this reminds me of the white paper from Dinan, posted a while back. Would be nice to get their input on some of these issues, too bad that's not going to happen...

 

does anyone have the install instructions for this i like to look at them before i buy something

 

I had a Ford Power Stroke 7.3 1ton 4X4 crew cab that would have gave my Mini a run for its money(in a straight line) . It had a Banks kit on it. I compare a Banks equipped Diesel PU to the JCW MCS.Both are targets for up and coming tuners. Gale Banks does it right,but he will charge you accordingly. John Cooper too.

 

I think if you check out the definitive scoop thread you'll see that there's quite a bit to modifying any scoop to get more air to the DFIC or any other horizontal flow IC. The photos there are quite revealing! And, no metal work is required on the bonnet.

 

Jeff, your above response to Larry needs clarification on one point, and is not accurate on another.

First, I assume that you meant to type "been" and not "be" in the first sentence. If so, what exactly do you mean that it has been out far longer? Since it was clearly not first to market, I'm guessing that you mean some type of working model. To make such an assertion, you must be privy to knowing the details of M7's evolvement of the DFIC, and its various iterations...

You had stated earlier in this thread, and elsewhere, that your product dates back to around SEMA time last year, or prior to it (early Nov '05). Your claim that it has been in development longer, sorry, much longer than the DFIC is then not true. Published testing of IC's and scoops here on NAM during last Summer immediately led way to drawings and cardboard mock-ups of what would be the DFIC. Peter of M7 was quickly engaged, and he ran with the idea; and from the emails and PM's that I have, he had already made for some nice progress by '05 SEMA time.

I'm sure your product works well, as the concept does indeed make sense. I am certainly in no way knocking it; as you are the DFIC.

I take exception to the statements made. It leads one to believe that the DFIC was initiated after yours, and with that, due to the DFIC arriving to the market first, it had less development time invested in it. A product that has undergone less development, is generally one that is less desirable. This is of course not a postive thing to say, and in the case of the DFIC, it is more importantly not accurate.

Push and support your product on its merits... and if you must comment on another vendor's product, have the consideration to do so with good information, and tactfully when possible.

On the topic of scoops, testing performed here, with the assistance of Dr. O, revealed that a larger scoop does indeed make a noteworthy difference. This was noticed on a stock and a popular aftermkt IC. A larger quantity of air captured, despite whatever short-comings there might be afterwards, allows for more ambient air to be shoved through the core's fins. Scoops with a larger bite radius are desirable, at least performance-wise...

 

regarding scoops..... Peter sent my DFIC without the scoop before MOTD 06 and I drove to the Dragon with the stock scoop..... I noticed maybe a slight difference..... at the Dragon the DFIC scoop was installed and then the DFIC "did its thing".... my experience is that the scoop is part of the system and crucial to getting full performance from the IC..... of course a dyno would not show this.....

 

Grrr

Larger or , like you said, more bite.
My scoop for instance would usually be thought of as smaller but it is quite a bit more effective than the OEM scoop.
Which leads directly to the already mentioned debate.
The Alta uses the OEM scoop which would be considered larger than the DFIC scoop. Which is better? I sure don't know.

Test! Test! Test!

 

Exactly! I have the temperature probes and gauge now, just need to install them! Since I have 3 scoops (OEM, DF and my DF-FAD - I sold the Ram) I will try to set up a testing protocol. My hypothesis is that a big scoop shaped to the frontal shape of the DF, with proper seals (! this is important and not the case with the shipped seals from M7!), will offer the most cooling. We'll see...

 

is that it won't happen here. Everytime I speak with the Dinan folks, they are very helpful in explaining what they do and why. But you are correct, they don't really have a manufacturers presence here. But don't confuse that with lack of support for the Mini market. It's just lack of support for NAM....

We tend to forget the size of the Mini world. There have been about 150k+ Minis sold in the US (and some are on thier second owners). NAM membership TOTAL is under 30k, and ACTIVE is even less than that. So while we get all huffy that some vendors don't support the NAM community, you'd be surprised to know that it's a smaller part of the Mini community that knows of NAM than those that never have heard of us.

Matt

 

Of course the vast majority of those owners will never put a wrench to there cars or have anyone but BMW/MINI even pop the hood.

