You're welcome.

I have heard of actual member getting one detonation killing their engine, usually a broken rod. Imagine getting a bad detonation at 6000 rpms, there goes your engine. Also the W/M came out because 1000+ hp engines were getting detonation killing the engine, that's why W/M injection was conceived, to keep detonation from happening and another good side effect is it keeps you from busted rings and keeps your piston landing from (melting) excessive heat.

 

Typically when a nice product is designed for a brand name company and it is a relatively low volume product, the company that designed it has to recoup some of the money invested. To do this, they jack up the price and have the parts manufactured overseas. The problem lies with what happens when the schematics get overseas. Lets say a Chinese factory is making 100 intercoolers for CompanyX, they cost the factory $100 each to manufacture and they sell them to CompanyX for $200. The factory clears $100 per unit. CompanyX then slaps their badges on it and some hose clamps so they can say "Designed and Assembled in the USA" and they charge $800. The Chinese factory sees this and figures since they have the schematics and are all set up, instead of 100, they'll make 200 intercoolers. The first 100 go to CompanyX, the rest go up on eBay as off brand intercoolers being sold at $400 each. These obviously yield a $300 profit per unit. Now rather than making just $10,000 for the 100 intercoolers, they are making $30,000 for making 200 intercoolers. This means they bumped their profit per unit by 50% and overall profit by 300%. They know they won't get in trouble, because it's China. If eBay bans them, they just create another account (they have plenty of people).
Here's the downside. Just like downloading music and movies, the original artist/engineer doesn't get any of the share when you get a bootleg copy. You all see what this has done to the music and movie industry - we get albums with maybe one acceptable song, we get movies with the same plot over and over again. No one puts in the effort because they won't be making as much money. You can already see this happening with aftermarket car parts. More and more parts are being released underdeveloped, or as retrofitted parts that were originally designed for other cars.
As someone who has had a lot of experience with both ends of the spectrum, I'll say this:
Pre turbo exhaust components - do not buy from China, the welds are sometimes made too hot which makes the metal around them brittle and it can fracture.

Post turbo exhaust - who cares? A 3" tube is a 3" tube.

Intercoolers - don't typically have the weld issues that the exhaust manifolds have.
One, because they are aluminum so it's not like welding stainless. Two, because they aren't subject to the type of heat the exhaust manifold is.

Carbon Fiber stuff - what I have found is that Chinese CF is nicer than most stuff we make over here. I can only attribute this to them possibly having newer manufacturing techniques since they just recently started mass producing CF items.

I'll be buying an eBay brand intercooler.

 

Did the OP ever get this mounted and tested?

 

op will surely deliver....

 

Don't see them for $150 anymore. Closest I could find are $270.

 

we'll I decided that I'd give it a shot and ordered one from eBay for 270. will be sure to let y'all know how it is once I get it installed early next week (hopefully). I had a buddy who got one from eBay for his mini and was very satisfied with it is I figured why not.

 

Link please?

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http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=141385885110

 

Thank you.

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Is the Forge bar and plate?
I hear unless its a properly designed and manufactured bar and plate then the tube and fin is better. Go to alibaba.com or aliexpress and search for intercooler for Mini. I see Forge stuff on there although not advertised by them directly.

 

That's where I got my blowoff spacer. Came in a box with forge printed on it but without their name machined on the side of the spacer and wasn't advertised as Forge but works perfectly.

Not bad for $17AUS delivered

 

you couldn't be more on point. its funny really, we take lots of pride in our industry here, but carbon mass production was moved overseas years ago since its such an inherently dirty/toxic process. they have been playing with the stuff for YEARS and doing it in much higher volumes then will ever happen here; they know what they are doing. if they didn't, they wouldn't get paid or keep their production contracts rolling, its quite simple. I laugh when people pay $8000 for an S-works road bike frame when they could've gotten an equivalent knock off for $1000 (which was probably made in the same factory, probably by the same guy). either one is going to break when you crash into a curb or lay it down at 40 mph.

global economics is a wonderful thing!

