I decided that I would check my plugs today. Being that I have the Altal large intercooler, it has to be removed in order to get to the plugs.
First thisng I checked was if the oil catch can was doing it's job, It was!

Then I noticed some problems with rubbing. Below are some photos of what I found. If I had waited 1000 more miles I would have been in bigger trouble for sure. This is after about 4000 miles.

First photo is of the intake manifold with the intercooler removed. Notice the four 'stock' intercooler mounting holes. The issue is with the two inner mounts and the mount for the radiator hose in the center. These three point had been rubbing the underside front of the Alta IC.


Second photo is of the underside of the IC. You can see the two outside wear marks and a slight rub mark in the middle.



Third photo is a closeup of the damage that the left (as you look at the photo) IC mount did.



Fourth photo is damage done to the right side (as you look down onto the motor) intake, just off the IC This damage is from the Alta IC diverter! Yikes!






Last photo is a close up of the intake damage



I have already done what I felt needed doing at this point. If anyone wants to know, just ask.

 

Wow. That really stinks. I had heard that there were ALTA issues with clearance through the bonnet scoop (i.e. being too high) but nothing like what you've got here. Hope ALTA does the right thing by you. Let us know what happens

 

Please understand that my post was not too complain about this product nor Alta. It's just to warn others that have this IC that they should make sure it's not happening to them.

 

I understand. Just wishing you the best of luck with resolving the issue.

 

All the more reason to expect that the guys from alta will make sure that they do what;s right.

 

Problem Resolved

 

I have the alta IC also, but have not removed it yet. would a washer or some other barrior between the IC and the manifold work to correct the problem. whate did you do to correct the problem?

 

having farted around with intercooler manufacture, let me say it is a tight fit in there. If you go thicker to get a larger cross section, you run into the hood or block the airflow. go lower and you hit the fuel reg. then when the boost goes up, the intercooler wants to squirt out of the rubber boots. go toward the rear and you can't get at the plugs, go toward the front and the hood scoop gets blocked.
then the engine jumps around, slamming things into the hood, made worse since the '03's ditched one of the torque restraining links.

it's not easy

 

I suppose that is just the cost of adding aftermarket, non-engineered and tested modifications.
you just have to expect that there will be an amount of incurred costs for replacement parts etc... speed costs, how fast do you want to go? Hopefully you make(win) some money back in the process.

 

onasled,

Removing the posts was actually something we were going to include in our instructions, but we thought many people would have not been happy with cutting something on their engine. If this isn't true then taking a simple hack saw to the post will solve this problem and can very easily be part of instructions in the future.

To assure every other ALTA Intercooler owner, this WON'T be a problem, there are a couple of things to look at here. There is 3/8 worth of aluminum to go through before it leaks. Also the core is resting on the post, not jammed into the post.

The way a bar and plate type car is constructed makes it much more durable than the less expensive, thinner, tube and fin. A tube and fin type core has roughly 1/16 of an inch of wall before it would wear through. Our bar and plate has 3/8 of an inch. On our older design, we used the tube and fin type core. We had to scarifice core thickness and performance because we couldn't rest the thin tubes on the post because of the wear problems. Any other larger TMIC has to battle this same problem, they either make it smaller to clear the post, or make it thinner to hover over them. Both of these make performance suffer. We choose to make ours bigger and better to produce more HP.

When we designed this IC, we knew that it rests on the posts and we didn't worry about it causing problems because of the core design. When i say rests it does just that. Its not forced, or crammed into them which would cause problem.

So to make sure that the everyone is happy, all future shipments of the ALTA Top Mount Intercooler will have a small rubber bumper underneth to protect it against ANY worry anyone has. We will also send these to anyone that askes us or is worried about it being a problem.

ALTA Performance

 

I will have to agree with planeguy here.

I was not upset with Alta on this, but I might have felt different if there was a hole in either the IC or the intake. I am very happy with the Alta and I feel that it's the best air/air IC out there. They have done a good job taking up all the space available. It's a poor design to start with, putting the IC where it Mini put it.

Well, I did cut down those two post, but you now have the problem of the radiator hose mount. That is sure to dig into the fins, but I don't see any loss there. I silicone some small rubber pieces onto the intercooler itself.
I ground down a bit of the diverter that was rubbing on the intake. This I think is certainly something that Alta does need to fix. No reason for the consumer to make this mod.

Problem with the new Alta supplied rubber bumpers is that this IC already sits too high in some Minis. With the bumpers, this might be a bigger issue on more cars. I though would like some. I may cut these post down more and move the hose clamp moun and grin that out. The IC sits perfect now and when the hood is down the IC is flush with the air duct.
These rubber bumbers should have a spike in then so you can just press them down into the screw holes.

Some photos


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Great pics!

 

I personally like my big *** Alta IC stickin' through the scoop just ready for some major motorin'. Even though it may defer the air, it will still cool the front of it by the chill factor. $0.02


Lagston

 

The diverter edge that rubs against the exit bullhorn can just be bent out of the way. Another option is to grind an arc that matches the shape of the bullhorn, with at least an 1/8" gap.

 

That's nice...who removed my post and why?

 

onasled,

Would you mind taking a pic of the hood scoop with the hood closed? I am curious to see how much of the scoop is blocked by the leading edge of the intercooler.

 

you're always getting in trouble... (har)

maybe you need to send out some christmas cards to the mods?

