Whats your thoughts on this?
I quite fancy an airtec FMIC
i assume there will be some pressure loss due to the larger capacity of a front mount, can this be offset with a more reduced supercharger pulley?
Is there any chance of boost leaks due to the intercooler not being mounted to the engine itself?
Is the reduced temperature easily noticeable?
Anything else to consider?
The front mount inter cooler will depend on a couple of things. If you've got AC you'll need to lose that for fitting purposes. This usually puts folk off although it's not a big job to do. It also begs the question do you need there extra cooling ? For constant track days then I would say you may well notice the benefit of longer runs but apart from that I'd say you'll notice very little difference over a top mont for day to day use. I run a GRS sport top mount IC and I'm very pleased with the recovery times and wouldn't hesitate to run it on the track. I think the big picture is how much work do you want to give yourself and for what benefit. If everything is fitted correctly I can't see you having any leak issues and the air going to and from the cooler will be cooler anyway given the distance it has to travel from the engine ... just my opinion
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thanks for the reply!Originally Posted by EcosseGP
The aircon isn't a concern to me, i understand its just a case of fitting an idler pulley in its place then removing all other components. Is there no way of just fitting a shorter belt?
You are right in asking whether i need that level of cooling. At this moment in time, probably not. The predicament is though, eventually i hope to do some track days and carry out a few more upgrades, so I'm reluctant to buy a top mount only to find it needs replacing in the near future.
Are you monitoring your IATs at the moment to see if you need the greater intercooling capacity? What size pulley are you running? Water meth an option instead?
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I run an Airtech TMIC and even after being thrashed, it's almost cold to the touch. Leave it a couple of minutes though and it can almost be too hot to touch. Heat soak is terrible and you can really feel the effects of a sluggish throttle coming out of town or in stop go traffic.
I guess it depends on what you will be using the car for. I was speaking to a guy that hillclimbs an R53, he suffers from heat soak due to having to warm the car up stationary before the start (obvious I know) and then he's only using it for a minute or so before his run is over. If you're tracking it, or live away from traffic, I think a TMIC would be fine as it's always being fed cool air.
I too have considered water / methanol injection, but not tuning for the methanol just in case I run out and pop my engine. I also have concerns it freezes up in winter. Hopefully the methanol will prevent this in the tank, but I'm not too sure about it once it's in the thinner tubing.
There's a brilliant comparison on North American Motoring between many TM intercoolers. A few years old now, but so are our cars and things haven't changed that much.
Not sure if I'm allowed to post links, please remove if not allowed
http://www.northamericanmotoring.com...ing-tests.html
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I'm trying to measure the temps, having a little trouble understanding the dash command though. As i understand it, my reading was 42c above the ambient temp, however as mentioned I'm finding the dash command difficult to understand.
Pulley at the moment is 17% reduction, i will look to add crank and alternator pulley at a later date as well though.
isn't water/meth injection a pretty expensive option?
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The airtec was one i was looking at, seems to be between that and the GRS. I did see a pro alloy one which incorporates one of the intercooler horns as well, looks pretty interesting.
As far as the usage of the car... Its a second car, so realistically hammered it gets used it gets hammered. I hope to be doing some track days next year as well.
Interesting link too, thanks :)
It's more expensive long-term as you have to keep it topped up, it's not fit and forget. But if tracking it is the plan, you'll be spending £££ anyway!
Get a decent TMIC, monitor the IATs, and if it's not doing the job you want you'll be able to sell it on easily. There's a limited market for FMICs, and you will get boost loss.
The R53 is an imperfect design, and sometimes we just have to accept it's little idiosyncrasies - it's probably why we love them so
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What kind of power would you expect to lose using a fmic over a tmic?
Also, out of interest which tmic do you use?
From what I remember it's about 5 bhp, and whilst it will take longer to heat soak, you still need clean air to drag the temps back down.
When Ricardo were developing the R53 engine they considered all the different options, and considered the TMIC to be the best compromise. I'd stick with what the engineers went for.
I run an Airtec, used to have a GRS. I deliberately run an 11% pulley to keep temps down at higher revs, and to make good power to the redline. 230 bhp in an R53 is plenty IMO.
IME the GRS ran in air a degree or 2 cooler than the Airtec, but at bursts of WOT the temps with the Airtec don't climb as quickly. In reality there's not much in it. I've also got an M7 bonnet scoop to try and help
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Feet were made to fit car pedals. If we were meant to walk, we'd have pogo sticks for legs
You can easily monitor the IATs with a Scanguage and it'll show you exactly how long it takes for the temps to drop. It also does the job of 4 gauges but if you have dash command I'm surprised that you can't monitor inlet or outlet temps. For track stuff I know it's maybe a hassle but what about taking out a head light or side light and run cooling ducts .. you could always get a pair of headlight covers and manufacture something from them. Removing the AC radiator from in front of the radiator should give you a little more air cooling around the front of the car too.
I'd have to say though a good starting point would be to look at what the old challenge cars are running and do likewise ... they've made the mistakes and got a set up which is clearly geared towards a track car
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