There are two different pathways for two different types of air involved with the intercooler. You have not only the charge path through the core (which you have explained above) but you also have the fresh air path through the scoop and into the engine bay. In my experience with testting both the stock and a larger intercooler, the larger core actually performed worse than the stock one (efficiencies in the 45-55% range compared to the 60-80% range of the stock one). It appears that the larger intercooler blocked a significant portion of the hood scoop, preventing adequate fresh airflow through the core.

This is why I asked:

What sort of efficiency numbers have you measured with the Alta intercooler? Under what conditions? What sort of efficiency numbers have you measured with the stock intercooler under the same conditions?

 

One interesting experience I had with comparing the Alta and the stock intercooler was this. Both my car, with mods including the Alta IC, and a JCW with the factory IC. We both dynoed the same day and on the same dyno. We each got our max HP numbers at the crank. Now here is the interesting thing "I" think. we both also got a shot of Co2 into our hood scoops. The gains were quite noticeable, but my gain was about 30% more then the JCW.

My Alta IC does NOT block my hood scoop. Yea, it maybe up about 1/16", but it seems to site very nice. The surface area of the Alta is huge over stock, so I have to agree with what I saw that the Alta is more efficient.

signed, Happy Alta IC owner.:smile:

 

Thanks for posting that pic. It does not look like it blocks much of the scoop opening at all.

The CO2 experience makes sense. Not only is the Alta's surface area bigger but its mass is larger as well. So, by chilling each intercooler (with a fire extinguisher?) the larger one acts as a larger heatsink and should give cooler outlet temps for your run immediately following the chilling.

 

I didn't post the effeciency numbers because i couldn't find the ambient temp it was that day. It was somewhere in the low 70's upper 60's. Give me a few and i should be able to find it.

My experience with the CO2 stuff is kind of mixed. On the dyno, 285whp reading consistantly pull after pull. Here comes the C02 and by by 1WHP and gained 1ft/lbs! Another car, it actually worked but not more than about 10WHP. STill not bad for something that is pretty cheap to refill.

Andy,
Does your IC block the scoop?

ALTA PERFORMANCE

 

My stock IC does not. The custom one I was playing with blocked a good portion of the scoop ... maybe 30%.

I found some interesting (to me at least) intercooler behavior such as that the efficiency of the intercooler tended to be BETTER the hotter the ambient temp:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...8&page=2&pp=40

 

In our testing, we thought the reason why it was better with the higher temps is the car was moving faster down the track.

What would be really cool is to log all that same info you did in a previous post, along with road speed in different gears. I think you might see in 2nd gear, like your testing that the IC is 70% effecient, then in 3rd gear and 4th gear it would increase. Most likely it would plateau off somewhere. But you could do 3rd gear runs and from 1000-7000 which would give you efficency at low air flow over the IC and high air flow over the IC.

Also i would love to see an air flow meter mounted in the scoop and see at what speed the air flow slows down. What i mean is like other scooped cars, above a certain speed the air stops going through the scoop and over the hood. Another fun test!

ALTA PERFORMANCE

 

Problem Resolved

 

If you re-read the link I posted, you'll see test results in a variety of speeds and gears.

 

Holly crap That ain't right! Mine is the first generation Alta TMIC and mounts pretty flush to the intake. It hovers about 1/8" over the mounts and occasionally touches it.

 

Hence why I am SOOO annoyed that I have wasted my money on this product and my vendor (minispeed) reckon it's ok! The intercooler was profesionally installed btw.

I am really disappointed

Henry

 

Is the Alta intercooler vertically symmetric? i.e. is it possible that yours is installed upside down?

 

As simple as this sounds, I looked into the possibility with Roland at GT tuning here in the UK on Saturday and there is no way of mounting the intercooler flush, certainly in the case of my item. I think that the ends of my particular intercooler could have been cast incorrectly or there is some other manufacturing defect leading to the fitment issues I have been having.

