Ebay intercooler testing from the Pros at Buschur Racing....the facts, the truth[/b] [/align][hr]

Here you go, we finally did it. I hope everyone is happy now. I know I am.

My car is on the dyno making huge power, 640 whp with the new HTA35R on it. We have our Race FMIC on it which I say is the best FMIC you can buy with your hard earned money. The tempurature today is 62 degrees F in our dyno room.

I made a bunch of pulls this morning and the car was making within 1-3 hp on the last few of 640/511 torque.

When I got done I decided to leave the car on the dyno and put on the Ebay intercooler that is a copy in appearance to the AMS FMIC.

My car is running C16. I am using NO air temp correction for fueling other than when the air is BELOW 50 degrees F. So if the air temp goes UP the fuel stays the same. I am using no timing compensation for anything either. What I am telling you all is the map is the map, it is running what I told it to and not making adjustments.

The last pull I made with our Race FMIC was 643 whp and 511 ft lbs of torque. I MADE NO CHANGES. I left the dyno, had Ted bolt on the new intercooler and came back when he was done.

Here is the important data:

Air temp after the intercooler at the start of the pull, 62.60 degrees.
Air temp after the intercooler at the end of the pull, 69.80 degrees.
Increase in air temp 7.2 degrees.
Peak boost was 40.3 psi.

We then bolted on the Ebay special that is an AMS attempted copy. Absolutely NO changes were made to anything other than bolting on the I/C.

Car made 633 whp and 505 ft lbs of torque. So not a bad loss at this HP level.

Here is the BAD part.

Air temp after the intercooler at the start of the pull, 62.60 degrees.
Air temp after the intercooler at the end of the pull, 122 degrees!! That is an increase in air temp of 59.4 degrees in a single gear pull!
Peak boost went up which I find strange as it hit 42.1.

The knock count went up considerably with these higher air temps. To run the car safely I would need to pull atleast a few degrees of timing.

**So in summary the intercooler with 2 more psi boost made 10 less whp than our Race FMIC at that is at big HP levels. The problem is the intercooler is NOT EFFICIENT AT REMOVING HEAT. Which is what it is there for. I am betting the stock FMIC is not much worse than this. An increase of 59.4 degrees is absolutely HUGE in a single gear pull. On a summer day or road race/autocross situation this intercooler would absolutely SUCK.

Bottom line is, you get what you pay for and buying one of these I do not think is a good investment of your money.[/align][/align][/align][/align]2nd test didn't come out to good.

I had also bought a new LARGE FMIC to test awhile back. This is the really big one with the 3" inlet/outlet.

First off it does not fit with our FMIC plumbing and it has not mounts. It's just a big Ebay intercooler.

We had some 3" to 2.5" couplings and attempted our best to put it on the car. It was fine at 25 psi but would not stay on at 40 psi. Looks like it is a turd anyway so here is what I could get for data:

Air tempurature after the intercooler at start of test, 64.40 degrees
Air tempurature at end of test (test ended at ONLY 6200 rpm as the pipe blew off 2 times) 82.40 degrees.

Peak boost pressure was 41.58 psi.

The test of our Race FMIC were run from 3,000 rpm to 8,000 rpm. Temps were taken at the start and end of the pulls for all these tests.

So even this very large FMIC increased air temps 18 degrees and it wasn't even close to being a full pull. For comparison the smaller ebay intercooler from start to 6200 rpm had increased to 86 degrees.

This concludes our Ebay intercooler testing. I have both of these for sale or you can buy a real intercooler and call us to order the Race FMIC[/align][/align]Our Time Attack car last season was fitted with our 20g-9-5, of course since it is small it is not the most efficient turbo and makes quite a lot of heat when pushed.

I have our datalogs from Summit Point Time Attack pulled on my laptop from last year.

We were out for a session which took 6 minutes and 30 seconds. This is a warm up, 3 full runs and cool down lap.

The car had out Race FMIC on it. Boost levels were a peak of 27.3 psi. No alky injection, no water sprayers. Just turbo and our FMIC.

The very beginning of the log shows AIT's of 104 degrees F. (so it was pretty warm outside combined with engine bay heat and such I suppose) The air temps at part throttle boost around the track, through corners and such would go up to around 107 degrees F. Robert had a few decent long straights. The car would accelerate up to 118 mph on one where the AIT's reached 111.2 F. Then he would slow down for a corner and they would remain close to 111 F. The next long straight he would start the long pull with AIT of 109 f and at the end of the straight he was doing 124 MPH with AIT's of 116.2 degrees.

This was the very first lap, a warm up lap.

Now, looking at the 3rd all out lap the air temps are holding a steady 120 degrees. On the first straight the car hits 122 mph, so you can see he is pushing harder. The AIT's at the end of this is 123 degrees. The longest straight shows vehicle speed at 130.6 mph and intake air temps up to 125.6 degrees.

The part of this that you should find impressive is that road racing is going to build a lot of heat and keep the intercooler hot. Here is an example of a car with a fairly small turbo running 27 psi of boost on a very warm day. Started a Time Attack session with AIT's of 104 degrees and after beating the car for 6 minutes and 30 seconds the AIT's only saw a high peak of 125.6 degrees.

That is some damn good heat control right there. A rise of 21 degrees.

