Thanks to El Diablito and Alta for the response. Wish list has just been reshuffled.:smile:

 

I currently have the Alta 15% pulley with the stock oem belt. Works fine, no problems. Only about 11K miles with this set-up. Seriously considering the Alta +2% crank pulley but, would like to get a spare belt now. Am I correct that, with or with out the +2% crank pulley, the stock belt should be OK for both my current belt and the spare.

 

The stock belt should be just fine for your setup. Smaller SC pulley bigger Crank pulley= stock belt, or at least close enough.

 

What kind of NEW parts are people interested in seeing for the MCS? Suspension parts, engine parts, things that haven't been done yet?? Just wanting to get some input from the mini communtiy as to what people would like.

Alta Wish List-
1-(My personal pic)I for one want a user tuneable ECU, something like the Shark but programable.

 

This isn't true. It's confusing resonance with dampening. The crank is just like a church bell, and has frequencies that it naturally "rings" at. You could think of this as frequecy tuned.

If something is lossy, it's dissapaiting energy. This energy dissapation can be tuned, or not, working at all frequencies. Sliding friction is like the latter. The fact that the dampening CAN happen at other frequencies but doesn't, because there's no enegy there, is just coicidental. there are lots of materials that have frequency dependant dampening (those ferrite beads on all the computer power cords are great examples, they don't effect the 60 Hz, but squish the high frequency from the computer, keeping it off the AC house lines), and it's the designers choice what type of dampening to use.

While this is technically true, what it really means for items like these is that the dampening efficiency is a function of frequency. I'm not too sure, but I think for most of the frequncies in question, the rubber is lossy to some extent. But it will work better at some frequencies than others. While some materials do have absolute threshold behaviors, these elastomers aren't one of them.

This is OK but incompete math. The energy put into the pully is in moving with the car (1/2 m V^2) and is proportional to the speed squared AND in rotational energy, which has the form 1/2 I w^2 ( I is called the moment of inertia, and w is the angular velocity). Contributions to I go as r^2, so the difference in moment is based on the mass distribution. It's even possible to design a rotating mass that is heavier that your pully, but requires LESS energy to drive.

On another note, since the crank pully is going at crank speed (duh!), it's energy is proportional to RPM, and that means you have to add more energy into it, as you shift through the gears. This means rotational mass removed here is "better" mass removal than anything after the transmission, like tires, wheels and brakes.

To be fair, yours will have a lower moment than the upcoming brand X lightened dampener, but as a lot of the mass is distributed closer to the crank axis, the relative benefit will be less than your estimate based on the wieght alone.

But it sure helps!

Matt

 

The temps and pressures are high and low enough repectively to vaporize the water. But not the oil. So you're left with a film of oil behind, and some puddling of it in the IC gaskets.

Matt

 

Um not sure if they exist or not but what about gauge pods for people with the chrono pack?

-Josh

 

How about a digital gear indicator like on rally cars. Wouldn't have to be quite as large as I've seen on many rally cars... Single digit LED display, .6" or better height, with the ability to control brightness for ambient light conditions. Probably tricky with a non-sequencial (sp?) gear box but, I'll bet it would sell.

 

Jeff,

I'd like to see more suspension components to complement your fine rear control arms such as: mono-ball upper rear strut mounts, mono-ball rear trailing arm bushings, and mono-ball front compliance bushings, and mono-ball tie rod end links. I would also like to see Delrin inserts for the large end of the top and bottom engine stabilizer links as well as a stiffer substitute for the transmission mount.

Regards,
John Petrich in Seattle

 

1. I second a user-friendly tunable ECU.
2. Instead of a gauge pod to attach to the speedo/rpm on the chrono pack, I'd like to see a replacement for the middle dash cluster with oil pressure, oil temp, engine temp, gas, and boost. Yeah, that'd be cool.
3. Wind splitter antenna (like on 2005+ Beemers and Audis).
4. A front grille (including the portion immediately below) that's different than the standard tuner "honeycomb", but still subtle. Maybe vertical vents?
5. LED-style tails (like on 2005+ Beemers, Infiniti, etc.)
6. A single-side exhaust with good torque.
7. What's the possibility of a ported/polished intake manifold w/larger bolt-on SC and complimentary FMIC as a package for a reasonable price?...

