[MosquitoMoto]

A new vehicle has come into my life.

It's a Mini Cooper S. The supercharged roller skate. A runabout for my lovely wife. Needless to say I am already planning mods...reducer gear for the supercharger, better flowing filter, and a cold air intake.

Going to fabricate my own plumbing for this intake. I'm leaning towards aluminium to save weight. However, the suspension on this little car is stiff as a board - just how I like it - and vibration will definitely be a factor. Will the aluminium handle this? Would I be better working with stainless?

I have race bikes covered in aluminium parts that seem to handle shock/vibration well in the long term, but I thought it might be wise to check with you Learned Ones before I proceed with this build.

Cheers,

Kym

[Braehill]

Kym,
Cold air intakes on heavy trucks have been made from Aluminum for many years, and for your sake I hope your Mini rides a little smoother than a class 8 truck. Your going to need to tie it into the supercharger and filter box with rubber hose and you can insulate it from vibration with rubber bushings.

Stainless is no less prone to cracking from vibration than Aluminum if it's mounted too solid. Stainless exhaust cracks all the time if it doesn't include flex or bellows.

Len

[weldin mike 27]

Silicone elbows are your friend in this situation.

[MosquitoMoto]

Thanks for the advice guys - aluminium it is then.



Kym

[rick9345]

Check under the hood of any factory car/truck super charged/turbo'd ,observe flex joints for pressure side and/or exhaust to get ideas on needed flex joints and types/materials. Factories spend millions on engineering/testing vibrations, mounting.

[Otto Nobedder]

If I recall, 3003 is an excellent choice for cold-side plumbing, as it doesn't work-harden. It's also an economical choice.

If there are valid arguments for other alloys, I'd like to hear them, as my experience with this application is nil.

Steve S

[MosquitoMoto]

I'm going to spend some time looking under some hoods and also speak with a truck outfitter near me. The sell alu tubing and bends in all sizes.

The idea is not just to make something lighter that improves performance, but also something that looks 'crafted'. I love the look of carefully fabricated one-off parts on an engine.



Kym

[GreinTime]

Stainless definitely provides the wow factor in that regard, but I agree with using aluminum like everyone else said. I've seen some factory stainless plumbing, but it's few and far between

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Arno]

Alu works well. No need to go for heavier stainless.

Some small things to keep in mind when doing these sorts of rigid intake pipes on engines... Not wanting teach anyone to suck eggs here.. Just some pointers..

- Determine what sections move 'with' the engine and which are attached to the chassis/car

The parts that are attached to the engine/SC directly can be mounted pretty rigidly to the engine itself as they move together with the engine. Same goes for parts that are mounted to te car body like pipes to an intercooler or similar. Mounting them on rubber bobbins is good practice, but they don't need too much flex.

The biggest flex needs to be in any area where the 'engine' sections need to connect to the 'car' sections. This is where you usually see bellow or bulged flexible hose sections to connect both ends, but isolate the biggest movements.

For fun stick something like a GoPro under the hood and do a few quick accelerations and brakes.. You'll be amazed at how much the engine moves and tilts on it's mounts!

- Make sure all welded on mounting tabs 'cradle' the pipes

Often you see (cheap) pipes where mounting tabs are just butt-welded onto the pipe. This tends to crack and fail around the weld under vibration very rapidly.

By shaping your mounting tabs in such a way that they partially wrap around the pipe and then welding that you increase the surface area for any forces a lot, which also reduces cracking and damage.

- Do a lot of trial-fitting with PVC pipes

Common trick is to buy a bunch of cheap PVC or other plumbing pipes and then mock-up the diameters, bends and routing you want on the engine and in the car.

This can save you a lot of time and aggro as you find out any tricky spots beforehand and can go through some iterations much quicker.

It's usually not a hard job, but gettings a setup working well and reliably for long(er) times does take a little time and planning.

Personally I like to have the ali pipes anodised black after they are done and I tend to use black silicone flexible hoses for a more OEM/stealth look around the engine, but others like to polish the pipes and go for bright colours. it has no effect on how it works, so go mad!

Bye, Arno.

[MosquitoMoto]

Thanks Arno - good tips.

Stealth for me, it'll all wind up being anodised or powder coated black. Nothing worse than a 'loud' engine bay.


Kym

[Otto Nobedder]

One note...

On a cold air intake, polished/bright metal and light colored flex connectors reflect heat away from the air path... Black anodized and black connectors absorb it. The performance difference will be slight, but real. This is one good argument for chromed headers and black anodized oil pan, water pump, valve covers, and such. Reflect heat where needed, radiate where needed.

Thing that should radiate heat quickly should be black. Things that should either contain heat or prevent it from entering should be chrome/shiny/light colored.

Just a thought.

Steve S

[MosquitoMoto]

One note...

On a cold air intake, polished/bright metal and light colored flex connectors reflect heat away from the air path... Black anodized and black connectors absorb it. The performance difference will be slight, but real. This is one good argument for chromed headers and black anodized oil pan, water pump, valve covers, and such. Reflect heat where needed, radiate where needed.

Thing that should radiate heat quickly should be black. Things that should either contain heat or prevent it from entering should be chrome/shiny/light colored.