 

I'd be happy too. It's too dark out tonight, but I'll do so tomorrow.
I have always been able to get my IC low, about 3/16" just above the opening. I think that I have it about level now, for the most part.

Originally I did remove that large rear stock IC mounts that come off the intake manifold. That alone seem to help a bit. I also cleaned up anything I was able to that was under the IC both for keeping it low and to keep the air flow as clean as possible.

 

Here comes the big trade off if we FIX it!

It will have to be thinner, or shorter, which will surely take away from the 10-12whp gained by our part. I agree that mini people shouldn't have to cut the posts down, but we still feel that the slight amount of pressure being put on the post won't damage the IC. Also that is why a very thin rubber bushing should do the trick.

onasled,
I am glad you are happy with the performance of the part, and i know it is outperforming any other IC out there. I think we all wish MINI took the steps like Mitsu did on the EVO and made a front mounted IC.

Expect to see one from us in a few months.

ALTA Performance

 

The IC sticking up is something that we had 2 of our customers call us about. Both customers had motor mount inserts, and both had roughly .25" sticking up past the scoop. One customer fixed it by simply loosening the motormounts and readjusting the engine. We came to the conclusion that when installing the motor mounts they do a couple of things.
1. They lift the engine up slighly because of the stiffer mounts
2. The engine gets tilted forward because the pitchstop mount gets tightened with the motor jacked up.

Also we have been supplying some adjustable spacers for the back side of the IC to help rotate the IC down in the front for those who have the problem.

We haven't be able to figure out if it is just the motor mounts, or a model year change, or what. Please if anyone elses IC is sticking up more than a very slight amount, please let us know. I would love to know your month and year the car was built and some other info.

Just to make sure, if you look straight at the scoop opening parellel to ground, it may stick up more than if you follow the curve of the scoop. Following the curve of the scoop should have almost no lip.

Please let us know!

ALTA PERFORMANCE

 

you take trade-ins ??

My dreams have been answered! I want one first, me, me , me, ... over here..ooohh, ooohhh....

 

So let's see, reduce the size a bit. Say 30- 35%. Would that be about right? And lose 10-12 wheel HP. Very intersting. You might want to check out the following quote from your own site:

"Dyno results on otherwise stock mini cooper s show 7 hp and 5 ft/lbs torque at the wheels from 2000 rpm to redline and beyond. Modified cars (pulley, intake and exhaust) produce an additional 9-11 hp and 7-9 ft/lbs torque"

 

We are fully aware what our site says, and the gain had by the IC on "pulleyed" cars. What i said was it would take away from the 10-12WHP, not take it all away.

Lets say we make it shorter by the 35% that could equate to 35% loss in the 10-12 WHP. In real life, i think it will be more though, but for argument, the WHP now is in the 6-8WHP Is this worth it? That is hard to say, at our $899 new retail price the extra 35% WHP is worth it to me and most people. If we made a smaller core and tanks the price would be the same as the one is now.

This is "New IC" very easy for us to make, but are there buyers for a slightly larger than stock IC that only gains 6-8WHP, for $899? There might be and only the MINI community can help us make that descison. If there is enough interest in this part, we will make it. Right now our focus in IC's is in the FMIC. This is where the real gains i think will be had, but it too will cost more.

We will keep the MINI communitiy in the loop the closer we get to finishing the FMIC.

ALTA PERFORMANCE

 

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?

Quoting horsepower for an intercooler really doesn't make sense since there are so many variables that influence it.

 

I was just trying to make a simple example that the smaller IC will loose HP. Many people think that too big of an IC will loose HP and cause lag. These statements are always made by people with no experience with upgraded IC's or forced induction vehicles. Bigger is better, ALWAYS!!

Imagine you have a stock sized IC and a SC/turbo flowing X amount of air. If you double the size the core can now flow almost twice as much air because the has more passages for the air to flow through.

Some people say there is too much Pressure drop with bigger cores!
Pressure drop is caused by 1 thing, restriction! If you take 2 MINI IC's with the same core design, fin count..... but one is stock size and one is twice the size. Since there is less resrticttion in the larger core there is less pressure drop. Other restrictions that cause pressure drop are more fins per inch with different cores. This is another varible we played with to make sure there isn't a huge pressure drop. The benifit to more fins is better cooling which gives you more HP. Every IC has pressure drop, very good ones have a 1-2psi, and more than 4 is not acceptable. The pressure drop of a core isn't everything though.

Some poeple think the sear volume causes pressure drop. This is also not true. If you have a huge open box that is 5 times the volume of the core, the pressure on the inlet, and outlet is the same. There might be a slight amount a lag felt, but no pressure drop. The lag associated with any of the MCS larger ICs is very very minimal. This is simply because the there is hardly any volume in the boost system for the MINI. And with the instant boost the SC produces, this in never felt.

What i am getting at is the smaller theroetical ALTA IC most likely going to loose more than the 35% because the cooling suffers as does the flow because of the missing air passages. The smaller it gets, the less, and smaller the passages get, that the air can flow through.

With our IC on a car driving at the track under full boost, we would see roughly 20 degrees cooler manifold air temps. The most impressive part is, as the car was driving harder and longer, the SC outlet temps rose (average) from 150 to 180 degrees and the manifold temps stayed at 78F! This shows how well the IC deals with the added heat. The pressure drop was in the 1.1-1.5psi range, which is very exceptable.

ALTA PERFORMANCE