I have read a ton of information here and other places about the intercoolers for the R53 needing more capacity and flow. I know JCW has proven results.

I guess if you take a shortcut and need to have a marketable item that's fine but I truly believe from past experience this is the intake answer for increased flow. Have you ever seen the inside of the complete intake system? It's like a corn cobb in there!

Beside the fact the engineers put 5lbs in a 10lb pound bag, which I am glad the achieved , the rough cast is what hinders the flow with the given design of manifolds packed in there.

JMHO.


http://extrudehoneafm.com/

 

Intercooler upgrades aren't a waste of money if you put them in an area that isn't subject to heatsoaking. The gains realized from switching from a top-mount or side-mount, to a front-mount, are very real. Putting a bigger intercooler in the same shitty spot, well, that's a waste of time.

 

Well just where the heck you think JCW put the updated oversized intercooler? Same shitty spot. All I am saying is volume in the same shitty spot is no good and if you smooth out the passages you will get a better gain in performance. Those things are ROUGH inside.
Mmmmmm $850 for a forge performance intercooler plus new diverter trim and seals hooked in the same shitty spot over the engine top on a r53 with the same little scoop only letting in so much air through it too, or $850 to smooth out the two elbows and intake manifold. My choice manifold and elbows with extrude hone.
Just simply MHO,

fleebay #
230988989884

 

Please do tell what are the gains from going to the side mount or the horizontal flow cooler? Did you dyno yours to see and what did it all costs to swap to the side type? I calculate about $1K from what I located.

 

I'm not arguing with you, friend. I'm saying that for a daily driven car that is subject to periodic traffic stops, an oversized intercooler in the same heatsoaked engine bay is barely an upgrade, regardless of how smooth the inside is.

The main hindrance in terms of performance of intercoolers isn't how smooth or rough they are internally, it's their location on the car, and the temps commonly seen at that location.

I still run my top mount on the R53 because, well, they're aren't many good options besides custom for relocating it. On about 5 or 6 of my past cars, they came stock with top or side-mount intercoolers. Simply upgrading to a reasonably sized front-mount unit brought on significant gains in power just to cooler intake temps.

No matter what and how much you extrude / hone something, it isn't going to change the fact that it's in a shitty location, subject to very high temperatures. Generally speaking, the goal when upgrading intercoolers is to move to a larger or higher capacity unit so that it can cool more air and more efficiently than the stock unit. Honestly, air turbulence isn't the issue here. It's nice to consider, but would be last on my list if I was looking to improve performance with a budget.

 

I'm not arguing with you, friend.


Agreed.

 

Hahaha, right on.

I think that you'd be spending a lot of cash for minimal gain. Spend $250 on a basic water/meth kit, and the car will pull like everyday is a cool, Fall day.

 

In 2013, you'd think that if the gains of a front mount intercooler were that big on a Mini, they would be all over the place! If you want to upgrade the intercooler, go with the GP one. No matter what intercooler you use, it will heat soak sitting in traffic... but the gains will comes when it matters, during actual driving. There isn't many options for a good one, but the GP is one of them, I don't know if there's a lot of DoS intercoolers out there, but it looks decent, but more pricey.

 

I am a bit miffed why I have not heard of a nitrous monster on here with some pics or video of it shredding tires? Mini cooper that is.

Hint................

 

Yup. It's the quick recovery rate of the relatively low-mass factory cooler which makes it better for most uses. The GP has a little more volume for marginally better performance, while maintaining the low mass for quick recovery after heat soak.

 

Because you can shred tires just fine with a s/c! There is a couple Minis on here with nitrous tho. Nitrous is also more of a staight line thingy and Minis are known to hate doing those :p

 

The need for "quick recovery" can be made a non-issue by simply starting with a quality piece in the correct location. How about making an effort to eliminate heatsoak from the get-go, by installing the intercooler where it belongs; not on top of a very very hot engine, in a very hot engine bay. As boost increases, so does temperature, and we've got half of this forum running the blower beyond it's efficiency & producing 17-20psi, then pumping it through a tiny intercooler that sits on a hot engine, in a hot engine bay. I know for a fact that you guys see gains just by upgrading the intercooler on the 1 and 3 series BMWs. That's going from a FMIC to FMIC; now imagine if you started with some junky top or side-mount unit. The gains would be considerable in comparison.

The only potential argument you could have against upgrading to a front-mount is 1) Cost of custom fitting 2) Lag. Lag is not so much of an issue with supercharged cars as it is turbo, and even with turbos, choosing an appropriately sized intercooler and charge pipes offers negligible increase in lag.

