Wow...i don't really know what to say. I don't know if I hate the sound or like the sound. But either way it's loud! Any tech info?

 

it will stay constant for a while, but i mean ya if you were sitting at a light for 30 min then yes the car on the highway will cool much better...

In the ginatini(sp?) the water exchange is HUGE!!!! you can sit for a while with it still being cold.

 

Is that anyone's car on NAM.com?

 

They have not been able to get one to stay on for too long of a time . There is one car that was at AMVIV with one . He lasted about a lap and it failed and had to go back to stock.

Randy
m7 Tuning

 

I understand what your saying, and if it's so then I see your point, but I'm also wondering why you feel so confident using the word "HUGE"? Are you using one of these things?
. I have to say that I do need to step back sometimes and realize that my mind is more set to track and race conditions on every part I look at. Being that I no longer have a streetable car, I tend to forget that 99% of the people here do.
I think I'm still sold on air to air. Yes, it may heat soak faster, but it cools down much faster also once your up and running. I'm also not sold on the thinking that a water to air will run cooler then an air to air on the track.
At this time I will go with the new M7.

 

I do agree with you on the air to air, and especially with m7's new DFIC. But I just love the water-to-air..just something about it..i don't know but I am waiting for WMS to start selling these.


car on right...its like a 2 gallon exchanger...


oh and uh..the whole front mount air to air thing just doesnt really work out well..the FBT race car with its big bell FMIC had about a 5psi pressure drop!!!

found a better pic of the FMHE for the W2A

 

At just about 8 lbs a gallon how " huge " is it ? No one seems to be able to come up with that spec since last june. Just how much extra water weight does this system contain? Its a tight line to follow between enough water to keep from the eventual heat soak and too much weight added to the car. You seem to have a handle on this spec car to share?

randy
M7 Tuning

 

... and I'm removing weight ounce by ounce ....

 

... obviously on the same page here.....

(been up watching the UCONN women loose to Duke, overtime by two.. )

 

with the feeling of being backed into the corner i'm out..

please note i'm not offending anyone's products or any person, but i'm out of this discussion

i'm 20..i don't have all the answers :/

 

Hey, please don't feel this way, I was in no way meaning to corner you on this. I was just thinking of it as more of a "having a beer together" type of discussion. I think the thing Randy runs is a very sweet piece and can understand your enthusiasm .

And you know how much I like your car...
Greg v

 

In that case..lets keep it going
I do not really know a whole lot of specs about randy's water-to-air(like temps and all that jazz), just what I talked to him about at laguna seca. But in the subject of water-to-airs I have talked to erik at edge motorworks about them, he said they dyno'd a guys mini with one and it ran the damn near the same numbers every run.

I can definitley understand at the added 16+lbs of water/coolant and whatever the resivior weighs and the pump, and how much of a total weight difference between stock or aftermarket.

The Gintani replaces not only your intercooler, but the intake manifold too. and the flow..goes straight from the opening in that s/c into the manifold. air doesn't have to bend all around and everything. straight shot!

Even at all of this my friend and I are working on a FMIC, we started it before I had a chance to discuss it with anyone, now I have talked to people who worked on the intercooler on the fireball tim race car, they said it was about a 5psi pressure drop. So, my friend and I are now actually working on something like that nuzzo front mount.

 

Hats off to you guys doing your own thing. the biggest problem with using race car ideas on a street car is that with the race car you have so much more latitude with what you can do. The Mini is just a very tough car to try and find a good spot for a front mount which will not interfere with everyday necessary items. For example with the Nuzzo car they have really mounted the FMIC high on the front directly in front of the radiator. This would be at least in part to keep the volume gain = boost pressure loss to a minimum by keeping the runners as short as possible.Thisofcourse would be impossible to livewith o na street driven Mini. Now the other FMIC units out there are mounted lower to clear the radiator but in doing so they cover up the A/C condenser as well as the lower part of the radiator. If those issues do not bother you than you also have to take into consideration that the runners are longer which increases the volume and as you mentioned may have contributed to the loss of 5 lbs of boost in the FBT drag car. The biggest problem with the FMIC from a reliability standpoint has been more of problem of movement than anything else. The mini motor moves LOT under acceleration and braking. The FMIC is just that front MOUNTED and does not move while the motor does . The unit in question was and still is breaking at the hard mounting points. Again I applaud your efforts but you really have your work cut out for you for something that may or may not give you actual improvement. Good luck though and keep us posted.

Randy
M7 tuning

 

IC effiecieny has two componants, temp and pressure. The FMICs tend to do better with temp, but worse with pressure. This isn't because the core is more restrictive, it's because it's a pain to move all the air to and from the core. If I remember correctly, at red-line and 15 PSI boost, our cars are flowing 400-500 CFM of air, in a tube 3" in diameter, it's going freakin' fast, and you take a hit with every bend.