 

already being made in black, white, and carbon fiber....check out minimania

http://new.minimania.com/web/Item/NM.../InvDetail.cfm

 

Greetings ALTA2,

I recently purchased your new 17% pulley, which i will get installed next week at Eric's (from Helix Motorsports) mechanic shop, and your lightened crank pulley all from ESE. So far i have your CAI which is excellent and I don't have no complaints about that. Eric told me that he would not recommend installing a lightened crank pulley. I would like you to shed a little light on this crank pulley situation. There are hardly any people that have this product installed on their minis. I want more information about this crank pulley product. Any comments, concerns, complaints and problems would be very helpful for me to make a good decision on installing this product.
Thanks

 

I just thought that if enough water vapor was passing thru the whole system, I'd see evidence like oil water mix sludge somewhere.

In the end, the engine combusting water vapors doesn't sound like a bad thing anyway.:smile: thanks again guys

James

 

Jeff,


.......and an addition to the stock accelerator pedal pad that will raise it a bit to permit easier "heel and toe" operation with the brake pedal.

Regards,
John Petrich in Seattle

 

I don't get it.....you get an AGS with no proof that it works yet you argue about the benefits of an oil catch can. You yourself said you have seen the oil in the intake. As Alta2 has stated, the catch can installed as per the original instructions will NOT catch much oil at all because the high vacuum line is not connected. Therefore the engine is not sucking any oil from the valve cover (oil being heavier). It is catching the vapors that normally are burned up in the engine....but why subject the engine to materials it was never designed to burn. The catch can has more benefit to the maintenance of you car than most anything else available.

 

Dr Obnxs,
"This isn't true. It's confusing resonance with dampening. The crank is just like a church bell, and has frequencies that it naturally "rings" at. You could think of this as frequecy tuned.

If something is lossy, it's dissapaiting energy. This energy dissapation can be tuned, or not, working at all frequencies. Sliding friction is like the latter. The fact that the dampening CAN happen at other frequencies but doesn't, because there's no enegy there, is just coicidental. there are lots of materials that have frequency dependant dampening (those ferrite beads on all the computer power cords are great examples, they don't effect the 60 Hz, but squish the high frequency from the computer, keeping it off the AC house lines), and it's the designers choice what type of dampening to use."

ANSWER
How is that not true? Isn't resonance(in some peoples mind) what is supposedly hurting the engine. And the Dampener/harmonic balancer/whatever you want to call it, is the part that gets rid of it? In laymans terms the engine produces these vibrations/frequencys/whatever you want to call it, and at a certain RPM the engine builder deams them dangerous. So they make a pulley to dampen those dangerous vibrations.

Your bell, try dinging it, what does it do when you touch it? That is what the pulley is doing, i understand that, but isn't there a rubber belt that is always touching it? Isn't this like your hand on the bell?

"While this is technically true, what it really means for items like these is that the dampening efficiency is a function of frequency. I'm not too sure, but I think for most of the frequncies in question, the rubber is lossy to some extent. But it will work better at some frequencies than others. While some materials do have absolute threshold behaviors, these elastomers aren't one of them."

ANSWER,
How is this not true? The engine designer/builder is one who said the mini produces a this bad resonance at 2000ish RPM, so we made a pulley tuned to that RPM/frequency. This same person is the one who told a persistant NAM member that they ran the mini engine with no dampener for 100K and saw/had no problems. Isn't that one statement enough for most people to get the idea that there isn't as much to worry about as people make it out to be??

"This is OK but incompete math. The energy put into the pully is in moving with the car (1/2 m V^2) and is proportional to the speed squared AND in rotational energy, which has the form 1/2 I w^2 ( I is called the moment of inertia, and w is the angular velocity). Contributions to I go as r^2, so the difference in moment is based on the mass distribution. It's even possible to design a rotating mass that is heavier that your pully, but requires LESS energy to drive."

ANSWER,
What i was trying to show is that the difference in weight from stock to ours was significant, and from stock to the other isn't. The percentages are just a simple stock/ours and stock/theirs. And the HP is just a rough guess. In some ways it is very correct. The fact that HP is Measure over time, and you would agree that the lighter part will allow the engine to spin up faster. The lighter part that gains HP by removing a significant amount of weight. That much heavier part is surely not going to gain as much HP. Just like a lighter flywheel is worth more WHP, and faster quarter mile times, the crank pulley does the same, just on a smaller scale.

Battle Cattle,
That is a good idea, the only problem is if you drive with your hands at 10 and 2 then it won't work. Trust me we would love if it would fit with the NAV cars and the new 05 with the gauges. If we can figure out a way to make it work with out any large comprimises, we will build it.

apexer,
Good idea, it can be done very easliy by tapping into speed and RPM. From there it can be calculated what gear the car is in. In fact the ECU may know what gear the car is in, but we just don't have a good enough tool to look at it. We really don't make electronic parts, we really try to stick to bending, machining, welding, and silicone. But this would be a great idea for someone that specializes in electronics. By the way, i am sure there is some Japanese company that makes this already, but who and were???

