I am kinda new to the whole "supercharged" european thing! I am used to my Nissan's. I am now with the Mini crowd! I have had three turbo'd cars, and nothing supercharged. I was just wondering, if I made room for it, could I put a front mount intercooler on the mini? I see that the stock and aftermarket ic's still suffer greatly from heat soak. A problem I had with an old WRX. I know its not an intercooler on a supercharged car, its and aftercooler, right? Any help would be appreciated.

By the way, I searched this topic many times, and found nothing, so please save your flaming for somebody else!

 

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nt+intercooler

 

Damn, you guys are quick on these boards! I might have made a mistake not coming over to the euro side quicker! An easy question, and nobody flaming me yet, that is amazing. If I were on a Nissan board, I would have been called every name already!

 

PM "Tüls" he'll tell you everything you need to know about it.

 

I did a front mount on my single-turbo R53, similar to what Tuls did. There are major sacrifices you have to make to pull it off to stuff a worthwhile intercooler in there, like tossing the A/C, cutting some of the crash structure, and trimming front bumper.

Here's a pic during fabrication:


To be honest, the factory IC is remarkable for how tiny it is. It is not the weak link on most R53's; the cylinder head, camshaft, supercharger, intake, and exhaust all are bigger bottlenecks.

All that said, Dastek had a FMIC for the R53 for a while. The carbon fiber ducting from the supercharger to IC and IC to intake manifold suffered mechanical failure from vibration, and the IC core itself was not much better than stock.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

check out this thread as well...

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=121759

 

there is a gentleman that has that set-up in our club.... if you think my exhaust is somewhat loud.... you should hear the supercharger

when you can hear the car coming from behind you on the club runs.... YOU KNOW IT'S LOUD

 

Oops see next post

 

AKK Thats insane! http://videos.streetfire.net/video/3...641ce3ce56.htm

Sounds like a major cat fight under there

 

I cant find any vendor selling this intercooler. is that intercooler still available ?!

 

didnt it have problems with cracks due to engine movement?

 

hahaha yea thats my car!! i was helping with some field testing with that i/c and it was very interesting. there was a noticeable change with performance as the car felt very strong top end and the car never lost performance with hours of play on the track in 90°+ heat. but yes the carbon fiber "piping" was an issue due to vibration. but for the amount of time that it worked, i loved the performance and the sound. but all in all i am 10 times happier with my setup now which is the GRS and m7 extreme scoop. i hardly notice any heatsoak while driving in 90°+ heat with that.