should go up due to much better flow and design. my previous posts i was disregarding flow assuming that they were they same core just different sizes, but i should have known because we were discusing the stock fmic. duh! im sorry for the confusion and me sounding like a dumbass.

 

Deadbeatrec,

Now I am a little confused. Switching from the race FMIC to stock would drop PSI? Is that what you are saying?

Sorry if this was answered.

SF

 

IF I had bolted on a stock intercooler as my third test the air temps would have climbed considerably, the PSI would have dropped too.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

yes precicely. think of it this way, if u had two drinking straws, one 12 inches with a 1mm inner dia. (ID) and one that was 15 inches with an ID of 5mm, which one will u be able to suck up your drink with easier? the one with the larger ID because its a lot less restrictive even though it is longer (bigger intercooler).
the stock intercooler being the 12" straw that is more restrictive and the bigger intercooler being the 15" straw that flows better.

 

I disagree with this statement as "pressure drop" of an intercooler is the difference between the intake pressure (pressure at the intake end tank of the cooler) vs the outlet pressure (pressure at the outlet of the cooler)

from what you are saying in the above statement (and I may be reading it wrong) is that if, on a stock system, the turbo is producing say 20psi of boost (this is the pressure at the inlet into the inlet tank of the cooler) and the pressure at the outlet of the cooler is 15psi (all theoretical here) then there is a 5psi drop.

now if the vendor fits an aftermarket cooler and the pressure drop quoted is 1 psi then the turbo is producing 20 psi (inlet into the cooler) then the outlet is 19psi, not 16 psi (20-5 of the original and -1 of the aftermarket, its 20-1 = 19)

Hope I have not confused any 1.

Just on a personal note, from my research if you had to REALLY pick at ALL intercoolers ever made you could find fault, be it opinion or factual. this is the REAL world, you need to make compromises in order to survive. Both intercoolers mentioned above are GOOD, well researched and tested, quality items. they both do a brilliant job of cooling your intake charge.

As far as road testing is concered (which many peple are agueing is better than dyno) you need to remember things of the real world, like in the test on comparing the cooler there are things like head winds, cross winds, tail winds..... All of which will alter the airflow into the cooler, so if the wind changes during the run you are none the wiser. (remember that a 10MPH wind will make a 20mph difference to the flow over the cooler when you do runs in oposite directions)

Is there an air speed sensor in front of the coolers to make sure that the ambient air flowing over the cooler is equal in both ROAD test of the nisei and buschur?

the dyno fan, although slow air speed, would provide a constant air flow over the cooler.

but then again every one has opinions, facts and can find a way to argue any point.

my $2.00 worth!


Mike

 

Well I made some phone calls and did some begging and made some deals.

I am going to be putting out a huge investment to buy our FMIC cores in much larger numbers now.

Here is how it is going to be.

The Standard intercooler we offer is a least expensive intercooler has a 24x10.3x3.5" core. Inlet and outlets are 2.5". Same end tank design as the Deluxe kit. No cutting of anything required and the undertray goes back on. This intercooler is now going to be priced at $600.

The Deluxe intercooler costs us quite a bit more to make. It comes with a complete lower intercooler pipe kit and some additional couplings. This kit will be $695.

The Race FMIC I am going to be able to drop the price down too, it will now be $695.

There you go. Hopefully they sell fast as I am going to have a LOT of cores sitting here now.

In the end all this fighting and comparing is best for the customers. It leads to better prices and if companies are like I am, better product.

Thank you,

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

Well, if nothing else Dave, you're a good business man

 

I am sorry but i dont get what u are saying? when did i say anything about 20psi droping to 15psi? please elaborate.

 

As mentioned above, this is not true.

Pressure drop is the difference in pressure between the turbo side of the IC (IC input) and the intake manifold side of the IC (IC output). To accurately measure pressure drop across an individual intercooler you need to have a pressure sensor on both the input and output side of the IC.

You specify a pressure drop at a given PSI input. For example (hypothetical), the stock IC may have a pressure drop of 4psi at 20psi input. An aftermarket unit may have a pressure drop of 1psi at 20psi input.

STOCK| AFTERMARKET
20psi | 20psi (IC Input)
16psi | 19psi (IC Output)
4psi | 1psi (Pressure Drop)

Now, one thing that I have not seen mentioned (sorry if I missed it) is the impact of from what source the boost controller references boost. To accurately measure the difference in pressure drop between two intercoolers without having two pressure sensors I believe you have to reference turbo outlet pressure with the boost controller rather than manifold pressure. Here is how I see it working:

Start the test with brand X intercooler. Set the MBC so that the MAP sensor (reading PSI on the Output side of IC) reads your target PSI, for this example let's say 25psi at redline in 3rd gear. Now, your MBC will be seeing a somewhat higher PSI from the turbo outlet (IC Input side). What this number is does not matter. What matters is that it will remain constant. Because the MBC is getting its pressure source from the IC Input side, it will always open the wastegate at the same IC Input pressure, no matter what IC comes after it or what pressure you are reading at the manifold.