Many manufacturers actually do use FMIC from the factory. BMW 1 and 3 series (sound familiar?), Mitsubishi Evolution, SRT-4, certain Volvos, Audi S3, etc. They just don't generally appeal to the masses, or anyone beyond dedicated, performance oriented folks. Joe Blow and Sally Sue, who just bought their MINI, aren't going to want to deal with a loose charge pipe coupler, or banging the front-mount intercooler on tall curbs at Bed, Bath & Beyond on Sunday. That doesn't mean that it's not a better performing piece...

There's this massive and recurring naivety I keep seeing in the community, which says "things which apply to other cars, don't apply to my special MINI" and it's simply not true. I've seen a common theme of people being afraid to go against the grain. There are people that still believe no other fuel injectors work in the R53 other than OEM and those offered by select MINI vendors. You're not a unique snowflake, and truths that have existed in Motorsports of years past, also apply to your special MINI.

This weekend, do a few WOT runs with your MINI and pull over immediately after. Turn the car off, pop the hood, then lay your entire hand on the intercooler *ouch* Now go touch the mesh insert in the lower front valance; Where would you prefer your intercooler be ?...

 

I think that no matter how logical it might sound, the top-mount on the R53s is a bad idea, though we don't have many options, unless you custom fabricate some cowls, bend some tubes, cut some plastic and route a FMIC. I like custom making **** and putting it together hahaha. All engineering efforts went to making this car's suspension.... and still we manage to find better things hahaha

 

Have you ever read on here about front mount? Of course it's more logical for the intercooler to be in a cooler place, but on a Mini we're talking about much longer tubing and pressure drop. In order to fight the loss of pressure, it would require to up the boost and as you've said, we're already asking too much from the s/c.

From what we've seen from people trying it, it doesn't look like there's a lot of positive gain. We all know it's hot under there and as someone who take my Mini on a track, I can confirm that the intercooler is hot after a 10 minutes session.

We have a bunch of great tuners for Minis and if people that does this for a living don't really bother, from either trying FMIC or seeing others fail, I think it's normal for people to stick to oem design. Like I've said, by now we would be able to buy a FMIC setup for a Mini from major vendors if it was that great ON A MINI. Not all cars are similar, let alone react the same with similar mods.

 

I agree with what you say, pressure drop is a *****. Meth injection would be the best bet then or the GP IC + MI haha

 

Yes, it'd be somewhat difficult and pricey.

We (I) got off-track a bit, but the point is that regardless of size, make, brand, internal smoothness, etc, a top mount is not ideal. Is it worth spending $1500 on a custom set-up...no, not for me; I'd run water/meth injection instead.

 

If one person can furnish quantitative data (dyno, logs, research of any sort) which even remotely suggests that upgrading from the stock R53 top-mount, to a front-mount housed behind the bumper, does not provide significant gains, I'll gladly eat crow.

 

Been done back in the day....
Like da-ghost said....the psi drop and lag it created with the current sc made it a no go....
Many of us watched it with interest..... But net gains were minimal....
Out if you got a bigger volume sc, aka a sprintex....the gains might be there....but the switch makes less heat...so less of a reason to change.....and other items in the motor become limiting factors.....
Go full custom.....do anything....but most folks like OEM+ IMO....that is OEM fit, performance, and reliability.... But all one step higher, with a lower cost......custom tends to become finicky... And sometimes have severe drawbacks....either usability, matainabity, or reliability.....
Go too far from the OEM....you loose the balance.....
The front mount ic has been done on a r53....
For the issues, water cooled (simpler plumbing) made more sense for the $$.....so the front mounted with custom parts did not take off (the ones we all watched were canceled due to lack of gains..were one off developmental cars).....the similarly priced water cooled kits DID sell...nice, but $$ for the gain.....

 

Be-Kool offered a sizable front-mount for the R53 that had only a 0.5psi pressure drop. That's nothing. Does anyone know how that panned-out ?

If the work has already been done (which I know it has to some degree), and it's been deemed "inefficient", there must be data somewhere and I'd love to see it. I'm an Engineer; you can't just tell me "it doesn't work, trust me.."

I totally agree; it's very costly to do something so custom. That doesn't change the performance aspect though. It changes the cost-to-benefit ratio, but nothing more. Not to get too off-topic (as I love to do), but on this particular car (R53) in terms of upgrades that decrease IAT, and increase air charge density, there is nothing better or more cost effective than a basic mater/meth injection system.

 

Just revisited this thread. I hadn't seen that Big Chill thinks my response was BS.