Without a sawzall, it will be hard to make a FMIC that works on a daily driver. Race car, get rid of the AC condenser and stuff, and make a new exit for the SC, and you may have a chance (a la Nuzzo). But for street driving, there are probably better ways to get power out of the car. You'd probably spend less on getting a really good head.

Matt

 

I thank you a lot for this post!! I did not think about how much it DOES move. That would explain why that big front mount with those cf pieces was coming apart at laguna. As much as I would like to finish trying to build this, it just keeps looking more and more like the results won't be worth the work. Again thank you, you make a lot of good points!!

Please though, what are your thoughts on water to air?

 

You can go to a Cooper hood, and go stealth (That is if everything fits under the hood!).

The water to air has to be a bit better, as it adds weight. It has more heat capacity, which is good from a heat soak standpoint, but a lot more parts. For 1/4 mile racing, you can run chilled water (think crushed ice) in the resivoir, and get improved efficiency for short times.

But then, there was the CO2 system that sprayed really, really cool gas over the IC to improve air to air efficiency as well.

Matt

 

Unfortunatly that CO2 goes everywhere and always ends up in the intake, which of course kills the power.

 

This will seem like a silly question, but instead of spraying the CO2, couldn't you just use bottled oxygen? Or would this over-oxgenate things?

 

I have been speaking to a guy at Bell Interecoolers about a FMIC and specifically the one on FBT's car. As a matter of fact he even emailed me a drawing of the exact unit that he uses and the part #. Let me tell you, it won't fit with all the factory components still in place. I asked him about pressure drop and this is what he emailed me, "the (System)-Pressure-Drop is (primarily) dependent on the Air-Flow through it; I would estimate, that it is about 1.5 psig at 375 CFM of Air-Flow, or at about 250 BHP"
Now, I don't know how accurate this is, and you can see he called it an estimate.
I think i'll just use the DFIC and modify the "horn" that bolts to the intake so the IC is centered with the scoop.

 

But this is really what a nitrous system does, but pure O2 is really a ***** to deal with. And the ECU doesn't know the difference between pure oxygen and air (20% oxygen).

Matt

 

please help me understand the significance of pressure drop in the IC....... my hobby is stamping out ignorance...starting with my own.

 

partsman109: How are you going to "modify the horn to center the IC on the scoop?" The M7 unit is stock width, and that right hand horn has the bypass valve connected to it. If you can shorten it without major (really major) engineering, you'll win a prize. The IC needs to move at least 2" to the right to be centered. Still, never say never.
cheers, phil

 

There is enough there to modify before the BPV. I will do it with the stock IC first.

 

Partsman you do like to tinker We looked into moving the intercooler a bit but found it was easier to move the air . With the scoop designed to move the air to the passenger side it is almost dong the same thing as moving the intercooler to the drivers side. Additionally by creating this funnel effect the air path is also making for greater velocity of air thru the IC which is key to the effectivity of our Unit. Now if you move the IC to the drivers side we will have to make yet another scoop. Its getting to be like " Scoops R Us " around here

Randy
m7 tuning

 

And they are post IC pressure, and post IC temp. Let's say that after the SC, you have 10 PSI of boost, and are running about 125 degrees C (these aren't accurate numbers, but the math will be easier). This gives you a molecular density proportional to 25 PSI/400 K (The pressure is 10 of boost on top of the about 15 PSI atmospheric, and 125 C is about 400 Kelvin, you have to use absolute units for this all to work). 1/16 or 0.0625 "density units"

So for case 1, where we drop the air temp to 25 C (300 K) BUT we drop 5 PSI across the IC to do it, the air density is now proportional to 20 PSI/300 K This is 1/15 or 0.0666 "denstiy units". The relative benefit here is 16/15, or about 6.66% While the thermal efficiency seems great (And it is for this case) the price that is paid is pressure drop, and you only get minor benefit from the IC.

So for case 2, let's say the air temp is 50 C (325k) but we only drop 1 PSI. Then the air density is 24/325, or 0.0738 in our new units. In this case, we have worse thermal efficiency, but lower pressure drop, so you end up with a benefit of 18.1% in air density vs no intercooler. So case 2 is 3x the benefit of case 1.

Now, for some of the ICs I've looked at, I found the following....

The stock IC dropped about 65% of the SC temp rise, with about a 1 PSI drop in pressure.

The GRS unit had a slightly worst thermal efficiency, but a slightly lower pressure drop, and gave about a 2-3% increase in charge denstiy.

The prototype Alta flow-through had about a mid 50s in thermal efficiency, but a lower pressure drop still, and gave about a 5% increase in charge density over stock.

We'll see what the new M7 does when I get to test it.

And the idea of the FMIC is to get the benefit of higher thermal efficiencies, with little pressure drop accross the core, BUT you get some pressure drop routing the gases to it and away from it. I honestly don't know if you can make a FMIC that gives net benefit without going all "Nuzzo" on the front of the car with a sawzall!

Matt