling over top mounted intercoolers. You need to take into account the fact that the air reaching the radiator is reduced so you may in extreme cases need to uprate your cars radiator to maintain low on track temperatures. An efficient intercooler design can give the benefit of 5% to 10% more power and resist heat soak for longer! Cars like our R53's have top mounted intercoolers which suck air in through the bonnet, this may mean that when the car is stationary it is actually being hit by warm air coming from the engine bay. This can actually improve economy as you are able to burn less fuel because the air is warmer and you certainly don't want to be pulling big power figures whilst ticking over in traffic.-- Read more at: https://www.torquecars.com/tuning/af...ntercooler.php - (c) TorqueCars

Paddy
Mini Worxx - UK

 

show me ANY intercooler besides a grs motorsport or a gp that doesn't suffer from such a boost drop it makes them worthless..
lower iat MEANS NOTHING when you've lost flow and velocity.. if an intercooler robs only 3psi , JUST 3psi , unless your making over 25psi , the lower iat WILL NOT provide more power than that 3psi of boost did.
I've personally tested on my personal car probably atleast 6 different brands and style of intercoolers..
front mount SUCK and anything besides grs motorsport , gp or defenders of speed are absolutely a waste of time and money...
I personally find it shady to tell people false info reguarding these aftermarket intercoolers. Stock IS JUUUUST FINE and in most cases THE BEST . It more thsn adequates cools my dang near fully built engine ( head , cam , sprintex running 21psi) so I guarantee it will cool your few bolt ons and stock sc with any reduction pulley you wanna use ,even a 20% ( ive tested them too and run a 19% on my stock sc car)...
so let's put the aftermarket intercoolers debate to bed..
DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY UNLESS ITS A GRS MOTORSPORT , GP OR DEFENDERS OF SPEED !!!!

 

Wow, holy thread resurrection batman.

I wanted the FMIC for track work because I didn't want a meth tank in the trunk. If you've read the dyno, drag and track testing I did on the GRS & GP top mounts and the Be Cool and GRS FMIC's, you'll see its not about making power, its about keeping power at the track during a session. For the road, in most cases it wouldn't be worth it, a GRS or GP does the trick because they don't go too thick on the core allowing flow and in the GP's case it retains the diverter and adds extra rows. The only other system I wish I could have tested back in the day was the Gintani W2A system.

 

even then , ths not maintaining power.. its maintaining lower iats but your sacrificing power too to do so. Even the best designed front mount ( grs ) that has the least amount of boost drop , I was even told BY THE COMPANY that makes and stocks them THAT I WILL SUFFER an avg of 4psi boost loss with the m45 supercharger and the front-mount..
what's your combo that you feel a front mount is needed ? I'm curious what your iats are with a front mount on an 80'F sunny day.. the front mount IS sitting directly infront of a RADIATOR that's ATLEAST 170'F at minimum..
The radiator gets MUCH hotter than the supercharger, intake Manifold OR cylinder head. So your fighting the heat of the rad instead of fighting under hood heat. Unless you have the front mount gapped off and away from your radiator by atleast 4in , it's suffering just as much heat soak as a good topmount..
A liquid cooled topmount can run BELOW ambient temps for awhile depending on how large your reservoir system is and once the liquid heats up it still runs at just about ambient temps. a grs motorsport oversized ic I NEVER saw Temps over 160'F ( with 21psi and a heat making sprintex sc )and that was on the longest hardest pulls. Even back to back to back like I'd been on a track I've tested it and it held up.
I can PROMISE you'd pick up decent power switching to A grs or kavs liquid cooled topmount. And you didn't wanna run meth but you installed the front mount? Imo the front-mount install is no harder than the meth install.
your not maintaining power YOUR LOOSING power and seeing a colder iat and thinking it SHOULD be making more powrf now with such low iat buuuuuuut in reality, its NOT. the extra little power you get from the lower iat is ABSOLUTELY not justified by the power you loos from boost loss..
for awhile I thought stock ic sucked UNTIL I learned better and did 1st hand , real life testing on MY PERSONAL car. The reason I thought stock ic sucked back then was because I didn't have the diverters in place AND the inside was cacked in dry,baked on oil that was reducing it cooling ability. But once I setup the diverters correctly and cleaned out the core , stock ic is doing juuuuuuust fine on my dailydriver/weekend warrior. Again , it's making 21psi off a fully spun sprintex ( nothing makes more heat than a sprintex, TRUST ME ) . My sprintex is what's caused me to go so deep into this. I wanted to know the best , most effective and efficient intercooler for our cars..
lolol the racing dynamic ic is THE WORST OF THE WORST. lolol over priced ebay ic psinted black with an avg boost loss of 4psi.. i cant believe they can even market those ebay styled intercoolers.
BTW grs DOES make a thicker core. Much bigger core..but they used bar n plate core instead of tube n fin to help facilitate more flow and that wasn't good enough so they they redesigned it and called it the GRS MOTORSPORT version and then they added internal air diverters AND THATS what finally turned it into a powr making , better cooling intercooler..
this is why the highest hp build you see , they'll usually be rocking the stock intercooler still UNLESS they're luck to have a gp intercooler..
last thing , lol..
if a 60mm core is too lage and makes lag on topmount . What happens when you add more piping , extra bends and an even larger core . Lol your gonna suffer massive pressure drop . It is what it is.
needing a larger ic kinda falls in with all the misinformation about not being able to run a 19% pulley on a dailydriver or trackcar even. Again , huge misinformation causing people not to get the most out of their cars because they think a 17% is as low as they can safely go...WROOOOOOOOOONG !
and I Resurrected this thread because I'm on a mission to put an end to the mass amount of bad info that's been told and spread about these cars.. I too was a victim of misinformation for awhile and lol it cost my car decent power.. once I wised up. My car has become the street beast I've strived for it to be .

 

No way a liquid cooled top mount will run below ambient, unless the cooling fluid is flashing to vapor inside the intercooler. An air-to-air with water spray will run below ambient, but can't use those on a track...