Helix has spent considerable time testing charge coolers. What we have found is that packaging a FMIC on an R53 is not a good solution for a couple of reasons.

1st, as stated above, is the pressure drop issue with a FMIC, and the limited returns in increasing supercharger boost to compensate. I'm not aware of any production, install-ready FMIC for the R53 which produces only a .5 lb. drop at any boost level. I'm afraid that claiming a .5 lb. pressure drop for a FMIC on a R53 is, shall we say, hyperbole.

2nd, Packaging a FMIC on the R53 is difficult to do on street cars. The problems that people have encountered include compensating for engine movement when using non-round charge tubing. Basically, if you want to fit a FMIC without cutting the bumper support (a street car safety no-no), you need non-round tubing, typically fabricated of FRP or other plastics, which make for difficult flex joining. With engine movement in the chassis, you get tubing failure and boost leaks over time. Bottom line: it's very difficult to package a working, durable FMIC for a street R53.

That's why I spoke instead of recovery rate being the biggest real-world factor in charge cooling R53s. No BS!

 

No no no. I'm not so naive that I'd call everything you said "BS". I recognize and appreciate the time Helix spends on the MINI brand.

The front-mount with only 0.5psi drop that is supposedly a hyperbolic claim, was made by Be-Cool, and was far more popular on MiniTorque forums. 0.5psi is their claim, not mine.

I agree 100% that packaging constraints are a huge limiting factor for the R53, and to reiterate, my claim is not that a front-mount supplies a better cost-to-benefit ratio, my claim is that a properly sized and placed intercooler would benefit the R53 a great deal when compared to current offerings in top-mount form. "Proper" in my mind, is not sitting on top of a motor in a very very hot engine bay. Engine movement and how it affects intercooler and boost tubing connection reliability is nothing new, and t-bolt clamp, quality piping, and proper flexing couplers have always been the best defense against excessive engine movement's effect on intake tract reliability.

Again, I'm not touting that it's cheap, easy, or readily available, rather, it's something that if all aspects such as cost of fab were not an issue, final IAT's could be improved a great deal with a properly sized and located intercooler. Keep the intercooler small, mount it in a cool area, and if throttle response is now an issue, implement a ram-air type intake to assist. None of this is new tech, it's just not cost effective for our specific OEM or aftermarket....but that doesn't mean it's not better.

 

Just as a young aspiring tuner, I made the swap to a bigger intercooler, in the same shitty spot.... and believe it or not, visible power gains, I also have the water/meth kit, but there are benefits to bigger tmic's, an fmic would be incredible, but there are very few people who have accomplished this feat, and it doesn't seem to be reliable for daily driving. Definitely don't buy a huge brand new tmic from DoS or anyone like that, i went for a lightly used alta tmic, that is slightly larger than the GP, and it didn't break the bank, and I do see gains

just read TheBigChill's post, #16, I completely agree, basically making this post redundant

 

Just to reiterate:

I have no doubt that upgrading to a better flowing and slightly larger capacity top-mount will provide some gains on an R53. To make this even more clear, I've owned, built, and tuned 3 turbocharged cars which came from the factory with top-mount intercoolers, and 4 more turbocharged cars that came with side-mount intercoolers. There was always a gain when upgrading the intercooler to a larger but still reasonably sized unit, regardless of front, top, or side mounted. Agreed.

The reality is that the engine bay is not the best place for an intercooler of any size, on any car. In terms of daily driveability of cars with front-mount intercoolers, I'd refer you again to the multiple performance cars on the market which come stock with a front-mount intercooler. A properly designed front-mount is perfectly reliable, so long as end-tanks and charge piping couplers are easily accessible.

To go one step further, I guarantee that the majority of your butt dyno gains are from the meth/water injection, not the Alta intercooler. That has, and always will, cool intake charges better than any intercooler can when driving aggressively. The only thing that an intercooler has on meth/water, is that the intercooler is always functioning, while a meth/water system only activates (generally speaking) at higher boost and RPM levels (unless you're running IDC based injection).

 

On a slightly un-related note, TheBigChill, how do you like your OBX headers? Are you running cat-less, or did you weld in the OEM cat?

 

I like it. It seems to have given good mid-range gains, and some up top as well.

I'm running it catless. I use a Vibrant O2 simulator, that has adjustable gas flow inserts for picky rear O2 sensors. 8 months and no CEL. As others have said, removing the cat adds some noise and some stink. A good catback will limit the Db level. Mine is excessive at WOT using the old style Magnaflow system.