After a 5 month wait, I finally got and installed the new Helix FMIC today and it was more than worth the wait. I've only made a quick test so far, but it is really COOL (pun intended). IATs stay rock steady at 2-3deg over ambient in all types of driving (city, highway, twisties). Even a WOT on-ramp charge only saw a 4deg deference and it dropped down as soon as I back off. This thing drops a heat load in a hurry! I'm seeing a 2/3's drop in IAT over the OEM IC. I LIKE IT!! PS: I had mine coated with thermal dispersant.
FYI: Another quick run this AM with it cool (65F) and damp (70%) showed only a 1deg. deferential! This gets better all the time.
Nope, and I don't intend to. IMHO, the environment of a dyno test cannot be duplicated in real world driving unless you're driving with WOT all the time. An experienced butt dyno is still best for actual driving. BTW, ICs of any kind do not add power. They just help maintain the power that's already there by keeping the IAT as close to ambient as possible. For every degree drop in IAT you get an increase in power of 1-1.5% and the same loss for an increase in IAT!
Thanks Dwight, none of what you posted is new to me but I am yet to see a comparison on which of the FMIC for the R56 has the edge. I've read a lot whinging from vendors about who copied who but very little empirical evidence on what is best. Cheers
It must be Helix that you are accusing of whinging. I won't go into the reason for our whinging, but I'd like to offer a loan of our intercooler to any independent, fair, unbiased tester who would like to compare the performance of ours vs. any on the market. Perhaps you would volunteer. With the bull nose design, both externally and internally, with our cast end tanks with knife edged ferrules, ours will perform the best imnsho. If we are out-performed, I'll buy the winning cooler from you, so we can shamelessly copy their design .
Damnnn now I wish my wife's clubbie was a turbo. But it's not... Oh well. BTW, I'm not a fan of "approach" measurements or anything like that, the only real numbers that matter are WOT. The reason I say this is off WOT, you just change the throttle position to get what you need, there's not enough heating or compression to get close to timing retardation or anything of the like, and there is little to no boost induced charge heating from compressing the intake air. So all those numbers don't mean anything really. You want to test ICs but don't have good air flow on a dyno? Get an inertial performance meter, find a place to do 2nd gear runs, log IATs and acceleration times, and look for a delta. This is for street testing. For track testing, look at some lap times or 1/4 mile times with data logging. and I say this as a guy who has tested ICs ad nauseum on the R53. I've also found that butt dynos are more calibrated to credit card expenditure, rather than any real performance increase.... Matt
Yes indeed, and to be more specific: good air flow means a wind tunnel. I would also posit that in the case of testing intercoolers, an inertial 'dyno' and on-street testing is superior even to a wind tunnel/dyno, since synchronizing wheel speed and wind speed in a tunnel ain't happening easily.
Hey Eric, I believe there are 3-4 facilities in the country that can do that sort of "dyno" work. I've heard they charge $8K/hr with a one day minimum. Who's gonna pony up first? LMAO
Dinan's shop in Morgan Hill has enough air flow to simulate 60-70 mph or so, but it's not as fancy as wind tunnel stuff. It is much better than the fans I see in a typical speed shop though.... Matt