Anyone have the M7 heat shield with the areoangel blanket. How do you guys like it? Did it bring down your intake temperatures? Do you use it with the OEM Heat Shield? I also have an Evolve Catless downpipe so a lot of heat is produced. Just trying to find the best heat shield. Any thoughts. I like my NM one but not sure if the M7 one is better. I want my Intake Temps Down! But my NM is for sale if anyone is interested. Any thoughts?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151129183149...84.m1555.l2649

 

I don't have a scangage, so I can't tell if the M7 is effective or not. It is used with the factory heat shield. I would think that the most effective ones would be the ones that wrap directly over the turbo, like made by WMW or Alta. In theory, keeping the most heat in the turbo will help performance, the wrap should be most effective at keeping the turbo hot.
The NM and M7 heat shields were likely designed to help minimize warping of the hood scoop, which was a major problem until MINI came up with its own improved heat shield.
Just my opinion. I like the M7, because it is also better looking than the factory heat shield.

Have fun,
Mike

 

To further what mb said: You want to keep heat ONLY in the HOT side of the turbo. the cold side you want as cool as possible and the center bearing and oil feed line you don't want getting excessive heat.

So with all that said, the M7 shield covers the entirety of the turbo( which as you can see, the factory one does not, nor does the AEM one they sell with their intake system, for a reason).
What you get with the M7 is something that traps heat to protect your engine bay temperature and hood scoop, while letting that heat sit there over the beating, cold side, hot side, everything. To me, that's a **** poor design.

A turbo blanket is the way to go. Keeping heat in the hot side for the turbo to be as efficient as possible, but not trapping heat over the bearing, oil line, and cold side. You understand you're asking about keeping intake temps low, and the intake air goes from the filter, to the cold side of the turbo, to the intercooler, to the intake manifold, right? Why on earth would you want a heat shield that keeps hot air all over the part of the turbo that your intake temps are affected by?

Bottom line, want to keep heat in the turbo for efficiency and to keep the heat from other things? Turbo blanket.

Want to protect your hood scoop? Get the hood mounted foil looking shield that is designed specifically for that.

Still want a full width heat shield like M7's for some reason? Well that's on you.

 

Stick with the NM heatshield the M7 isn't going to be any better.

If you want to get more protection over the turbo go with our WMW Turbo Wrap as it will wrap the hot side of the turbo.

 

How will this turbo wrap effet the longevity of the turbo? How will the wrap effect turbo warranty issues? I did read your reasoning on the website, but the dealer can easily say that the turbo failed because the wrap trapped heat leading to early failure.

 

heat on the hot side is a good thing. it's trapping heat over the bearing and cold side that will produce issues. if a dealership tries to argue that a wrap or blanket caused a premature failure, they're blowing smoke and nit picking. With that said, dealers typically have the right and sometimes practice the right, to deny warranty work based on ANY aftermarket modifications to the engine no matter if it can affect the issue or not.

 

i would not recommend the m7 heat shield i had some damage to my car from it on the track. if you really want the shield send me a pm its just sitting in my garage in the corner right now

 

Yea.. I ordered the M7 and I regret selling my NM.
It fit like crap and was not stable. Could not keep the mini cover on for the spark plugs. Even though I installed it. I demanded a refund and they are on the process of giving me one. I am now looking at the WMW Turbo wrap. Not sure how that is.

 

So on 9-26 mb says it's probably not the best option, and I explain why it is actually a BAD option.
On 9-30 a reputable retailer says your current product is just as good at the job, so you don't need to waste your money.
By 10-6 you had already ordered, received and installed it????

Sorry but why does anyone ask advice on forums when they either already bought the product or is planning to ignore any advice against wasting their money on something anyway??? You even SOLD the perfectly good product you already had installed.

Why is the recommended route the ALTERNATIVE after going down the road advised against??
Ugh......


Anyway, the turbo wrap will be a more involved installation but will yield much better results. I'm not repeating why a heat wrap is far superior to these heat soak shields again, just read and re-ignore what I posted above.

 

My bad. I wrote it wrong. And realized I didn't make sense either haha.
I asked the question on the 23rd and had no replies.
And I ordered the M7 on the 26th right before you posted it.
So after that I couldn't cancel the order so I was pretty mad. I decided to give it a shot. And when i received it. It fit like crap(not the NM) and didn't do anything to my FIA. So I had to argue and get a refund. But now I'm deeply considering the turbo wrap. But not sure how hard the install will be.
Hopefully not a pain in the ***. I'm just waiting for my refund from M7. I just want my Inlet temperatures down. Not sure if I should invest in a better heat shield. Or DDMworks RIS or DOS Intake.