 

I was taking a little closer look at the two ICs, I noticed that the Alta only has three tubes/cores, where as the DFIC has five tubes/cores.
You can see it pretty clear in these two pics...





I know that ICs work by transferring heat, and with the DFIC transferring that heat off the top and bottom of those 5 tubes, as opposed to the Alta using only 3, I would think that the DFIC would cool the charge air a little(a lot) better.

 

Alta's using 3/8" bars and I think the M7 uses 1/4". When I read that I thought the thicker bars might hold the heat longer. I guess it's a trade off either way.

 

In looking at the above two photos, I noticed the difference in end casings (sp?). The ALTA's seem to be more gradual when coming down from the intercooler to the horns/boots than the DFIC does. Would that have any impact on the flow characteristics of the air? Is that of any concern?

Not knocking either product. Please keep in mind I just got my DFIC and can't wait to put it on.

Thank you,
John

 

XAlfa,
Well, we went into thinking CARB was an easy thing, and it is, but it just takes forever! And since no one else has an EO number for an intercooler, it makes the testing involved expensive, and hard to do (because we are not close to a testing station)

But like i said, we aren't eliminating the IC from being approved, but its just not the top.

PatagonianGT,
I agree, Subys seem to dyno better. But i think this has to do with the IC's are much bigger to start with. But on your LGT, after 3runs in a row, you will see a loss in power. But like we said, when we dynoed our older IC and the V2, it was consistant, but after the 4th run or so you can see a drop. But it still showed gains, just not as much as on the road. Subarus have the benifit of Front mounted intercoolers, which really keep numbers consistant.

Man, i can't wait until the new car is here!!! At least the IC is in a good place, or so it looks!

SayGoodbye,
I agree, but sometimes temps are everything. If you are making power, weather it is from Temp change, or from Pressure drop, you are making power and the engine is happy and running under less stress.

JPMM,
Yup for sure. As the temps get cool, the ECU will add fuel. But not always pull timing. In fact in the mini the only time it pulls timing with air temp changes is when it is drastic(super hot or super cold). The Mini ECU uses the knock sensor, and Mass Air flow to determine the major changes in timing. So with the Mini the gains you see from cooling the air better are not as important as pressure drop. This is at least what we have found in our testing on the dyno.

rrdusek,
The only trimming involved is on the plastic, not the steel. Since the lower part of the scoop is a downward facing angle, the more you remove from the bottom, the bigger the opening gets.

TonyB,
I will give you a couple of dates of things, and leave it at that. I say this as there is some info that i don't feel is appropriate to tell the NAM world, yet. March of 2005 our Core was in hand, part all designed. Nov 2005, we talked about it at SEMA to some NAMer's. DEC 2005, we showed pics of our part. Then promtly sent it to Dr.Obnoxs for some testing.

We only did this as in a thread M7 said we have this new IC we are working on that is way differnt than the rest and so on. We posted pics of what we had been working on (no knowing ANYTHING about the design of the M7 part) to make sure that IF we had the same design in the works, people wouldn't think we were copying it.

Maybe both of us were working on the same idea all along, not knowing what each other was doing?? But there is something in the time line i have left out that is a factor in our mind. But if this is true about your Summer time designing, then it just so happens we were thinking of the same thing. We came up with our IC because of the TC kit we were making.

Really, we only posted info, just so people wouldn't think we copied/stole thier idea. It sound like it was just a coinicdence. In no way did we every see or hear of how the M7 IC was being made, and in no way did it effect the design of the ALTA part. That is 100% the truth. No one likes to have the same thing as the other guy, everyone want to be different, which is why we do things the way we do.

We to are not saying the M7 part is bad by any means, and we don't think it is bad. There is enough room in this world for 2 IC's like this, and since both parts have differences, people will buy the M7 over ours for some of their features, and some will buy our because of ours.

SpiderX, and Obehave,
Scoops are important! And in the end, we will make one, but until then, the M7 Scoop may be a perfect match for our IC.

PARTSMAN,
Yup, that is one if their differences. They use a different core than we do. Both have goods and bad, but is all comes down to Ambient air volume and charge air volume. I have no idea what size their core is, but i can tell they use .25" bar and plate, where we use .375" bar and plate. When we were designing our core long ago, this option was nixed as it either make the IC shorter (less volume on both sides) or too tall (hood issues).