Just a thought.

Steve S

'But will the gains show up on the dyno?'

Seriously, good tip, certainly if power is being taken to the last degree. But in this case it is my wife's runabout that I will be tweaking a little simply because...well, because I can't help myself. I am a serial tinkerer.

I don't usually get involved in cars because they bore me, bikes are my thing. But a car with a supercharger? Supercharging and turbocharging are often open to easy/cheap power gains, so if it's there for the taking, why not?

(Cue my wife walking into the house in 3 months time asking "why are my tyres worn out already?")




Kym

[Poland308]

Oh my god. Wives don't ever say that. ,!!

[ex framie]

Yeah what he said.
Mine has the mechanical sympathy of a house brick.
I usually find out as something screams in operation or vibrates worse than a russian helicopter or I can see canvas from 50 meters on the tyres.
Turbo/supercharging can give you grief if you do it wrong.
Its the wifes shopping trolley, leave it standard, spend the money on welding, tools or bikes, she wont appreciate it anyway.

[MosquitoMoto]

Yeah what he said.
Mine has the mechanical sympathy of a house brick.
I usually find out as something screams in operation or vibrates worse than a russian helicopter or I can see canvas from 50 meters on the tyres.
Turbo/supercharging can give you grief if you do it wrong.
Its the wifes shopping trolley, leave it standard, spend the money on welding, tools or bikes, she wont appreciate it anyway.

I often drive with the radio off so that I can listen to what the engine is doing. And while my wife isn't quite in the same league, she's reasonably in-tune mechanically. But mostly she's just a maniac. Loves power, loves driving fast. Will drift a turn on opposite lock in a RWD car given half a chance. She's a bit of a little firecracker. Hence the tyres comment. She burns tyres fast.

No doubt you'll hear more from me when she makes it go 'bang!'



Kym

[ex framie]

Then you are in for it eh.
Dont forget the before and after dyno runs

[MosquitoMoto]

Then you are in for it eh.
Dont forget the before and after dyno runs

As silly as it might sound, I'll definitely dyno the car. I can't help myself...my brother has easy access to a dyno and I like to see what gains I'm making, even if they are modest. A cold air intake, 15 percent reduction pulley on the supercharger, some colder plugs and a good air filter should see us go from 165 or so to something closer to 200, with a nicer torque curve.

It'll only ever be a Mini, but it may as well be one with a bit of spirit.



Kym

[Otto Nobedder]

It'll only ever be a Mini, but it may as well be one with a bit of spirit.

Kym

Like a mosquito on steroids?

(Or as we call them in Louisiana, "mosquitos"?)



Steve S

[ex framie]

That will be Mrs mosquito on roids.
Just remember its the female of the species that bites

[Rick_H]

Your in tight confinements in that car but if you can straighten the air path out that is where your gains will come from.

I build motors on the side and have done extensive drag racing, dynoing and testing. For example we eliminated 2 45 degree turns in a cai 4" tube and picked up 7rwhp...multiple tests. The one gain that always bothered.me and we tried it 4 times was a k&n oil filter picked up 4-5rwhp consistently, can't explain that from any angle....

Had 1 degree of timing in the right place add 92rwhp on a 800hp superchargers car

Fwiw- usually use thin alum due to weight, stainless for looks. I did not see any gain with the same design in both materials while testing.

Your lucky, like others I find out when the wife finally hears a loud ass noise or I drive it and notice something.

[GreinTime]

Thanks Arno - good tips.

Stealth for me, it'll all wind up being anodised or powder coated black. Nothing worse than a 'loud' engine bay.


Kym

Just make sure you weld it with 5356 if your going to anodize it homie

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[MosquitoMoto]

Thanks Arno - good tips.

Stealth for me, it'll all wind up being anodised or powder coated black. Nothing worse than a 'loud' engine bay.


Kym

Just make sure you weld it with 5356 if your going to anodize it homie

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Good point, thanks. I remember reading somewhere that 4043 won't stay colour true.

Car has arrived. Wife very excited.



Kym

[hey_allen]

You might take a poke around through the autospeed.com archived articles.
As an Aussie car magazine, they had some articles about stealthy mods to keep the cars under the radar as far as law enforcement went, and to keep from attracting attention where not wanted.

One guy that they wrote about went so far as to shroud the end of his much larger than stock exhaust pipe with a facade to make it look like a small muffler and OEM appearing exhaust tip sticking out of it. Never mind that the actual exhaust flow was through the bottom of the "muffler" and the pipe was nearly 4" diameter at that point...

[Poland308]

I know that on round pipe every 90 deg bend adds the same amount of drag on air flow as about 10 feet of pipe.

[MosquitoMoto]

I know that on round pipe every 90 deg bend adds the same amount of drag on air flow as about 10 feet of pipe.

Yes, generally speaking short and straight is sweet.

Mind you, there's a whole other conversation to be had regarding intake tract diameter and its effect on intake velocity. I've done quite a bit of experimenting over the years (with naturally aspirated stuff) and sometimes it's a fine line between opening things up so that they can breathe, and opening up too much, causing lower intake velocities.

But seeing as this car is just the wife's little runabout, I won't be going just too nuts.

(Probably...)



Kym