Clint... news... ? forget the numbers and just tell me when I can take delivery of one of these units?
I checked the site and no pre-order spot yet so I assume your waiting for the test results and to put them into a readable format..
thanks for all your effort.. ppl may be fickle and pushy and guaranteed they want results but I don't see anyone else still cutting the edge of the knife and getting sharper results so big Cudos to you for some valiant effort. and let me know when I can expect to give you some money...

 

Thanks for the praise, but numbers and results are what makes this product important. We want someone to buy our IC because it's better both in design and function.

As I promised a few folks who emailed this weekend, we're putting the research on the production unit to bed tomorrow. Results on Tuesday. Release on the website on Wednesday.

We have 9 cores remaining and more endtanks arriving this week. Turnaround for a DoS A2A-IC = 7 business days for painted and ~12 business days for one with a thermal dispersant coating. Pricing for painted and T.D. coated will be on the website this Wednesday.

Best,

-Clint

 

Thanks for the update Clint. Waiting to see your numbers and prices.

 

I'm so excited

 

Hi All,

The last few days have been a blur. The data is late, but complete. Thanks for your patience.

Images of the collected datalogs posted below. The pressure drop logging was a complete PITA, but worth the hard work. Thanks to much to James Irmiger of Urban MINI + TechShop San Francisco fame for all his help!

The Car:
Name: "'Blue", 2002 MINI Cooper S w/
15%SC pulley, RMW Head, Schrick Cam, DDMWorks CAI, Milltek Header, Supersprint Exhaust, DoS Dimsport Tune

Pressure Drop:


As you'll see, we're weaving a tight path around the GP's IC's pressure drop curve. but the GP edges by in the upper RPM ranges by a very minor:
0.03 psi @4000 RPM
0.10 psi @6000 RPM
equal psi drop @ 7000 RPM

It's amazing how close the pressure drop is on all 3 units, despite their differences in design. We needed to get more accurate pressure & vac gauges a few weeks ago just to make the testing worth while and show the tiny differences in psi drop.


Datalogs -- Thunderhill Raceway -- Temps in the mid 60's:
The track is where an really IC shows its worth. DoS shines through here.

The blue line is ambient temperature (sensor in front grille).
The red line is the temp before the intercooler (sensor placed in welded bung in the supercharger horn).
The green line is the temp drop after the intercooler (sensor placed in welded bung in the intake manifold side horn).
The black line is speed (sensor placed on an axle).

Stock IC:


GP IC:


DoS A2A-IC:


I'll get pricing info up on this thread and the DoS website tonight. I'm more than happy to field questions this evening.

Thanks to all of you for pushing us to post our data.

-Clint

 

Can't wait to see some more product info. Can we assume the red line on the 3 data logs from Thunderhill are IC inlet temps and the green lines are IC outlet temps?

I have a simple test i'd like to see:
Get the IC outlet temp up, kill the engine, hood up, and time how long it takes each IC to drop its heat. This could probably be tested with an oven, much less needing to be heated by the engine.
I'm a autocrosser so with limited run time to move air across the IC, and a minimum grid time of 5 mins between runs, it's more important that an IC drops its residual heat quickly and be efficient while underway.

Great work, and thank's for putting the data where the wallet is, there are far too many magic fix's than true performance gains on the market already.

 

sorry for being dense , but can you explain the above graph?

 

No, you're not any such thing. I was just rushing around like a crazy person yesterday.

We used a Digatron standalone analog datalogger for data collection. Here's what the colors mean:

The blue line is ambient temperature (sensor in front grille).
The red line is the temp before the intercooler (sensor placed in welded bung in the supercharger horn).
The green line is the temp drop after the intercooler (sensor placed in welded bung in the intake manifold side horn).
The black line is speed (sensor placed on an axle).

It's been another looong day. I'll need to get the pricing info up tomorrow.

-Clint

 

What were the outside temps that day at Thunderhill and how many laps were on the car when the data posted was recorded? Comparisons done on number 5 of a five lap or more run would be great as I always experience a loss of power 3 or 4 laps into a session after heat soak takes it's toll....

And the above mentioned recovery time data would be very interesting too.

Thanks for the already great data!

 

Wow! The DoS A2A IC pushes the temps down to around 100 degrees F. That's impressive, like a 15-20 degree drop from the GP IC. And thanks for including the GP in your tests; that was one of my upgrade considerations as well.

Looks like the ambient temperature was around 55-56 degrees F. Maybe do a retest when it is somewhat higher, say around 65-70 degrees. Per minimarks, yes, some track data would be cool, too.

Now for the $$$ cost.

 

Notice that it's a 20 minute session. I was getting in 7-to-9 laps per session. See how the speed curves repeat themselves. Each repeated waveform is a lap.

The ambient (outside) temps were between 60-67 degrees F.

Agreed on all fronts. More testing in warmer weather would be awesome, but I take track time where we can get track time.

Pricing posted soon . . .

 

...fresh popcorn...

