LOL, a car is a car. If that were the case then all those mechanics that work on various cars wouldn't be able to do it. The premise is the same.

Either way I am still waiting for the numbers of both stock and the new IC. I hope he pulls good ones, but I am still not holding my breath.

 

True, and I'll admit I was arguing just for the fun of it.

 

I normally do NOT engage in this stuff but what HELL.....IF your idea of modifying a car for more speed etc is based on going out and just buying something like joe blow did to his car with the mind set "'the more you pay the more its worth

Well.........best you can hope for is having something that is lesser or equal to what joe blow has !............going out on your own and experimenting has a chance of coming up with something NEW...........99 times out of a hundred it fails ...but some times you come up with some thing great..

Back in my racing days I took great delight in beating the Guys with rich daddies who paid and paid and paid just to try to win...(these guy did not even know how to put a blade in a hack saw ...but were real good at boasting how much they paid for XY&Z )... I took great delight beating them with my low budget home built race car............the mentality of the more you pay the more its worth will always be around ! BUT IT WON'T ALWAYS WIN!

I personally have no interest in how much some one paid for their car !
I am here to share ideas and get performance at the lowest possible price

 

LOL, gotcha!

 

I am actually tempted to buy this intercooler and run some numbers. I am very curious about whether it would or would not work.

 

I Love my eBay intercooler, all in $270 shipped. A little background, while this intercooler is tube and fine the end tanks are quite large and the core looks very well constructed. I fit this to my 2011 with a jcw kit, the only gripe was I had to trim a bit of the plastic fan shroud legs. This was not a problem or what I would consider a issuse. Coming frome the mazdaspeed with 375hp on e85 and a and intercooler issuses in Az I can tell you without seeing Charge temps that this intercooler recovers very quick after repeated runs. Hopefully soon we will get an ap for the n18's!! Anyways love the intercooler and would not hesitate to recommend.

 

Hmmmm the Helix looks like the one from china, also between the forge, helix and the china one tested guess what...... the same thing in performance.

 

Rather than making an unsubstantiated claim like that, how about you show the information and variables from this "test".

 

Hahaha this is the most absurdly hilarious post I think I've ever read on NAM and that's saying something!

 

LOLz! Excellent first post, Troll, and thanks for your meticulous empirical data.

 

would love to see some numbers.

 

I have my used genuine Helix FMIC for sale, may be buried in the classifieds now, but PM me if interested.

 

I think we should hold off on poking fun at the person who said the two intercoolers look similar (they do...) and perform similarly (curious on this one) until we run some numbers.

 

Well when are we going to see these numbers? He popped in here made a statement as fact and hasn't returned. Numbers are an important factor but not the only factor. Build quality and service life mean as much to me.

 

I have the Chinese one. Install was straight forward. Fits without modifications. I had to order some more plastic pop retianers, and might just take bumper off to assure all is good, once they show up. Car runs fine, do not really have any way to know what performance delta is.

I bought mine, because in Phx, we get some pretty extreme heat. I see 235 on EOT and WT, in the summer. I can see 120 IAT. My "wonder" was could the bigger FMIC increase engine life, thorugh cooler IAT's, maybe lessening oil related heat soak in the turbo?

It is cool right now, relatively, and so I can't really tell what the benefit will be for Engine temps. I will say, with the cooler temps, it has always "felt" better. So maybe this will last a little longer into the summer months.

I haven't tracked the car, but may do an offical 1/4mi run, just to see how it stacks up with on-line data. I have been known to run the car a little sporty on the open road, and so gaining a little sportiness is nice, espeiclly in a stealth way.

 

I bought the DAS Auto Group (AliExpress) FMIC to give it a test. I didn't have a good experience.
1. Item was not as described. No mounting hardware nor replacement front grill as advertised.
2. Bent mounting tabs (easily bent back into place as if this thing is made of pewter)
3. Required drilling, dremel, trimming, hammering, and force to get it to "fit"
4. Bumper cover alignment is still off a little
5. Non-existent customer service.

