LOL, maybe I was not coming across correctly but yes, lower IATs are a performance gain or will cause a performance gain.

Bottom line is that for the price it is worth a shot. However, the OP will need to monitor it to make sure he is getting something out of it and to be honest, I don't think that the OP has the tech or tools to do it properly. Maybe he'll get lucky or maybe that thing will cause a loss, who knows until we get some real numbers.

OP, good luck and I certainly hope that it works out well for you.

 

Daflake.. My comment was regarding you saying that you won't know unless you test it and you believe at this point it isn't worth the risk. If you look at original reply to this post we are on the same point that op needs to do real world tests to see it there is mentionable differences. This would largely be via IAT and IAT recovery after pulls. Boost will not be an issue as long as the fmic is sealed. He may see a slight (.5-1) psi drop soley due to volume.. But this is not far off from any other aftermarket fmic. He may not have the tools to datalog, but if he has a scanguage (which any mini owner should get as a minimum to monitor water temp ...thanks mini!) he can monitor IATs on the go, which, if the fmic is doing its job at all, will be very noticeable via the scanguage.

On stock fmic I would see iat temps up to 140*F after one gear pull on a 90*F ambient day. Now with the helix, at 90*F I'll see max 105*F After a pull... After pull... After pull. Telling me IAT and recovery is well improved over stock. That's all that's needed to be tested.

But my whole point behind it is for $200 for the OP, I think it is a VERY good risk to take a plunge to find out for the mini crowd how this thing performs. If we get data that says a $200 fmic performs 90% as well as a $800 vendor fmic... I bet you 75% of people in the market will get the $200 one. I just don't agree that it's not worth the risk and we should all get the $800 fmic.

Hell if I didn't get my helix used for $400 I would have taken this risk as op did.

 

Erik,

Tired of arguing with you... Enjoy.

 

LolZ... we are arguing the same point, aka we are both agreeing to the same end point, we are just arriving there differently. Not sure why you're "arguing" where I am responding by saying we are on the same page.

I guess this is why I'm an engineer. I take "risks" in hope of improving designs and being more efficient.

In my eyes a $200 "risk" of possiblying saving $600 overpriced vendor products can be well earned when tests provide results of whether the product should be avoided or promoted.

But in the end, I guess the marketing of oversized silicone tubes and $150 pieces of pipe to delete a "muffler" are a safer bet than buying a $8 piece of straight pipe yourself that doesn't have the "brand" name on it.

G'day to you.

 

I love the internets...haha

 

We are saying the same thing which is why I said I was tired of arguing with you. And...

As an engineer, I certainly hope you wouldn't be taking risks without testing.

As I have said 600 times in this thread, if the OP doesn't test it then he will have no clue as to the effect that it is having on his car. It could very well be 200 USD wasted... Sheesh, what is so hard to figure out about that? I never said anything about the tabs or anything else for that matter, only that we have tested a few of the Chinese knock-offs and found them highly inferior.

 

Are you done yet?

Risk = spending $200, not Risk = Not doing product testing.

If that was the case in my field, it'd be raining jet engines, not acidic rain, lol.

OP needs to gather data, end of story.

 

As I said before, whatever.

I have already seen test information on several R53 ICs that were purchased from the EBay (Chinese garbage) and can say that they won't be placed on my car. Are we done, is the question I have for you. As I said before, enjoy the thread, I am out.

 

I'm still in the thread so you have to be done to be out... I'm here to help support the OP and interested in his results. I'll continue to politely discuss in this thread as long as you'd like.

Glad you found out something about the R53 with research, this is the R56 section, intercoolers are different for the R56 platform. I could tell you even the vendor TMIC's are junk for the R53. Research there shows either stock or GP intercooler is the way to go. Meanwhile, my friend's Legacy GT has a Chinese brand intercooler. It involved about 30 minutes of enginuity to fix fitment issues. His IAT's run cooler than my name brand Helix, and are way below his stock TMIC. Though he saved $500 from the name brand TMIC. I've seen another EVO run a chinese brand intercooler, and while it had less pressure drop, it showed heavy heat soak. Apples to Oranges here...

Also, several ICs represent all Chinese garbage on ebay?... if you say so. I'm Chinese, but I'll try not to take offense to that.

Though you might not see this response since you're out.

 

The more people buying cheap parts, the more cheap parts that will come to market. The more cheap parts in the market, the better the chance of getting some DECENT cheap(er) parts.

It may blow up your car, it may outperform the big name brands. Either way, thanks for buyin it!

I agree with the "you get what you pay for" to a certain extent...but I have seen numerous cases where a cheap(er) part has been very well executed.

 

Haha we can look at it that way too!

But yes, I agree with your last statement. I'm all about "best value". Doesn't mean I'm cheap, but I certainly don't like blowing my money without doing my shopping/research.

A frequent example is my rear sway bar. Everyone is all about the h-sport, white line, alta rear sway bar, all of which were $200+. Seeing that 90% of people went to the medium (normal) to hardest (stiffer) setting (19mm sway bar), with not many people going to the softest setting.. I did my research and was able to find a RSB made by Eibach for the R56. The only difference with this bar, was the fact that it had only 2 adjustment points, where the % stiffness above stock was equivalent to the middle and hardest settings by other brand RSB's. And as an added bonus, it was a one piece bar vs the welded end plates on other RSB's which was a known high stress/weak point. In the end? I got it for $100 shipped.

