Engine Drivetrain 1st Gen Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: Forge R53 intercooler (Brief Review)

Yes, I know, it helps keep the power you already make...
And if I had the resources they had, then I would provide data either for or against, but I'm presenting my findings in the best way I can by monitoring temperature and pressure over a period of time.

 

Here are a few more pictures of it installed.

 

Ummm, pressure sensor is down stream of the intercooler so shouldn't it be the opposite?

Second, if I get there faster and the car is still pulling instead of running out of steam, wouldn't I actually go faster?

 

Yes, gearing is fixed, but my point is, power was tapering off before I reached redline, meaning I wasn't gaining much momentum after a certain point. Before It was like going WOT then backing off on the accelerator a few hundred RPM before redline. Now, it actually pulls all the way to redline.

 

Wow, I thought this was the FUN and Friendly MINI site...

 

I have 19 years experience as a maintenance technician in manufacturing. I deal with trouble shooting 600 psi high pressure air compressors and water flow for our water Bottling process. I know fluid flow and how to identify where restrictions are.
As far as physics go, flow and pressure don't become inverse of each other until the flow limitations of the piping or ductwork is reached. At that point pressure goes up but flow doesn't. An intercooler that shows a pressure drop after installation is actually restrictig flow. This is evident because the motor is consuming air at a faster rate than what can pass through the intercooler creating the pressure drop on the back side of the intercooler where we measure boost. Once you get better flow through the intercooler, pressure on the back side will go up and the pressure on the front side will go down until it equalizes across the entire system. Once that is achieved, the head itself becomes your new bottleneck.

 

I would have loved to try the GRS but it was out of my budget range. I think the mounting of the Forge Intercooler hurts its performance a little but we'll know for sure how much as we get deeper into summer.

 

The GRS and the Forge are both tube and fin core design and they both use CNC couplings and the end tanks have similar designs. The GRS is the same core height as the stock IC, but has 16 rows of cooling tunes. The Forge core height is about 1/3 taller than stock and has 14 rows.

http://www.grsmotorsport.co.uk/minicoopers.html

 

As of late, the Airtec intercoolers seem to be gaining traction. But they seem to be in the same price range as the GRS units.
http://www.airtec-cooling.co.uk/product/mini-cooper-s-r53-top-mount-intercooler-upgrade-in-stock/

 

Quick update of sorts. I've had the Forge on for a few weeks now but all the rain we've had this month has kept temps pretty low. Today is the fourth day in a row that we've had no rain and the temperature is starting to rise. Should be up into the 90's by the time I head out to work this evening so I'll keep track of things and see how it goes.
This morning however, I had to make a run to the local Home Depot to pick up a few items for the audio portion of the car. When I came out of HD 45 minutes later, the ambient temperature was 85 and the IAT was up to 140 due to heat soak. The 5 mile trip from HD to my house with an average speed in light traffic of 43mph and 3 stoplights (that I actually had to stop at) brought the IAT down from 140 to 107. Still seems to be cooling pretty well, but the main thing I noticed is that it doesn't seem to heat back up as fast as the stock IC when sitting at the red-light. With the stock IC, as soon as I stop at the red-light, I can watch the IAT's rise, where as with the Forge IC, temperature seems to hold at where it was. I'm thinking that maybe this is due to the plastic OEM cover not allowing the heat to escape where the end tanks are. For all of the guys that go to the track, maybe try removing the plastic diverter between laps and see if your heat soak temperature is lower.

 

Do you have a link to the R53 IC testing? The other link is for the R56.