ALTA 2007 R56 Dragon Build


The Story

Well as many of you have seen, not all of the ALTA crew and vehicles made it to the Dragon Event. We had some issues with our new GM 4500 truck.
Cruising along down I84 at about 10pm it broke down. We were about 100 miles from Salt Lake City, and got towed by an awesome tow truck driver (S&M Towing) to Tremonton. You might wonder, what could tow a double stacker car trailer and a huge GM 4500?? Well a Semi! If it weren’t 1am, and dark out, we would have taken a picture! It was a very small town, but there was a GM dealer, so we could get it fix! Right??? After a night in the hotel, it was "fixed" and we started on our way. With Dennys in our stomach, we were ready and excited as we were finally driving some roads we hadn't seen (been on lots of Vegas road trips lately).

100 miles outside of Salt Lake City, it broke down again! This time it got towed to the small town of Coalsville, another great small town in Utah. Moores Towing took care of this tow, and besides him being a totally cool guy, he owned a lot of the businesses in the town. As you see, it doesn’t really fit on the trailer so well! It ended up being towed back to Salt Lake City to a HUGE (this an understatement) GM dealer.



Back in a hotel for the night. The next day comes, and they still hadn’t looked at the truck, and it was time to make the decision, that we either go home or go to the show. We had to make an appearance so we drew straws for who gets to take the R56 to the Dragon. Off went John and John! Yup I drew the short straw, so I got to stay with the truck and trailer.

Late the next day the truck was fixed, and the dealer said it had a TSB out for a TCM to ECU communication error. They flash the ECU and I felt great that it was going to make it home with no issues. I loaded up the R53 (been using it to get around) and about 100 miles out of Salt Lake (going home) and it broke again. Not real happy at this point, but hey, I had a DVD player, and Kill Bill 1&2 to keep me happy until the tow truck came. Being that we were 100 miles from Salt Lake, we were close to Tremonton, and sure enough, here comes S&M towing! Back to Murdock Chevy for what might be the final resting place of the 4500.

This time, with a little deeper digging into known problems and TSB’s, they found a TSB for an intake pipe collapsing! Upon inspection, sure enough, this turbo intake hose was joke! There was evidence that it was collapsing and burn marks from the friction of the air trying to squeeze by it! The closest pipe was in Tennessee, and it was too late to Next Day Air it. So the dealer made a steel pipe to fit inside of the rubber pipe to get us home. Once again, I was on the road again, and feeling good about the fix.

Well everything went fine for the next 2 days of driving. I made it home with basically no issues! Thank god (or whoever you want to replace that with) for small town hospitality and awesome tow truck drivers!

There was a lot of time spent building displays, making signage, getting the booth ready, and new R56 parts we made, that we didn’t get to show off because of the truck issues. So here you go! This is a small showcase of the parts we built and had for sale that should have made it. When reading about the parts below, envision that they are in a really cool booth with 3 ALTA Employees talking about them.


ALTA panel filter
This item was one we had ready to sell at the Dragon, but it didn’t make it. The ALTA panel filter I not just a normal panel filter replacement like many others. The older Mini air box was made pretty well in that the portion above and below the filter is very open. The New R56 filter is much different!


The lower portion of the R56 filter has very little room for air to travel across the entire filter. We saw room for improvement in this filter by making it slightly offset and slightly thinner. This simple change allows for more air to be drawn across the entire filter. Besides that, it is a high flow foam filter, which like all our other filters provides less restriction, and the ability to clean it for the life of the car.

From the above diagram you can see how much thicker the OEM filter is and how far it hangs down. The Alta filter provides roughly 2 times the volume of air under the filter. Dyno results will follow very soon! Installation of this filter can be done in 5 minutes of work!


ALTA 3” Catback Exhaust
This was seen on our R56 we had in Vegas, but production is all done, and here is the final part. Same design as seen in Vegas. The system consists of 100% 304SS, 100% 3” tubing and straight through mufflers, high tech V-band flange connections and an adapter to fit to the stock exhaust. As we have proven before, this makes great gains with 15 Minutes of work! Here is a shot of the new system with the twin tips. This provides an aggressive look for the back of the car, and a perfect mellow sound!