I do have an AccessPORT and will monitor the data logs but so far, I've not seen anything that impresses me about this FMIC other than the price. Perhaps in summer temps, I'll be able to notice some advantages... if the thing lasts that long!

My goal was to increase intake flow, provide cooler and more dense air to the turbo, and ultimately increase HP. (Looking cool never factored into my decision to buy this mostly hidden part)

I came to this thread for reviews of the FMIC, not to argue with all the experts and engineers.

I post this review just for information only. Hopefully, it will help those that are considering this purchase. No need to respond with opinions, insults, arguments or any other smarmy comments.

In hindsight, I should have waited and saved to purchase a more quality product than the FMIC from Das Auto Group and Ali Express.

 

I picked up the FMIC off aliexpress, and seem to have had an experience contrary to some in this thread. I've got a pre-owned low mileage 2008 MCS that is gradually being built up on a bit of a budget.

The link I bought it off of mentioned nothing about new grills, or mounting hardware included but it fit fine using stock mounts and with a little care the original clamps and clips were very much re-usable. I had it installed at a local tuner who tested for leaks bother prior to, and after installation with out issue. It did arrive with a bit of a dent on one of the ports, but that was an easy fix. All in it came to $235 with shipping to western Canada.

Shipping took ~ 2 weeks from receipt of payment, I used Western Union since the site was having issues processing my credit card at the time. Since then I've bought some random things without any trouble.

At the same time I had them remove the intercooler muffler thingy, so the car sounds a little bit sportier. Unfortunately I had all the work done in the fall, and haven't been able to push the car in hot weather which is where I would expect to see the most gains. It is definitely happier in stop and go traffic, and has been said before it just "feels" better. Both from my perspective as a driver, and from my very experienced mini co-pilot. I've driven dozens of r56's, so my butt dyno may be better calibrated than some.

As for the price, I got what I paid for... an intercooler. It's ~250% larger than stock, so it can't help but be more efficient. By how much, I don't know for sure but I doubt I'd see 4x's more power from a more expensive product. Even with having someone else do the work due to time/weather constraints I'm still well below the cost of other intercoolers.

I'll do my best to get some numbers once I'm done my budget build up, but as is the case with most folks around here the biggest gain will be found with the accessport and eventual custom remapping.

 

You couldn't be more wrong. Bigger does not mean more efficient. In fact, you could actually be hindering performance. Airflow, the ability to move heat and many other factors can affect performance. Just because it is bigger doesn't mean squat and tuning a car on that concept will lead you down many rabbit holes. Your post did give me a good chuckle though. I certainly hope you were joking with your post.

 

I'm not entirely sure how you thought I might be joking?

Perhaps you missed where I mentioned boost was checked before and after install? With a negligible drop in pressure, increased surface area, and over all better materials than the OEM intercooler (Aluminum vs Plastic) the new intercooler is an improvement over stock. It should make for a cooler, denser charge, and be less prone to heat soak. Is it as good as the Forge design it parrots? or Alta's? Maybe not, but are they 3-4x's more effective than it is?

If you look at just about every single offering for an upgraded FMIC for the r56 you'll see they're all around the 250% mark. It's not a coincidence, that just happens to be the sweat spot people have found for a net gain in power via a cooler charge vs loss in pressure.

You can get gains via materials and engineering as well, and/or going the Water to Air route like DoS has. As much as I want one, I don't have thousands to spend on one.

I'll agree that bigger isn't always better, which is why we don't see some sort of crazy arms race in how large of an intercooler people cram into the front of a car. That sort of nonsense seems to be relegated to the exhaust size discussions :P

 

If it is better, then please post up the before and after dyno and inlet temp numbers so we can all see them. Also, since you are comparing it to Forge and Alta, please buy those units and post up those numbers as well. If you don't do this, everything you just posted is pointless. You can't make claims with no empirical data.

Enjoy your ride though...