 

I do not see any of the aftermarket intakes bringing down intake temps. The factory box is enclosed and has a cool air tube going up behind the headlight. An of the open-to-air filters in the engine bay intakes are going to be worse, and the ones that incorporate the hood scoop(DDM and AEM) I don't see giving you a huge increase in cooler air entering the intake.
Another note with these intakes: Their intake attachments that go to the hood scoop run along the top of the engine(where the factory "cool air" tube is off to the cold side of the engine bay). Heat rises. This means, instead of hitting your hood that is metal which will conduct heat out, into the atmosphere, it's now hitting a portion of your intake. And if I am seeing things right, DDM's scoop attachment is even Aluminum??? A metal that is known for things like heatsinks that radiate heat away... so you have hot air rising, hitting an aluminum piece of your intake system, transferring it into that scoop piece, and letting your engine suck that hot engine bay air into the car. That's what I see with the wallet-raping "race" intakes.

The DoS intake I GUESS could yield cooler air, but I really think the whole cut a hole in the firewall divider to pull air from the cowl is a kind of annoying, ugly, and retarded design.

Also, there are multiple reviews on here stating people have lost low end power with aftermarket intakes just to gain the magical "claimed" power increases so high in the powerband, it's completely useless if it exists at all.

With all that said, I would go ahead and get the WMW blanket, put it on, reinstall the factory heat shield over it, and remeasure your engine bay and intake temps. That in itself should yield some better results than any of the insanely priced intakes the companies seem to raping MINI owners on. AEM is the only intake so comprehensive, well designed, and well fitting that I can see justifying it's cost. All the other shoddy looking ones that people have fitment and heat soak issues with are just as much or more. HUGE waste of money.

If intake temps are the big concern, start with the WMW blanket, sill not happy with intake temps specifically? Save up for a better intercooler. Next step after that is meth.

 

Wow. Thanks man. I appreciate the time you took to give me advice. Do you have the Turbo wrap? Do you know if it's going to be a pain in the *** to install? I won't waste my money on a new intake. You made me realize that intakes don't really do crap instead of make a cool sound and most likely cause heat soak and suck in hot air. I just wanted to bring temps down for when summer comes around again because our turbo cars hate the 100 degree weather and I can feel that my car hates me. The Intercooler is out of my pocket right now but is planned. Probably Forge or Helix. Any advice for install on the turbo wrap? Thanks a lot.

 

I haven't personally done it, but I believe there is at least one How-To on the forum. I have seen a few people with it. it seems removal of the factory heat shield is more involved than it looks, and the heat wrap might require turbo removal. So it's not a quick bolt on part, but I don't see any part of it being out of the realm of a handy do it yourself-er.

As for the intake systems, all I'm seeing in the way of real world experience is a loss in low end power and some cool sounds.

It may not help a ton if at all in the way of dropping intake temps(I never did before and after measurements), but one thing that was reasonably cheap that I did was the Forge blow off spacer. It takes the hot air that your recirc. valve would normally shoot into your intake and vents it to atmosphere. It's pretty loud so if that's not your thing, maybe don't get it, but for under $100, it seemed like a solid buy for me. Shooting the excess charged air back into the intake system, if avoidable, sounded like something to avoid! Some cars are metered in a way that you can't safely do so. Our American sold MINI's do not throw any codes or have any ill performance results from this.

 

(company pic)

Seriously? "Ugly"? Looks like a pretty clean and nice looking set up to me. "Retarded"? An almost straight flow of cold air (one turn) into the engine... "Annoying"? I wouldn't change it!

 

I guess for the cost of these intakes, I expect more than a filter/housing, some weather stripping and a coupler or two. Then you have to permanently modify a part of your car or pay for their cowl/firewall piece to replace yours and send them yours... and still have a permanently modified part. That just annoys me I guess.

AND, I still want to see dyno proof of a worthwhile performance gain after all that. If it's a couple extra ponies way up top, like every other intake, at the sacrifice of low end torque, I'm still going to advise against it. It doesn't make sense to do all that work and spend all that money to SAY you have more power, but having it be nearly unusable at the cost of the power you're ALWAYS using.

 

Anyone adding a CAI (or any single part) in order to achieve any rear difference are mistaken. I never did this. I added parts to make my Mini the best it could be (ie: breath better/handle better etc). This was also my way to get him ready for a tune which is the only real way to achieve real world power gains of any use. Notice below. The only thing I really lack is a meth kit and I just don't want to have to deal with one.

 

We've sold over a hundred of our turbo wraps and I only know of one customer that had his turbo replaced under warranty and they didn't have any issue with the wrap. So it does always depend on the dealer about warranty.