ALTA BOV and BOV Plug
Another part that we had at AMIVI was our ALTA BOV (Blow of Valve) and BOV block off plate. These parts are an essential part to increasing the boost levels of the R56. The OEM BOV is an electronic device that the ECU purposely blows off to control boost. When upping the boost in the new car, it is important to not allow the weak BOV to open and also it is important to not let the ECU dump boost from the BOV.

If one would like to add sound only, our BOV along with the OEM BOV still installed is another great option. This is simple, and allows the OEM BOV to blow off under light load and ours to blow off under heavier loads, and make some cool sounds!


The Block Off Plate requires the removal of your OEM BOV, which takes roughly 20 minutes. To install the Blow Off valve to the R56 adds roughly 1 hour as the intake system needs to be removed, and port needs to be tapped in the intake manifold.


ALTA Intercooler Diverter
This item was something we had proven on our shop vehicle when doing some dyno testing. Like our other IC diverter, this too helps get more air into the intercooler. If you are standing in front of the car, and get down to the level of the intercooler, you will see that some of intercooler is not seen. The diverter inserts above the intercooler, and directs more air down to the intercooler. It’s a simple modification that increases the density of the charge and in turn more Horsepower! The installation of this part requires the removal of the bumper, which takes roughly an hour to do.




ALTA BOOST tubes
Add some flair to under you hood with the ALTA boost tubes. The OEM rubber hose are somewhat restrictive in size, and they have a silencer installed on one side of the car. Who would want to silence that cool turbo sound! Included with the ALTA boost tube kit, are high quality SS hose clamps. These hoses are available in red and black to match your Mini, and take about 2 hours to install.



ALTA GT turbo kit
This was supposed to steal the show! But didn’t make it! So here are some good pics of the kit, in its early stages. The kit uses a Garrett GT2560R turbo, and has the ability to use 3 other larger turbos. With this kit we wanted this kit to be able to produce 50WHP more than the stock turbo, which this turbo will easily do, and in fact, it can do about 100HP more! And for those crazy guys we can make one that supports easily 300WHP!

The kit shown below illustrates the main pieces of the kit. Besides the turbo, an intake system, downpipe with high flow cat, boost tube connection, Manual boost controller, oil lines and coolant lines, and of course instructions! What makes this kit very unique is how simple it is. We definitely expect to be leading the way in turbo replacements on the R56 Mini Cooper. Expect the price of this kit to be under $2000, and take roughly 4 hours to install.


The kit is shown here on our stand we made for the show. You can see its pretty simple, intake, turbo, downpipe and boost tube connection.



It not a super secret, but you can see here the part that makes this kit simple and durable.



Shows more of the Guts of the kit.



ALTA 3K turbo Upgrade
The last item that we planned on spilling the beans at the Dragon, was our other turbo upgrade. In everyones quest for more power, or more fun, we came up with a less expensive way to get a little more from the OEM turbo. We will have very shortly an upgrade for these that will produce 30-40 more HP beyond the limits of the stocker. This upgrade is something that will work with all other OEM fittings like oil, coolant, intake and exhaust system. We need a turbo upgrade that is a little less intense than the GT turbo kit. This is the answer and anyone with a few wrenches will be able to install this. The kit will use an OEM turbo modified to flow more air. Expect this upgrade to be available in a couple of months, and cost in the $1000 range and take 2 hours to install. As time passes and we can finally start to tune these cars, this upgrade will become very popular and something hopefully as popular as a Supercharger pulley!!


Please feel free to ask us questions about any of these parts, or any other part we have for the R56 not shown here. Don’t forget we have the complete turbo back exhaust, PSRS, Swaybars, intake, Front mounted intercooler, and many other parts! Most of these parts we debut at AMVIV, and also on NAM on THIS THREAD,along with dyno graphs to back it up.

 

Do you guys have a downpipe in the works yet?

Can you explain the BOV a little more? I thought electronic DV on the MINI would send the boost back to system instead of releasing to the atmosphere

 

The DP info can be found HERE, just scroll down a little. But Yes, we have had the DP on our car and dynoed and everything! Above we were showcasing the fact we will have the Catback for sale in a week or so. The DP is about 2 weeks away or so. The DP is designed to only work with our catback. It also consists of 2 cats to be a legal part as possible.