One way to look it is, the V2 IC has (3) .375" charge tubes, which equals 1.125" of charge tube height. The (5) .25" charge tubes from the DFIC equals 1.25" of charge tube hieght. This also equates to less volume inside the core, for the charge air to flow through. So using this data, (pretending all other sizes are equal) The M7 core will have less pressure drop. But our core is wider (not sure how much) which makes up greatly for the loss in hieght.

On the Ambient side, we have 1.5" of fins. THey have the same, but it looks like the bottom set may not be fully open to the air. So they again using this as a factor, and pretending all other dimensions are the same (but they are not) we both have the ability to cool the charge temp the same. The idea behind the thinner .25" tubes is that it gives the charge air more surface area to cool from. But the differences in this application using .375" vs. .25" are very minor. Esspecially since our core is longer and deeper (not sure how much) both could have the same cooling and charge air passage ways, or our could be bigger!

With our knowing the difference in core size, some of these things can't be compared equally.

WOW that was long. I my head it seemed much shorter.

 

http://www.altaminiperformance.com/p...er-Version-2-0
Under features, you will see the volumes of our core vs. Stock. We will have our classic IC info up soon.

 

no Subaru comes from the factory with a front mount. All are top mount in positions futher from the front of the car than a MINI.

 

This sounds good to me. And until there is data to prove otherwise, we could leave it at that. Everyone will have their prefrences, even if one IC seems to prove to be a "bit" better than the other. I bought the DFIC because it was already out and has other goodies for it. Someone else might buy the ALTA because it is black and says "ALTA" really big on it. Who knows. All I do know is that several companies are producing some great products and this gives us all the "choice" to buy the part that we really like from the vendor we really like.

Keep up the good competetive drive and these producst will continue to improve.

BTW, does anyone have any input on the different end casing designs?

 

quoteJPMM,
Yup for sure. As the temps get cool, the ECU will add fuel. But not always pull timing. In fact in the mini the only time it pulls timing with air temp changes is when it is drastic(super hot or super cold). The Mini ECU uses the knock sensor, and Mass Air flow to determine the major changes in timing. So with the Mini the gains you see from cooling the air better are not as important as pressure drop. This is at least what we have found in our testing on the dyno.
I would have thought there was a O2 sensor the ECU was using to control the F/A ratio. So if you have more dense(cooler , at a lower pressure) air as with a better IC the ECU would give you more fuel to keep the ratio correct.Until you run out of extra fueling capcity.

 

Jeff, I appreciate the thoughtful reply, really. It certainly seems like independent, concurrent development to me. With the information you shared, and statements made, I'm sure you see how one can make such a deduction...

Features, price and support is what it's all about now! The MINI Community wins, and that's all that I ever wanted...

Jeff, I'm heading-up to PDX for biz next week. Looks like Beaverton is about 5 miles away. You planning to be in the shop/office on Tue? Would like to meet you, and see some of your products up close...

 

obe, what i mean by bite radius is the intitial, or leading edge of the scoop that first encouters the air. With respect to the larger M7 Extreme Scoop, the bite radius made a big difference, despite the opening on the back or exit side being the same as size/dimensions as stock.

 

I knew what you meant Tony and agreed totally.
Since I have one of JS' custom scoops and the opening is actually smaller but works very well I was referring to that.
Small but effective with the additional raised upper lip like the Ram scoop has.

Size does matter but size isn't everything

 

Thus the name! Control that mojo

 

I'm a sexy beast baby Yea!



Well OK....maybe my car is......

 

PatagonianGT,
You know what i meant, they are easy to install, and at least have room to put them up front. (when is the new car going to be here, can't wait!)

JPMM,
The 02 sensors do a little bit of "tuning" but not tons. The front sensor adjust the Short term, and long term Fuel trims, but they don't do anything under full throttle. Under full throttle, the ECU uses Map, RPM, and Air temp.

TonyB,
We will be here! We have been swamped with SEMA stuff and playing catch up, so its not the cleanest around here! Just plan for more like half and hour to an hour away depending on when you are in town. I wish it was 5min!

 

Jeff, I'm in PDX now... and heading back a day early as "biz" went exceptionally well. Had time this whole afternoon, and Portland is beautiful (no rain)! And.... 0 (ZERO) sales tax! Picked-up a couple of laptops at Fry's... Sorry, I wasn't able to see you. However, it looks like I'll need to return in a couple of weeks though...