Anyone care to share their success stories with the Alta IC?
Mine has been a horrible one. This is not about bad mouthing Alta, but hopefully a good compilation of useful user inputs for their next generation IC's. I personal think the IC has great performance functionality, but very poor feature finish and fitment. A good analogy in sport would be a team that do not play the entire 48 minutes!
I had the IC on my 2008 R56S and I really enjoyed it. It really kept the IA temperature as cool as ambient condition allowed. The problem started a week after the IC was installed. I kept getting leakage indication (check engine light). I had to pull the bumper out three times, and could never get a successful connection between the IC and the stock rubber hoses. It was a short live after each trial (2 days max.). I finally decided to toss the Alta IC aside and have the stock IC back in place. There it goes! It has been working perfectly. Yoohoo!!! The real problem with the Alta IC is as follow:
Alta makes an after-market product (the IC) that has to fit well in an existing product (the Cooper). The stock air charge rubber hoses on the Cooper have, no doubt in my mind, very loose tolerance in all DOF's. The reason the stock IC works well is the design of the inlet and outlet ports of the IC; the molded plastic has good finish and sealing feature. They are also at proper orientations and provide adequate connection penetration. Alta IC is on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to those. It has poor casting finish. The flashes are hardly properly removed. Both IC inlet and outlet are at incorrect orientations for good connection. The IC outlet, in particular, does not have enough connection penetration to the cold side of the plumbing. On top of those, Alta IC does not provide feature(s) for secured support for shock and vibration. So, poor connections + lack of proper support for shock and vibration = high tendency to lose tight connection.
I think a good set of air charge hoses such as those performance silicone hoses probably improves the connection situation the Alta IC has. I can't imagine myself going through pulling the bump out one more time. It will be my near future mod to get back the enjoyment I had with the Alta IC. If you come to this, thanks for listening to me.

 

Hi!
Thanks for posting your concerns. Would it be possible for you to send me pictures of your intercooler? I am interested to see the casting flash you speak of. Also did you call us about your issue? Most of us here at ALTA have installed this intercooler and can definitely help with your install. When I put mine on the Clubman I found it a bit of help to loosen the top of the intercooler hose connection to move the angle of the hose around a bit. Feel free to give us a call. I would hate to have your intercooler sitting in a box!

 

My ALTA IC has been fine, the tubes do barely fit on and I have aftermarket tubes so it may have helped me. But mine has been on for 30k no problems at all.

 

Chakraj:
What brand of aftermarket charge tubes do you have? any recommendation? I am thinking of definitely getting a set of performance silicone hoses. In my case, the stock cold side rubber hose seemed to be trimmed rather slobily in factory; the trim was not square and there was practically no leg left right after the bend.

 

I would suggest the NM ones cause there is a little play in the silicone ends but if you don't want to spen the money I have ALTA ones that I will sell to you. Cold and Hotside. Hell I will sell you my intake and intake hose too.

 

Yes I have the NM and I have been very happy with them. The secret is to put the tube on the IC first then stretch it onto the turbo. But with aftermarket tubes I didnt have to stretch much at all.