So the OEM BOV (or diverter valve) what ever you want to call it, opens and releases pressure from the turbo compressor housing and dumps it into the turbo intake side of the compressor housing. So it does send it back into the system. Our VTA bov has been running perfect for the last few months, and it is venting to atmosphere. Normally cars don't like this too much, but we have found it works great on the Mini.

We also have used both BOV's the stock and ours with good success. So in the end people have some options as to what they want to do. Using both is fine just to make some cool sounds, but you still have the OEM valve that can dump boost when the ECU doesn't like it.

Hope that make sense.

 

wow....some GREAT stuff!!
but I agree with ScuderiaMini in regards to the BOV. Still not sure why you'd use a valve dumping to the atmosphere.

I've got a wad of cash sitting at home thats been waiting to be used on some "GO" mods. Great to see parts hitting the market!

when can we order & when can we expect these parts to ship?

 

Is the BOV and ALTA BOOST tubes available now?

 

So now with all these toys ready to go to market the question still remains......WHAT IS THE BEST 1 or 2 PARTS WITH THE MOST GAIN?!?!

 

wow great stuff...can't wait!!

 

Is the drop in filter available for order on your website yet? And if so how much?

 

What is the sound difference with the boost pipes. Is it noticably louder? Annoying-ly loud? Stronger engine loud?----SOUND CLIPS ARE NICE:0

 

the "boost pipes" as Alta calls them are silicone hoses that typically will have little to no effect in the sound of the motor or turbo.
then again, i'm not sure how this silincer works on the R56

their main purpose?....
1. build quality is superior to stock rubber parts.
2. those stock rubber hoses tend to collapse under high boost pressures. used to happen to my Audi TT all the time. (yet to be seen on a tuned R56) these silicone hoses are typically reinforced making them much stronger and allowing for higher boost pressures....like you would see in a aggresively tuned big turbo!
3. in most applications it helps smooth the air flow
4. looks

 

I'm uber interested in the GT2560R kit! I've already called ALTA and inquired further on the development of the kit. The intention is to make it as bolt-on as possible. The one thing that they didn't mention in this thread is the turbo kit will be in conjunction with an ECU flash to let the car operate with a standalone turbo setup [no more electric BOV or vacuum operated wastegate]. ALTA said they're in the middle of getting the ECU flash done. This is two fold. It means ECU flashes will be possible for stock turbo R56's and big-turbo R56's! I'm very excited to see this come to fruition! Keep up the hard work ALTA!

Cheers,
Ryan

 

thanks benfica!

 

I'm interested in the re-flash for sure and I really like the boost tubes, mainly because of the red color available (the engine bay could use some color) but it appears they offer an enhanced sound too, great!

 

Compliments on the exhaust! It looks magnificent!! Definitely one for my '07 Cooper S, along with the "intercooler air divider" and "drop in filter"!
What does it all cost?

 

I CAN'T WAIT TO GET THA'T BIG TURBO IN MY CAR!!

 

Looks like some great stuff. Glad to hear we are getting closer to some real hp options for our cars.

 

Well for sound, for one thing, and secondly to hold more boost. The OEM valve is a very light spring holding the valve closed. When the ECU wants to dump boost, it pulls it open. So for stock boost levels it works fine. But we found (tested on a jig) that the BOV will leak at about 17psi. So when we can start really tuning these cars, it will be an item to ditch. I believe many of the new VW and Audi's have the same BOV or type, and have the same issue.

When is a popluar question! In one month most of the items will be shipping, but some sooner and some later. The first item we wanted ready was the exhaust system. Catbacks will ship in a week and the Downpipes for them a few weeks later. One thing to be concered with on any of the Dp's with cats, is the quality of the cats. Our front cat is a high quality unit that has more loading on the subtrate than other converters. This is very important as we found most converter will work just fine for a few thousand miles, then the CEL comes on. This small but important feature is somethig you will not find on other systems.

Boost tubes are about 4 weeks away or so???

At this point, the turbo back exhaust. Sounds cool, makes great power, and torque, and is a reasonable price. If you are price driven the intake also is a great item. 15WHP, sounds cool, and very simple to install.

We should be shipping these anyday!!