So you do your dyno run and confirm you have 25psi at the MAP sensor with brand X. Swap in brand Y intercooler and do another run. Now from your log you see you only have 23 psi at the same point. You have just proven brand Y has 2 psi more pressure drop than brand X at around 25psi. This is a true and accurate difference.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you were to hook the MBC up to the manifold pressure here is what I see happening:

Once again we will test at a boost setting where the MAP sensor reads 25psi at the top of 3rd gear. When manifold pressure (IC Outlet) gets to 25psi the MBC opens the wastegate. We don't know the pressure in the IC Input side, but we know it is somewhere above 25psi. So with brand X we do the test and sure enough it reads at 25psi. We swap to brand Y and do another pull and surprisingly it still reads right around 25psi. There may be a slight difference, but not much, even though the pressures on the IC Input side would be significantly higher than with brand X. Because brand Y has a higher pressure drop the turbo has to work harder to make 25 psi at the intake manifold, and because the MBC is hooked up to the intake manifold pressure it will automatically adjust no matter how restrictive the intercooler is. All you have proven is how well your MBC and wastegate work. If you were logging temperature it would give you an accurate picture of the overall performance of the IC. Because with the brand Y IC the turbo has to work harder and blow hotter air to get the same intake manifold PSI as the brand X IC, this will show if the temperature reduction ability of brand Y makes up for that difference.

I tried to express what has been tumbling around in my brain as coherently as possible. Sorry if it is confusing and please feel free to point out if I am way off base. This is not a knock of any company's testing methods, results, or products. It is intended simply as a description of how I see things working out based on my knowledge of the operation of turbos, wastegates, boost controllers and intercoolers, limited as it may be. I am on these forums to learn, so if I am wrong and you can teach me something, by all means do so.

Below is a spreadsheet with all the numbers I used. Maybe seeing it that way will be easier.

EVOlutionary

 

You are saying that a difference in temperature is not required for heat transfer? Wow, anyone have a heat transfer and fluid flow textbook available?

What I said was that a rock at a specific temp (lets say 20F) sitting outside in 20F air will remain at 20F weather there is a 100 mph wind or zero wind. Without a difference in temperature there is no heat transfer. Period. End of line.

If there is a difference in temperature between the air and an object, then wind speed and surface area exposed to the wind play a major part in the heat loss rate from that object. This is known as wind chill.

Keith

 

Well it looks like I don't really need to say much since a lot of the concerns have been brought up by other members. It goes to show how sharp the members are here on EvoM. I've really never met a group of car owners that are so interested in the science behind things. That's awesome!

When Nisei designed the intercooler they determined the top mounting location was structurally sufficient to support the full weight of the intercooler. In addition, both the stock and Nisei pipe kits contain brackets the secure the pipe kit while supporting the intercooler as well.

From my understanding you were planning on testing the Nisei IC vs. your Deluxe kit because you were saying our test was un-fair. I was under the impression that your test was meant to be a re-evaluation of the test we did using your own testing methods. I don't think the test you did can offer an accurate comparison to our test because of the variation in products between the two and the methodology behind the testing. I'm sure many members on here were expecting an all-inclusive test that would be the end of all intercooler tests to come.

The reason Nisei chose those products was because many times on this website it was claimed that the BR Deluxe FMIC would out-perform the Nisei. Also, at the time the BR Race FMIC had not been officially released and we even tried ordering one and were told it wasn't available yet. We did want to test the race FMIC but the best comparison at the time was the deluxe kit since it was the only thing available to purchase (and had a similar price point too). Nisei also felt that testing the standard Nisei vs. the Race FMIC would be un-matched since the Nisei Competition Series of products is in development, including the Nisei Competition intercooler which has been in development since early fall and is now in the testing phase.

The fact the standard Nisei IC did so well when challenged by the BR race FMIC only sustains what we've always said - that Nisei products are engineered to be "Race Ready" even if it's marketed for the street guy while still maintaining the best fitment and quality. We've always said the product will speak for itself and is the reason I've been so concise in my postings.

