Hi, I live in Santa Fe, NM which is 7,000 ft above sea level. Had a CAI, 15% pulley and NGK iridium plugs installed last week and I'm not getting much boost, really. Certainly underwhelmed from what I expected.

Any of you people at this altitude or higher? What's been your experience with mods to get more hp?

I'd really be grateful to hear. I'm trying to find out if my car has some defect or if this is more normal. Unfortunately there is not a single DYNO in Santa Fe. The nearest one is in Albuquerque which is a good 2,000 ft lower.

Thanks much,
Murali

 

I'd be curious to know, too: I'm not quite as high as you here in Calgary (though I lived in Boulder for a long time, but not with my Mini!). I installed a vacuum/boost gauge, and even at high RPMs and WOT I only produce 9 psi of boost. It's still too fast for winter, but I'd like to find out if it's normal before I get around to installing a pulley...

 

How many miles on the car?
The SC is a bit of a wear item....but look around for things like intercooler boots that are leaking or maybe a stuck bypass valve.

 

On my car with the factory S/C+16% pulley in Denver, I would usualy get around 10psi depending on weather. If I went up in the mountains the boost would go down to around 6-7psi. The lowest I ever saw my gauge go was on top of Mt. Evans at 14,000 feet and it was a horrible 4psi, with a 16% pulley!

Flat out altitude SUCKS! There isn't much you can do about it but move to a nice coastal reagon of the world.

From what I have found living in Denver, some of the mod's that dont work well at sea level work wonders up here.

 

General rule of thumb...
you should loose 1 inch of boost for each 1000 feet of elevation...(a sc runs at a fixed speed compared to the motor)...turbo's are much different....but with a sc, you should have seen about +4 with the pulley...
My gut feeling if you barely noticed a change, the bypass valve might be stuck...
It can be tested by wiring it shut, and seeing if you get more power, then replacing it if needed..costs less than $100. If stuck open, or partilly open, you will get zero or just partial boost.

 

The MINI's supercharger is a positive-displacement design (it moves a fixed volume of air per revolution), so when the air gets less dense at altitude, you simply can't push as much oxygen through the supercharger. Turbochargers are less affected by altitude, since they're not limited to a fixed volume per revolution. My wife's 2006 'S' really struggled going through Monarch Pass in Colorado this summer (11,000+ feet at its highest).

 

85k on her; DT bypass valve installed.

 

Could you please be specific about the mod that do work?
Thanks!

 

You know, I did do the VGS re-routing mod and I'm not convinced it did anything positive and my have harmed the performance. I'm gonna undo it and see what happens. Thanks Zippy.

 

Understood, but it should be doing significantly more revs with the reduced pulley, correct?

 

Yes, you're certainly better off with the reduction pulley than if you had the stock pulley, but an engine with a positive-displacement supercharger is still going to take it in the shorts at altitude - it's just the nature of the beast.

 

Yes, I'll have to ante up and get one w/a Turbo and stop throwing money at this one!
I drove a 2009 w/Turbo and it was awesome, but too much $$$ for me at the time. I've seen some JCW Coopers w/SCs here in SF and wonder how they do. Haven't had the chance to talk to any owners yet.

 

Some of your intercoolers, such as the DFIC, have a bad wrap for not doing their job at sea level, but at higher altitudes and cooler climates it actually does a better job. That probably wont apply as much to you because you live in a high desert.

Having less air to work with also means that your fuel demands are actually lower, so unless you have a car with a LOT of work in most cases the OEM 340cc fuel injectors are addiquate, and the JCW 380cc injectors are a little overkill with just bolt on's.
It also means that for better exhaust scavanging performance you dont need to go verry big with exhaust piping size. With the lower barometric pressures up here the smaller pipes will flow all the air you need and speed the exhaust gasses back up. That's a good thing.
Intakes, and Throttle bodies, some work better up here than they do at sea level. You want as much airflow as you can get, because when theres not enough air to flow well... You get the idea? Basicly you need to find what is going to help an air deprived engine flow as much air as fast as it can In and out of the motor, to raise the efficancy of the engine before it will make more power.

 

****, thanks for the specifics.

Think the Plasma Boost or Nology wires would be effective at this altitude?

^looks like the automatic bad-word-hider doesn't like your first name.