 

Cool!
Interesting if I'm reading it correctly then; both ICs actually dipped in temps along about lap 5 & 6 and then started back up.... What would you attribute that too? Yours definately looks better just that they both had that dip along the same time....

 

I have a favorite thing about being in the intermediate group at most of the track days. If you're smoother than the next guy behind the wheel in this "learner's group", chances are that you're out on your own and out of slower traffic by your fourth lap or so (at most). By lap 5 and 6, I was out in clean air with no one to slow me down.

 

Hi all,

I have the A2A-IC's up for sale on the site at introductory pricing until 4/8/11.

http://bit.ly/DoS_R53-IC

Thanks again to everyone on this thread who pushed us along to finally get these tested properly & launched!

-Clint

 

Final results look astounding!

Looks like you went with aluminum end tanks, over the concept plastic pices? Any chance of doing testing on a SPRINTEX twin screw equiped car? With water spray I bet it would go sub-ambient easily!

 

The endtanks are plastic. We're trying to stay as true as possible to the original concept!

Unfortunately we need to generate more sales before we can do things like testing our IC on cars with unique supercharger setups and autocross staging testing. There are a lot of R&D dollars to recoup already, but we did get some orders tonight. That's a great first step back into the black.

-Clint

 

Just wanted to pass along some more R&D images to those who are interested.

 

I definitely don't need one... but I still want one!

 

Damn you DoS for making me want parts for my R52 again!!

Looking really good BTW, and nice to see some data to go with
a product.


Hmm, now what to sell to get this?

 

I posted this on the other site. Here's my question to all.

I have been scouring the internet and can't find other copper ICs, either for Mini or other cars. They all seem to be made of Aluminum. Given the obvious benefits of 60 degrees cooler than OEM for the DOS unit, I can't figure out why, regardless of price, copper ICs haven't become the "gold standard" among tuners. Copper heat interchangers are nothing new in many applications. Many posters have admitted to spending $10K to $20K or more on their Minis.

Tuners stop at nothing for more performance, and a simple bolt-on is a no brainer. So, it can't be cost. From looking at engineering opinions about air density etc, it would appear that 60 degrees cooler than OEM would translate into about 7% or more in power and general efficiencies. The DOS charts show about 30 to 40 degree temperature reduction for the OEM unit, while the copper unit shows a 90 to 100 degree reduction. I'm not questioning the results Clint has posted, and he has been very forthcoming about this unit? Other sites I visited talk about the "approach" which is the difference between ambient temperature and charge temperature - the goal is under 40 degrees, and optimally 20 degrees. The charts show the OEM at about 130 degrees above ambient vs about 40 for the DOS copper unit. These are amazing results to say the least, and the unit looks great!

So, why isn't the tuner after-market awash with copper intercoolers? Well-known companies like ALTA or Way Motor, would be shipping these things like hotcakes to all the BMW, Subaru, Mini and other car tuner markets.

Any opinions on this?

 

Same answer that I posted on "the other site":

Up until the early 70's, copper and brass radiators were very common. As the need for fuel efficiency reared its head during the gas crisis, although it is not as durable or as thermally efficient, the auto industry turned to aluminum as their new standard for radiators because it was both lighter and cheaper. Many radiator manufacturers also make intercooler cores, so it's logical that aluminum remained the material of choice for this application.

That being said, the main obstacles to using copper are cost and availability. Cost is king most of the time. You can get larger, cheaper, aluminum cores made in Asia to create low charge air temps and the only cost is 2 to 3 psi pressure drop. Tuners can get these larger cores made very easily and make more $$$ per part after markup.

Due to the dominance of aluminum IC cores, the development of DoS's copper core was very time consuming (read slow). We needed to locate a manufacturer that was willing to work with us at all and willing to make custom, higher tolerance tooling to match our custom plastic endtank mounting details. We also needed this manufacturer to be willing to make our cores in small runs to minimize our up front cost/risk (which still ended up being higher than expected due to the current cost of copper). Doing the cores in small runs allows us to focus on making sure that each unit is built with care at the shop in SF and allows DoS "try out" this new type of A2A-IC with the R53 community to see how it sells.

Making big margins on some of our higher ticket performance parts (like our A2A-IC) is not and will never be DoS's focus. That's probably because if we marked-up these intercoolers based on common retail "rule of thumb," they'd never sell.

Best,

-Clint

 

Thanks Clint. Great answer. I'd rather pay a little more to an American for a better product than export (read sacrifice) jobs to the cheap Asian gods.

 

Hi

How are you going to compare this with GRS chargecooler in terms of effectiveness? As they are very similar in pricing. Do you have any test on it?

Adrian

 

Hi Adrian,

We do not have a comparative analysis comparing the DoS A2A-IC with the GRS chargecooler at this time. We will not (unfortunately) be sinking any more R&D dollars or time into more intercooler testing until this summer.

There are some threads on Mini Torque and here on NAM that have some numbers on the GRS chargecooler. Although you won't have the makings of a true apples to apples comparison, that would be a good place to start.

Thanks for your interest in our A2A-IC.

-Clint