R56 Cooper s Induction

[TURBO]

Hi All,

Im new to registaring to the forum, but have been a long standing follower.

I have a few questions.

I have been closly reading about induction kits/CAI systems. The Alta model takes my fancy. But i would like to clear a few things up. I read a post on here stating that one member used a custom cai on there r56 turbo and felt that the turbo was under spooling every time they let of the power and the turbo was less responsive and had to spool up again everytime the accelerator was pushed. Why?

Also can anyone tell me if they feel the same sort of thing with the alta? Because its £200 and for that i dont want a decrease in performance.

Is there a noticable performance increase?

I like the pssssssssttttt sound but i have heard that with these modded induction systems you can hear the turbo spool up quite clearly, is this true of the Alta and other systems?

Thanks everyone in advance.

[kevkbuk]

Quote: Originally Posted by TURBO (original)

Hi All,
I have been closly reading about induction kits/CAI systems. The Alta model takes my fancy. But i would like to clear a few things up. I read a post on here stating that one member used a custom cai on there r56 turbo and felt that the turbo was under spooling every time they let of the power and the turbo was less responsive and had to spool up again everytime the accelerator was pushed. Why?

Also can anyone tell me if they feel the same sort of thing with the alta? Because its £200 and for that i dont want a decrease in performance.

Is there a noticable performance increase?

I like the pssssssssttttt sound but i have heard that with these modded induction systems you can hear the turbo spool up quite clearly, is this true of the Alta and other systems?

Thanks everyone in advance.

I've had a similar experience with a custom intake, yes it sounded cool but spool up time between gear changes seemed to be longer and bottom end torque maybe suffered a little. Top end response may have been a little better. But I soon went back to the JCW airbox and the car performs much better between gear changes and is more enjoyable to drive.

The only difference from the Alta setup and what I did is a right angled piece of silicon hose. I certainly would not spend the money on the Alta setup when you can achieve the same using off the shelf parts. Also it does sound better, but the pssst sound can get kinda annoying after a while.

There's a huge thread on NAM about these, but remember US cars have a MAF sensor that we don't have and these can be problematic with intakes.

[futureal33]

I second what Kevkbuk says, the psssst noise is great when you want it, but you soon get tired of it when it does it every gear change whether you're racing your mates and you want the noise, or you're taking your boss out for lunch when you definately dont want the noise .
I noticed a performance reduction with a cone filter too

Back to stock airbox w/ Pipercross foam element - best of both worlds

[TURBO]

Ok so how can the companies sell these products and claim power gains when they are actually slowing the car down and decreasing performance??

Can anyone comment that has actually got the alta cai installed? Can you tell any power decreases?

[kevkbuk]

Quote: Originally Posted by TURBO (original)

Ok so how can the companies sell these products and claim power gains when they are actually slowing the car down and decreasing performance??

A lot of the time it goes something like this:

Company claims a 5bhp increase. This 5bhp can come at 6000rpm but its still a gain. However, looking at the power graph if one is available may show it's lost power or torque lower down the curve where you'll spend most of your time driving.

Also remember that Alta tests of a lot of its products on a car that already has other Alta products installed. Not sure if this applied to their intake or not though. It's much better though to get power graphs before and after from third parties but those are pretty rare.

Alta probably doesn't do this but also try and ensure the product has been benchmarked before and after development. The classic example of this is the Milltek full exhaust advertised with something like 25bhp gains, but they did not test the car before developing it so had no idea what power it produced. They simply took a dyno after fitment and compared it with the stock figures that Mini claim.

[The Overrun]

the ALTA CAI looks like a nice part, should be well engineered

adds 10 whp above 5000 rpm they said

haven't seen any proof of that