Henry

 

I'm still waiting for a reply ALTA2...

Henry

 

Don't know that I would use this forum to discuss this with Alta. Call then direct or email them.

There are some tips as to get this IC lower. Being that you had someone else install it might be the first cause to the problem as any mod like this takes some creative thinking.
Make sure all stock IC brackets are off. Now make sure that all bracket mounts are off the intake manifold. These are the mounts that hold the rear IC mounting spots.
Clear all vacuum lines and wires from under the IC. This just takes some reorganizing.
If I were you I would remove the IC and start over. It's an easy install with a little bit of patients with the rubber connectors.

 

That's all well and good but what did I pay $900 for? I was sold the product under the premise that it would fit in the stock position no worries.I don't want to get 'creative' and jeopardise the chances of me ever putting the stock IC back on.

I'll give Minispeed a call again and if I don't get a satisfactory reply this time, it's off to small claims court.

Besides, has no-one noticed just how small the Alta IC really is? It's only 12 cores wide...hardly much larger than stock and not 'massive' by any means. There is a new 16 core IC here in the UK for 350GBP that will outperform the Alta hands down. I shall be buying this unit with the winnings from court.

Henry

 

is this new IC in the UK you are speaking of the GRS IC by any chance? if not please enlighten us Yanks

 

No, although Graham's (GRS) intercooler is very nice as well . Please PM me for more details. It is from a reputable UK tuner though

Henry

 

Supercoopers,
That is not normal at all! Can you tell me if you have aftermarket motor mounts? Also does your IC sit on the post on the manifold? Last question, is the opening of the scoop bigger than the stock one? I am asking because i have seen another scoop made overseas that was bigger and didn't fit real well to the car.
ONASLED is right about the other things to look out for. The wire harness under the manifold, the hoses, the brackets being gone, ect.......
I know you are far away but a phone call or emails direct to us can get you taken care of pretty fast.

MSFITOY,
The older cores should sit about .125" off the post, and clear the scoop like it is. The newer core sits on the posts and is slightly thicker by about .125" making the IC sit flush with the scoop.

Supercooper,
About the rows, they have nothing to do with performance. Just because this core you are talking about has 16 rows doesn't mean it is way bigger! We could make our core with 20 rows if we want, but it doesn't matter. You still end up having roughly 50% charge air flow vs. 50% ambient flow. In fact the smaller rows actually can hinder performance! The overall size is what matters.

With in reason, you can't make the IC any bigger! Look at how it is made and where it is. To say our IC is not "massive", is INCORRECT! To help you and other NAM member visualize this is the data comparing our IC to the stock one. This isn't something we normally publish because of competitors seeing our exact specifications, and reasons why this IC better than stock. However, in this discussion we feel it is important to publish this information to help clear up some misconceptions.

These dimensions are only the areas the cooling fins actually touch, in effect the actual cooling area of the core.
-Stock core has 11 charge air rows, ALTA has 12 rows
The stock core charge air row width is .3125" on the outside and roughly .25" on the inside of the core.
Our core uses .375" thick charge air rows which is the same on the inside because of how it is made.
The fin portions on the core are .25", and ours is .375"
-Actual cooling area of the core as follows:
stock dimensions 10.25"long X 6.25"tall X 1.9375"thick (124.1 CI)
ALTA dimensions 12.125"long X 10"tall X 1.75"thick (212.2 CI)
Visually the ALTA IC is 2 times the size of the stock IC
-Area under stock IC .3125" and ALTA .625"
The greater air flow under the IC helps at high speeds when the most air flow is seen.

Other flaws with the stock IC is the first and last row (charged air) doesn't have fins on both sides. The outer rows only have cooling fins on the inside of each row. This allows the outer rows to see engine bay heat and not be cooled by the air from the scoop.