I'm not sure why David didn't turn up the boost for the Nisei IC. I'm confident the Nisei IC would have exchanged more heat and made more power if the boost pressures were the same. I'd also like to touch on (and I think someone did actually) the fact that there is a deviation between dyno pulls no matter what you do. You could run the car 4 times back-to-back and come up with numbers that deviate 5 or 10 whp. This is exactly why we felt a real-world test needed to be conducted that involved multi-gear pulls and real wind speeds. We did the dyno tests on the Nisei IC for the guys that wanted to know. Nisei felt the data for a 1-gear pull wasn't conclusive enough to really study the performance of the product, especially with a static wind speed but dynamic engine and vehicle speed. Furthermore, the test that was conducted on the Nisei site was done as an analysis that all intercoolers heat soak at one point - the study was to determine when this occurred. A primary objective of that test was also to show that a multi-gear run is required to fully analyze the performance of the intercooler. The multi-gear test will more accurately show the intercooler's resistance to heat than a dyno run.

What I did want to comment on was the methodology behind the testing. Like I said before, I was under the impression that the test was going to involve the same type of variables/sensors we tested and be very similar to ours but using the AEM EMS unit as explained below.

I feel the test is lacking of several important details:


- Ambient Temperature.

- Inlet/Outlet Temp and Inlet/Outlet Pressure and a differential (as you mentioned in your quote above).

- Number of pulls done and a dyno sheet of each pull.

- Real-world multi-gear pulls.

- AEM Log to see the progression of the temps/boost as the pass is made.



Without these details it's difficult to determine how conclusive the test was to accurately compare these products against each other.

With all that said I do want to extend a thank you to all the Nisei Engineering supporters out there and the individual who provided David the core for testing. As I've always said, we encourage everyone to conduct their own testing using their own methods if they want. Some people use different indicators to determine if the product meets their personal approval. We stand behind the product and that it will perform as claimed. In the pursuit of excellence, Nisei continually tests their products against the competition and under various conditions and applications. The test publicized on the Nisei site is one of many tests that have been done and will be done in the future. Keep your eyes open for more testing in the future as the goal of Nisei products is nothing short of excellence - as is evident in the rest of the Nisei current product line and what's to come.


Rob

 

Is there anything else you'd like to add after the fact?

What's to show that Nisei hasn't done "nothing but research" on the Evo? The video was meant to be informational and observational. I'm sure even you learned something from it. When was the last time a manufacturer took the time to educate the consumer? Kind of hard to recall, huh?

I run my business honestly. I've never had the desire or need to lie/deceive my customers. I was a car enthusiast before I was a business owner. I started this business because I had friends all around me that were getting sold mediocre products that they didn’t know enough about to determine it was mediocre. Since the inception of my business - when I started off in my house - bad customer service, dishonesty, crooked business, bad ethics were something that would never have a place in my business. To date I have very high-rated customer service and a very high rate of repeat customers. While in life you can't make everyone happy, I can go to sleep every night knowing I pushed to the extra mile for my customers and that I am providing them with exceptional product for their money. I encourage people to do their own research and observe the high satisfaction level that Nisei products have. The products speak for themselves.

Rob

 

The Nisei IC is designed to work without removal of the front bumper safety beam or modification.

 

I thought the same thing, and used to tell people this as if it were fact. Then I did back to back testing on Axis Racings Dyno dynamics dynometer between having a test pipe on my car, and swapping in a high flow cat. With a manual boost controler, and no changes in the boost lines or boost controler setting I had a 1.5 psi drop in boost. The only conclusion I could draw was that the added exhaust restriction resulting in more back pressure resulted in higher exhaust pressure in the turbo itself and this helped push the wastegate flapper open sooner. A change in restriction on the intake side via the intercooler may cause similar issues, I am not stating this as fact since I don't have personal experiance with it..... but it does not suprise me at all. Dave does not have the feedback loop turned on with the AEM boost control at this time, so it would not automaticly compensate for differences in pressure drop.

Keith

 

Anyone who can make their way out of a paper bag quickly realizes that with this test, there were clearly two winners, no losers.

Anytime one can get the level of efficiency from an IC such that demonstrated by these two, he'll be going places - fast. We're talking maybe 1psi differential at the 30psi level at peak torque, and intake air temps near ambient at peak power while under heavy loading. What more could anyone want?

We can all quibble over minutia, but the fact remains that both ICs were so efficient that it would seem virtually impossible to do measurably better - at any price. At least we know what these two ICs (Nisei and Buschur Race) can do. As far as I am concerned, this test shows neither of these ICs have anything left to prove through power levels approaching at least 500bhp.

As far as I'm concerned, that's the meat and potatoes of it, and what remains to be argued is but breadcrumbs.