The two Ebay intercoolers we JUST tested on a 60 degree day with starting temps of 60 degrees gained almost 60 degrees of intake air temp IN A SINGLE GEAR RUN.

I hope this will finally show there is a difference.

The power on my particular car even with the Ebay stuff on it is decent. BUT, if you tried to run this intercooler on ANY OTHER vehicle with air temp correction the results would be a lot less favorable in the HP department. The factory ECU would kill the car with fuel and timing adjustments as would any other car that had corrections for air temp turned on.

I chose to test the intercooler without these corrections to let it just do what it could and show the real truth behind the products.

Truth is, had the intercooler done really well, I would not have posted any of this information. Luckily for me it performed poorly in the cooling department.

[/align][/align][/align][/align]TESTs Done By Buschur Racing[/align][/align]http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthr...e+test+buschur[/align]

 

I wonder where they got there FMICs from? This is why you buy brand names from ebay and not ebay no name brands (known brands).
That's a good test, but I don't like that they don't state the ebay brand, it makes it a generic test IMO.

 

They do it is powerXS which they use 2 different ones. first one is a AMS look a like (made by power XS) the second is the "HUGE FIMC" by power xs

 

I gotcha Mike, but PowerXS isn't the entire line on ebay....
Saying that all ebay cores are crap is very vague and lables even the ETS core that I bought from ebay...which is a brand name btw. Saying ebay cores are crap just by testing one set of cores by the same company...IMO, is more wrong than right. This just fuels the general fire of ebay and it sucks because it's only a small portion of info on 1 brand of cores. All because they want you to buy theirs. Of course they wouldn't post this info if it better than theirs. Those two sentences should cue folks in on their agenda.
Like Josh stated in another thread (in summary)...ebay is fine, just research the seller and product and don't be dumb about it.
I'm not getting on you btw, Mike. I'm disagreeing with BR for posting this info just to say that ebay cores are crap even though they only tested one brand? That includes the good cores from private sellers. The vast majority already believe this and this just puts the "blinders" on EVO owners when looking for FMICs. What's next? Are they going to say that the products that they sell is better than the next online store's? They lose the profit if folks are buying from ebay. This seems like a desperate move on BR's part. DSM owners have been buying smart from ebay for years, there's even a LONG thread about it on DSM TUNERs. Which btw, is a general thumbs up.

BR wouldn't dare post that on any DSM site. Not that all DSM'ers are cheap, but not all cores are created PowerXS either.

 

The PowerXS core is one of the more popular ones on there. Im sure if you did a similar test to other cores you get similar results. Not saying all will im sue some are more than capibly. Dont get me wrong I bought a cheap RnR FMIC for my 50trim setup but untill I have logging capbilities I take these with a grain of salt I guess. I am sure the BR race core is more superior to alot of they have ben in the DSM game for as long as anyone and the main reason I say so is that it has years of engineering and the size alone no wonder it cool more efficently it is an inch thincker than the AMS copy and about 4 inches taller I bet and a few inches longer. the PowerXS HUGE IC is around the same size but looking at the cores the buschur looks like it would be better.

 

I agree with you, the BR core is most likely superior to most but that doesn't warrant the confirmation or statement "ebay cores are crap" from them. That's just cocky. We know that they build fast cars, but they don't have to sling that around their shoulders. That's what corporate companies do and they do that enough.
They use the same bar plate design that most use. I'm pretty sure if someone used the same core and then welded similar ends, then they can say that theirs is just as good as BRs. They don't make the core do they, they buy it like everyone else, they most likely make the ends (easy enough) and then weld them on. The ends play a big role in air dispersion, the welds play a big role in keeping pressure air tight.
In reality, I have no problems with BR showing statistics for their products, but when a comany like theirs does a comparison like that, it's like comparing a Ferrari to a Hyundai. Then having Ferrari say, "see our cars are better then their POS' ".
Why don't they compare theirs to AMS, Slowboy, etc. PowerXS or XSPower is a mom and pops company. For those guys that want more than their stock sidemount or frontmount, do your research and don't fall for the distractor words and pictures. Take some time to email these guys and ask questions.

I don't know man, to say that ebay cores are crap, that's excessive.

 

The reason they did this comparison is that everyone has been asking for it on EVOm. its a on going battle. people who agree and people who disagree and untill I have tried both myself I dont really care, I will get a BR race core in the future just beccause my RnR FMIC is not all that big its just enough for the 50trim and maybe a 35r but could be better. BR also has done similar test with there TBE vs Ebay TBE and other cheaper brand TBEs. mainly people want to know why BR exhaust or FMIC are $xxx s the alternative being half the price. and based on the results they do show youll get what you pay for. They even did a test of greddy TBE on and Evo vs BR TBE and the BR dynod quite a bit higher for jsut an exhaust chnge. the tough thing is there is no way to prove the didnt adjust the tune or boost between dyno runs ya know. Id like to think there test are honest but I cat say for fact since I was not there. all i know is the Greddy cat back is pretty restritive looking in comparison to BRs because the greddy ottle necks in a few places and has a few more bends but again what ever. I am running Megan TBE which is el cheapo but it sounds better than most IMO andI am runnng a RnR FMIC becaause I didnt want to drop $700 on a BR race core yet since I want to run an exedy twin disc clutch and I had about $4000 of more parts to buy. I still need the cltch too another $1600 or so ouch. the project is totalling around $5500-$6000 in the past month and a half