 

I'm not sure if it's worth even responding to this. Your posts are littered with errors and misconceptions. It's hard for me to find a respectful way of saying this, so I apologise for the bluntness: you have a vague concept of intercooler design and efficacy. Try doing some reading on intercooler design and interactions with electronically controlled turbochargers. Pay attention to Efficiency, Pressure drop, Boost targets, Wastegate duty cycle, Fin density and laminar vs. turbulent flow.

 

I've got a pretty solid understanding of intercooler design, certainly better than most. If I've made a specific error, please let me know. I'd like nothing more to learn from people who get to do what you folks do for a living.

Here's what I know/understand to be true (if I'm wrong don't be afraid to re-educate me);

For every degree cooler you get compressed air, you get .25%ish more air, more air means more fuel, more fuel means more power. The equation is very rough, but close enough for the internet. That's why even a 10 degree drop can be very beneficial to over all power gains. Turbos push thousands of liters of air around, air density adds up fast with any sort of forced induction.

Compressing the air in a turbo increases both it's density and temperature, and pressure is lost as the hot air expands. Cooling the air helps retain the air density the turbo worked so hard to achieve. It's a fine line to walk to cool the air with out losing too much pressure, but so long as you've got an improved source of cooler compressed air for your engine to gulp down you'll go faster. Sometimes cooler is better, sometimes more pressure is better.

Laminar flow is bad for heat transfer. There will always be a slower moving warmer current of liquid (air). Laminar Flow is very good for well, flow. Pressure is much more easily retained in a system that is built to be conducive to laminar flow. It's also much more predictable to model.

You've got good looking tanks on your product, and what looks to be very nice materials and workmanship that promote laminar flow, over come boost loss and when all is said and done, make great power. All the good you've done with engineering easily over comes the inherent disadvantages to heat transfer with laminar flow.

Turbulent flow is great for heat transfer. Turbulent flow is bad for... flow. Most industrial cooling applications are built to encourage turbulence, but a turbulent system needs more management to maintain pressure and constant flow rates.

I've got a cheap intercooler, that loses boost pressure (but is still comparable to the OEM part in that regard) but does a decent enough job cooling the air. It's got some rough edges, and odd angles that introduce turbulence, In the end there's more cooling than boost loss, and it makes more power. It's dependence on using brute force (for lack of a better term) on the cooling side of things to over come pressure loss would be a liability in a car with more boost. You couldn't simply make it bigger to make it better (like the ricers who experience turbo lag blaming it on have a bigger intercooler to "fill-up"), you'd simply have to make it better which is what I hope most aftermarket vendors are doing.

Where I'm headed that's good enough. The r56 ECU likes cold air (esp with the stock programming), and with my goal of having a zippier daily driver, not a track eating monster I wont be at a loss for boost pressure.

If I was chasing 250+ WHP, running on air I can assure you that your product would be at the top of my list.

It's never been my inference that this intercooler is better than any specific after market option. I'll simply contend it's a winner in the price vs. performance equation, at least when it comes to my needs, and that's it's better than OEM.

Other people have had negative experiences with this product, I luckily have not.

Someone looking to make big safe power should look elsewhere, there's never anything to be had on the cheap if that's your goal.

 

I'm not going to address the rest of your post as it is clear that you have an extremely basic concept of this topic. I will however address this part.

What proof do you have that it is comparable? Numbers? Also, what proof do you have to say that it is doing a "descent enough"job?

This is where I have a huge problem with this thread. If that IC is better, then it should be easy enough to post up some numbers and prove it. However, I am willing to bet that it actually isn't any better at doing its job over stock and since nobody is willing to post up numbers I will stick with my current position that it is only a cheap strap on part with no added functionality or gain.

Bottom line is that I am happy that you have a new IC but you can't come on here claiming it adds any performance unless you are willing to back it with a little proof.

 

Whelp. I did read this whole post, and I stand by what I said above. Nuff said.

 

Ok, Gentlemen. It's time for someone to suggest that you take this back and forth to a private message or perhaps start a different thread. This thread has the potential to be helpful to those that might be considering the purchase of this particular FMIC or those that already have. Can we please get back to the thread topic? I know I would appreciate it! Thank you!