 

YA I get the **** treatment A LOT.

The Sprint booster does its job fairly well, but it doesent do anything that cant be done with a propper ECU tune. The tune would give the best power wise results, especially with the pulley. Custom "Remote" tunes are normally in the $500 range, I personally would save the money for the Sprint Booster and put it tward a tune.

The Nology Hot Wires IMHO are a hoax. It has been tested that they actually do more harm than good on a properly set up engine. Problem is they do what they say they do! They expand the spark, sounds good but its really not. When you make the spark bigger it dosent gain any voltage or power, the voltage stays the same it just spreads the spark energy farther out causing it to loose power. This is bad because the way modern engines are set to run it needs all of that spark energy all at once or it will lenghthen the burn time in the cilynders, throwing off the ignition timing which is verry precice. Also with the design of the pistons, and combustion chambers in most modern engines, a bigger spark can cause hot spots in the combustion chamber. Theese hot spots can lead to premature mechanical failure.

The factory ignition coil has been used in applications up to 400HP, and prooven to be more reliable than the available aftermarket replacements! So it's good to go.
I would however change out the wires, with good low resistance (compare OHM's between brands, you want the lowest number) with a thick silicone shielding. (I have 8.5mm Magnecore wires) I would also change out the spark plugs, either to the 1 step colder Brisks that Alta usedto sell, or NGK Irridium IX plugs also one step colder (Off the top of my head the part number is BKR7EIX... I think.)

With the new plugs/wires, pulley and tune, you would be amased at how much it could change your car.

 

^Already have the NGK Iridium plugs in place.

Tune requires some kind of ECU device and dyno?

 

Yup..for a remote tune...
A dyno and a tuner in person...they have the software to program the ecu directly.
When i lived in CO i always wanted a sc or turbo'd, but did not get one till back east...
you should still ne doing better than a normaly asperated car....even though you have 6 psi of boost...
Any other mods than just the pull? Cai? Exaust?
sprint booster does not make hp, just changes the initial accleration from initial pedal application...so it will feel faster at traffic lights, but not on a hillclimb....

 

Hell, I'm sure it's going faster than a NORMALLY aspirated car!
It's got the DT Bypass Valve (probably didn't really need it, but can't hurt), DDM CAI, 15% pulley, VGS re-route mod. Haven't done anything to the exhaust.
Yes, I know about the Sprint Booster and D1 Spec. I was referring the the PLASMA boost which is supposed to make the spark "fatter". I've been warned off that, though and pointed in the direction of Magnecor KV85 wires.

I'm SOL on the tune: no dyno anywhere in Santa Fe.

 

Wires/coil don't really "make"hp....
Mostly for looks with a modern high enery ignition system with leads ss short on a mini..
Much debate about plamsa booster, known folks with it...kinda $$ for any gain you get IF you get any...some claim smoother...but if you have spark and ignation, you have have combustion....
At altitude, you need to do everything you can to help the motor breathe...flow more air...cai, exhaust would be good...check the filter..when in the high dessert i had my filters get nasty pretty fast.
Heck if you do 99% of ypur driving in the high dessert, the sc is not working hard compressing air...a bigger reduction (smaller pulley) might get you more zip...sure it will make a bit more heat on the intake charge, but making only 7 psi right now due to elevation, a simple swap to a 17% or maybe a 19% might make sense if you are not revhappy...if you like reving, then a 17 is as big as i would go....even that can be borderline, but much cheaper than swapping out a crank pulley to get an extra 2% reduction.
Safe to say you are not using that low octane crap for fuel they sell at high elevation..85 octane...get the good stuff...still needed (most likely are, just a reminder for other high altitude folks).

 

I am considering going smaller w/the pulley. In fact, it was the first thing that occurred to me after reading the thread: this SC is not going to get that hot with my driving - very rarely over 5k and never held there. Besides which, if I get more boost it would make it even less likely I'd be up in the higher revs for long. The other consideration is that the engine has 85k miles on her: will the SC hold up with a 19% reduction? I'm really more concerned about that than how hot things will get.

Yes, of course I use the highest octane I can find, which is still only 91 out here.

All my driving is here in town or maybe a couple trips to Albuquerque, about 120 miles round trip. Honestly I'm just looking for more of a thrilling ride! I don't intend to build a race car.