The only kick was they sent the bushings for their front sway bar (25mm I think) instead of the 19mm. So, I got the $30 H-Sport bushings with zerk grease fittings. I even got half the price of the bushings refunded from the original retailer. In the end I was in $115 shipped for a equally as functional (if not better) than the brand name $200-$250 sway bars.

 

This is definately not a Helix intercooler. This is a bad chinese ripoff of the original Helix SCI. This intercooler has the inlet and outlet tubes welded on with bad fitment. Look in the tubes. There is probably area of the end tank inside (not ground away). Also there are no bullnose header bars. I've seen these before on Ebay and had them shutdown through the Ebay Vero program. I guess I have to do it again.

 

Never said it was. But thanks anyway.

Automan21 it's going to go on soon when I get an access port lol will let you know!

 

Hey,
Great input on the topic. Thanks for the good ideas. Vender would like to send correct intercooler. Great. Will first send photo, after accepting it, then send correct part. It's interesting dealing with them. We'll see if they come through. Added some pics of the car. (back at the top)

 

I got one too .............it's cheap and an experiment, the way I see it.

It is very heavy!!......... inlet and outlet pipe is over size by 0.1 " which will make hoses hard if not impossible to fit.

strange mountings ..............the welder and the grinder will be coming out this weekend....it is going to need some radical modification to fit .........interested to know if anyone has managed to install one yet........would be nice to know if it will even fit in place without hitting the grill etc. Before I start pulling the mini apart

 

I spent... paid cash for a quality $30,000+ car. I submit to y'all (southern thing) that I'm not about to waste money and possibly injure my car with cheaply made and perhaps inferior after market parts. Maybe just me....

 

So the more you pay the more its worth............ lmao

Any way ...... has any one on here managed to install one of these made in china intercoolers from allibarba.com ?.........looking for some productive information as to if they will fit or not.....if its just making some brackets thats no big deal ...don't want to pull the front of the car off to find out the hard way .

 

This thread is nuts. Not sure how you can seriously defend the OPs actions in hindsight, much less consider following his lead. Anyone expecting to get a quality FMIC from China for $200 is basically wishing on a star.

First, the fact that it is $200 in and of itself increases the odds that it is going to be shoddy. Second, China has nowhere near the quality control that the US and Europe have. In fact, it wouldn't shock me if the Chinese actually got off on selling cheap garbage to gullible Americans. It's like buying imitation Oakley Eye Jackets for $10 off a street vendor in NYC and being bummed when you find out the lenses aren't polarized and the paint is chipping off the frames.

I'm not trying to flame the OP; we've all made bad decisions in a moment of weakness and his initial post reflects an awareness that he did make a mistake. But how anyone can defend the actions in hindsight is ludicrous.

 

Thanks capta and trackntrail65 for your thoughts on the Chinese FMIC and informing others on the quality. Keep on posting, haters are going to hate.



Internet trolls are everywhere.

 

True dat.

BTW, I represent a Sudanese prince who is trying to move $10 million into the United States through an established American bank account. If you will provide us with your account information we will generously provide you with 10% of the transfer . . .

 

Sweet!!!
Sign me up!

I think another one of your coworkers sent me an email saying I inherited a **** ton of money!
Cant wait to retire!

I PM'd you all my info!

 

ok more on the china fmic from alibaba.com...............it's not the quality that is in question . It is actually well made............it's just that it's never going to fit a mini cooper turbo unless you do some radical modifications .........The ends are totally wrong ..............what they send out looks nothing like the IC in thier picture ..... it's different to the one on you tube (where the guy is showing how to install)I would have been happy if they actuall sent the right one

I dont know how they do it for the money...shame it WONT FIT without a lot of modifications!!

I intend to cut the core out and make my own ends ( I have fabrication equipment /tig welder)....I just want to pass on constructive information and save others frustration............thats the idea of this site right

 

The FMIC I bought through Fleabay fit right into the OEM fittings. Not sure why you got one so off that requires any modification. The only problem I had with it "fitting" was I had few tabs that were bent... just needed to bend it back. The car I bought it for is still in the shop so I haven't had a chance to monitor its performance but it looks pretty good. It looks very close to the Forge FMIC. The welds are a bit sloppy but they seal properly so I don't mind. I understand people's POV on buying cheap aftermarket parts, I was willing to try this piece out. Had a couple of good comments giving pointers of things to look for. I look forward to finally getting the car on the road. Here is the original post from my thread:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...56s-build.html

 

Mini///m thanks for the pictures they help a lot .....unfortunatly what arrived at my house does not look at all like your IC. The core in the middle is basically the same but the ends are square and do not angle back, hence they hit the grill/front of car and the pipes come out at the wrong angle and their bore is 0.1 inch too large to fit the down tubes from the turbo etc.

I was expecting the same as what you got, but unfortunatly not the case!
what they are marketing as sutable for a mini cooper turbo has NO chance of fitting !
so I would NOT recomend anyone to buy from alibaba.com the actual vendor in China is called" Wind -racing shop " so folks be aware what you see is not what you get !

 

^No problem. Its a shame that happened to you. I wonder what car your IC is actually for. They must have made some kind of mistake when shipping it because like you said, it simply doesn't fit. In any case, its just unacceptable that someone is selling you something different from what is being represented. Hopefully somehow your situation gets cleared up. I bought mine from eBay seller yzf03211 DAS FMIC. If I get a chance later today I will snap some pics of the intercooler installed on the car. Best of luck man.