We made the core as big as possible using the fact that people aren't going to cut posts off, relocate the coil pack, by new spark plug wires, and modify their intake box. We can make our IC bigger, if people are willing to do this, but we haven't gotten any demands for such a part.

Please call us so we can get you taken care of.

ALTA performance

 

Hi, We are a mini specialist based in the UK and we modify both classic and new minis. We started modifying minis the second they came out and quickly found out about Alta. We are now Alta's european agent and I can only sing there praises, The quality is top notch and the guys are very helpful. Everything they produce you can tell has had a lot of thought and effort put into it. We were working on a front mounted intercooler about 2 years ago and we did several back to back tests with there intercooler against our front mounted version. On the dyno we often found the front mounted one showed better figures but this was only due to the fact that it was mounted directly in front of the cooling fan, on driving the car the Alta intercooler worked a lot better and ran more than 3 psi more boost. There is very little room under the bonnet to get large enough hoses to a front intercooler and the inlet track length became very long giving slight delay. The cost was also very prohibitive as a new crash bar needs to be made up front. I can hand on heart say that the top mount ic works a treat and does everything it says it does. We have fitted over 20 now and we have had no issues with getting the intercooler flush with the bonnet scoop or wear problems on the posts. One very impressed customer . P.s they did not ask me to write in or offer me a larger discount just in case anyone is wondering. My only complaint about the company is there hold music, but then ours is pretty dire to.

regards James Sutton.

 

I had a simliar fitment problem with the Alta IC on my 04 MCS. Found after about 1K miles that the IC was rubbing on two spots under the front edge of the IC where the original IC mounts had been removed. Took the IC off and used a straight edge to verify any other potential interference along the mounting lines of the Alta IC. I found that that if I removed some material from the two bosses that were rubbing the IC I could gain some clearance. Ground off around 3/16 and this did help the interference. Beefed up the damaged area on the IC with two aluminum tabs held on by dabs of JB weld. Put in two rubber washers in clearance area on re-install. All seems ok.....but my IC still protrudes into the scoop area. Alta did respond and told me to loosen and re-tighted engine mounts as mentioned earlier in this thread but I haven't gotten around to it yet, but my car has no motor mount inserts and has never been apart. Included one pic of the IC damage. I also included two pix of the IC relative to the hood scoop. It still sticks up into the airstream. I tried to take the picture looking straight into the scoop (like the airflow).

 

The first few people that complained about this issue, stumped us. But most every single issue lately had been from the motor mounts. It seems to be from the way the SC pulley is installed. People Jack up the motor, remove the mounts, install the pulley, install the mounts and tighten before letting the engine at a complete rest. This causes the motor to twist front to back a little, in turn raising the IC up in the front.

The fix is somewhat simple in that you need to loosen the mounts, pull the engine forward (twisting the engine) and retighten. This has fixed nearly all people that have had this problem.

Give it a try and let us know how it turns out. If you have time give us a call and we can point out the mounts you need to loosen.

 

isn't that round depression in the intercooler due to the fuel regulator contacting the bottom side of the IC? I'm not sure how the motor mount and engine shifting affects this. Are you saying the engine movement forces the IC top to hit the hood, cramming it down into the fuel reg?

 

I have the first gen Alta TMIC and it is flush at top while the bottom doesn't touch anything. Is the new version thicker?

 

The IC doesn't hit the FPR. The marks are from the small posts for the stock IC. Our newer kits have some rubber bumers for that area. If anyone would like them please call or email and we will send them to you.

If the engine is rotated like it is from the factory, the IC will fit like it should. Which is no lip if you follow the curve of the bottom of the scoop.

The first gen IC is thinner, but actually leaves a gap under the Scoop with the engine rotated like it is from the factory. Our Newer IC is thicker, but still shouldn't stick up.

 

Have you communicated this to all of your vendors? I know Randy does a ton of installs and if it is a installation process matter then alot of these issues may be avoided by an alert out to all the vendors who do installs