 

From the pics on Waymotorworks, it looks like a tube and fin. The eBay one for $270 looks almost identical except for the top tab. (This is where the branding comes in) Even the eBay ad quotes the exact specs as the Forge, "....is constructed using a combined 80/40mm high thermal efficiency core, with a 250% larger surface area and a 125% thicker base core...." The only downside is that with the eBay one you wouldn't get the bigger grill insert.

 

Can a bigger grill insert be purchased separately from the Forge kit?

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it arrived today, pretty damn quick for getting shipped from China. it's built really well, welds are good and all. I will report back after I install it next week.

 

The question is what's it made of, what grade aluminum...? I doubt it's the same aluminum that Helix FMIC is made of.

 

grade 7 prime choice.

but really, how am I supposed to answer this? if it makes you feel better about spending 700 more dollars on an FMIC then, yes, it's probably not the same aluminum as helix.

 

Of course, I didn't expect an answer, it was more a statement hint, hint.. If they were made of the same aluminum everybody would be buying them. It would be very interesting if there was a review of at least three intercoolers with the China copies, personally I'd rather buy the Helix FMIC.

 

the grill isnt needed, the only reason the grill comes with the forge intercooler is because its thinner(not bigger)
from what i have read, the forge intercooler doesnt even need the thinner grill and you do not need to modify the stock grill
forge is bar and plate and the ebay one i bought is literally a forge intercooler(painted black), its bar and plate with amazing fin density and turburlators(not sure if i spelled it right or if im not using the right term but you know what i mean) put in place for flow

aluminum is the same, why wouldn't it be? i can buy ebay exhausts for less then $300 and it will have 304ss, the same grade stainless steel $1000+ exhausts use
the reason people do not buy these intercoolers is because of people who buy the branded ones **** talk all the "no name" intercoolers when in fact its literally the same thing, i have seen the inside of a forge intercooler and several bar and plate intercoolers and the ebay forge replica intercooler i picked up is well designed and is very high quality and im actually willing to bet that my intercooler is a forge unit from the same factory just without the name(the chinese get away with doing that all the time thanks to china's amazing copyright laws)

i respect choice, and i respect yours to only get a helix intercooler but the no name intercoolers are not bad by any means

ill update this more when i get my car back from the shop next week, i would have done the install myself but since it was there i was like ill let BMW install the intercooler for me

 

subbed, OP let us know how everything turns out

 

Good to know! Thank you sir.

 

China is well known for producing forgeries from speakers like (why M&K Sound went bankrupt) because they just stole the design and even forged stickers to make them appear to be the real thing but were not. The brand was destroyed because of this, I hope China someday joins the rest of the world when it comes to copyright and patents laws. I can dream can't I, not really a question.

Anyhow back to the intercoolers subject, sorry for OT.

 

Yeah the forgeries are getting better and better. I bought an HKS SSQV IV for my wife's WRX. Pretty sure it is forged because I only paid about 1/4 of what they normally sell for, and the box is made with a slightly thicker cardboard than the ones I've seen in the stores. If it is though, they've nailed it right down to the holographic logo plates, beveled snap rings, color of the internal spring, and the machining on the adapter plate. Side by side with an authentic one and I couldn't tell which was which. At what point does a forgery start meeting the same quality as the original products?

Anyways, OP is it installed? How do you like it? I'm looking at it on eBay right now and thinking about clicking the buy button.

 

I'm installing it tomorrow, will be sure what to let y'all know. not really sure what to expect/report back though, if you wanna tell me what to look for and all that it would be helpful.

 

The first question, does it fit properly? Did you have to do any cutting? Were the inlet tubes long enough to connect?

Next, Do you have a way to monitor boost pressures, air intake temps, or spark advance? If you do, please do a data log before and after driving the same routes. If not, it's not a huge deal, I'll probably still get one.

Did it cause any issues? Check engine light, drive-ability, hiccups, ect.

Lastly, what is the seat of the pants feeling? Does it feel $270 faster or $680 faster?