You got it!! The tubes do remove a silencer, but sound difference is not noticable with an intake or exhaust.

You got it! We will 100% keep you in the loop when we can ship one to you. At this point we have lots more to develope on the car, before the turbo comes off, but if you are willing to be a Ginuea pig...Maybe we can work something out?

But to answer your other questions, the ECU flash will not be part of the kit, though will be recommended when availible. The Stand alone is a not so easy to make work with direct injection, and it will have lots of CEL's. By the time the stand alone is ready, we should have flashes availible.

I think everyone in the world is looking for the flash! Truely (even though we don't offer this yet) i think it is new Supercharger Pulley for the R56!

Cost is something we are working on but if you give us a ring we can fill you in on the cost of the items almost ready to ship.

 

We can't wait either! In about a month or so, you will see some results of what we can do (with or with out engine managment).

The beauty to the turbo we chose is that it can do 300 engine HP easily, and we have the ability to go up to about 400 with a different turbo. But the turbo we have is the best choice in our minds as we love that instant response and are not giving that up quite yet!

 

thanks a bunch for posting all the info. keep up the great R&D.
very exciting stuff.


as for the BOV.....I guess where I'm getting hung up is the terminology, because VW & Audi tuners do not use BOV's, they use a DV's.(diverter valve)

if you truely mean a BOV, isn't that a bad idea on a MAF based system??
Venting to the atmosphere instead of the airbox will cause richness in the air/fuel ration because the ECU recalculates the recirculating air. If its not there the injectors keep firing long enough to match the volume or pre-metered air...making the car run rich because now its got to much fuel. And running rich robs power among other not so great things.

and if its sound people are after, the DV will make plenty of it when running an open air filter like the one you've got on the Mellow Yellow shop car.

 

As much as I am sceptical to this, i should admit, if this system works consistently fine in the long term, it will eliminate dealing with stupid electronic DVs that tend to blow under higher boost levels which apply when we start getting software upgrades / BT kits. Is there any softcodes on your ECU scans?How does this trick the system without throwing fault codes?

Good Job ALTA

 

I was wondering if you could tell us a price for the BOV and how many days for shipping??

Thanks a lot!!

 

Yes, terminology can be confusing. Diverter Valve, Blow off Valve, Recirc valve, dump vavle can all mean the same thing, well kind of. We like to call them all Blow Off Valves, but classify them as Venting to Atmosphere, or recirculating. But all do the same job of eliminating compressor surge by venting the pressure in the boost tubes between shifts.

Compressor surge can be described as 2 things.
1. During shifts, when the throttle plate is closed, the pressure in the boost tubes backs up and goes backwards through the turbo. This causes the turbo to stop an spin backwards. This is bad as the bearings in the turbo take quite a bit of abuse as the shaft gets yanked back and forth and up and down.

2.The second type of compressor surge is related to big turbos on small engines. This surge is where the turbo pushes more air than the engine can consume, and causes the same type of backup of pressure. Same bad things can happen, but this type is not somethign that a BOV can fix. A proper sized turbo will fix it, but this isn't something that i think Mini's will experienced for some time.

I agree about the sound with the intake. When people start getting the intake system, i think they will like the BOV sound. But for peformance on a stock ECU tuned car (running stock boost) its not really important. But soon it will be.


Yup! The electronic BOV is pretty cool, but has its own issues. But with ECU tuning, and an ALTA BOV, i think they will go hand and hand!

No CEL's yet. Most MAF sensors that run off a 0-5V output don't seem to care. Where cars that use a frequency out put, seem to. Its been one of the items we have been testing since we got the car.


The price of the BOV by itself is $190, but we are working a special price with the block off plate. If you are wanting to use both of them (OEM BOV and ours) then we can ship it today! If you need the block off plate, we have them but are finallizing instructions and web site stuff.

 

Ahhh one Ginuea pig here <---

 

alta...


show me a car that will have compressor surge from to large of a turbo...

supras run 101mm turbos on 3l engines...

hondas run 35r's and now the even run 42R's on there cars...

 

Pretty cool but...as I can undestand, you can't make a bigger turbo work without a ecu flash right? So by now every power gain are hypothetical and it could end up with every kind of electronic problem...