John,
Suspension is something we have been thinking of doing. You have suggested it to us a few times, and it has been on the back of our mind. At this point the thing people seem to really like is engine mounts. This is something to be on the look out for!

BelowRadar,
1.sounds good to me!
2.That is a good idea, but that thing has a bunch of electronics in it that needs to there. The car will not run if that is unplug (just something i have heard) Now on cars with dual clusters, and no nav, this would work.
3.We will most likely stick to our aluminum antenna, and leave the plastic ones to people that deal with plastic.
4.Same with the grill
5. tail lights are left to APC( American Products Company)
6.Done, ours has great tourqe, and on a 15% pulleyed car, there is no loss in low end power or tourqe. We will have some good dyno graphs soon to show. There are a few out there already from ours, but it is showing other parts installed with it. Either way with these mods there was no loss in power.
7. FMIC, that is right up our ally! The only way to really make it correctly is make it somewhat expensive, but for those who will be wanting the ultimate power with twincharged kit, this will be even better than using our TMIC.

Poderes1,
Ahh, the crank pulley debate. If you read some of the pages past in this thread, it is touched apon. There are a few other threads that have been started regarding this. I would suggest reading them to give you an idea if the crank pulley is for you.

The quick version is the crank pulley we make doesn't have a DAMPENER built into it. This is the main thing people are worried about how this effects engine life. One arguement is how resonace will cause the whole engine to blow up, the other is that the resonance doesn't hurt the engine enough to care.

My biggest thing is how this doesn't matter unless you are keeping your car forever. People argue all day about how the stock part is made of rubber to dampen the resonence from the crank, and the pistons firing. Well if you think about it, isn't there a belt that is driving a SC, ALT, AC pump, doens't this belt (being rubber) dampen things? Yes its like a bell you can ding, and have it resonate, but if there is a piece of rubber or your hand touching the bell, doesn't the sound stop???? This is just an argument that the resonace is something important to get rid of.

Basically there are 2 people that want this part. One is that guy who has all the mods possible and wants that extra edge of performance and feel. This person has the 15% pulley and most likely has voided his warranty, and in turn doens't care if the car doens't last 200k. The other person that is going to buy this part is the guy who want the benifit of the bigger size to add more boost.

The 3rd person that may want this part but is very worried about the whole harmonics thing is the person who should just stick with the stock part and change the SC pulley. This same person may be thinking about buying another pulley that is only slightly lighter than the existing part, cost a lot more and may not notice that much difference.

We are building a part that will make a noticable difference in how the car revs, and for a reasonable cost. We also are making this same part in a larger size to add more boost for even more power.

OK, that wasn't the short version, but its hard to stop sometimes.

John, again,
I saw this same thing on the lotus forums and it was something people really liked. That too is a good idea, and is some we can work on. If you had the choice, how thick would the part be to make HT better?

 

ALTA2 what belt do you supply with your 19% pulley?


Future part development: How about a new super charger pulley kit which comes with crank/alternator pulleys and converts it to a Gilmer type belt with cross teeth instead of the current system which is having belt slip issues on the smaller 19%. Would this be possible

 

Alta2,

Wish list...light weight front control arms...

Michael

 

Ditto!

 

Jeff,

Oh...................and a premium oil cooler kit with an adapter block, out board 180 degree oil temperature thermostat, and uses a modified CVT transmission cooler core with the ALTA logo promintly displayed. Effective, efficient and sanitary.

Regards,
John Petrich in Seattle

 

Is there an Alta FMIC in the works or early R&D or no go...to expensive to sale?

 

Things I would currently buy:

1) user tuneable ECU
2) user tuneable ECU
3) user tuneable ECU
4) direct fit steering hub for aftermarket wheels
5) an oil cooler adapter plate that doesn't cost an arm and a leg (like the Madness one) - can attach at the factory oil cooler, or replace the factory oil filter housing.
6) the option to buy the Alta shifter without the ****. I hate metal ***** and it seems pointless to be forced to buy something I won't use.

 

More affordable aftermarket parts. $600+ for an exhaust is way out of line in my mind. Even the $549 or so for the Scorpion at Bavarian Autosport is overpriced. (would like to see more folks offer it as well)

 

Very trueYep! Yep! The belt works more like a spring in this situation. So this would be tuned, with a natural frequecy. any of the rubber/mass systems are tuned. With tuned dampeners, you have to be careful. If it's tuned for a frequency that the crank isn't ringing at, it's useless. But other designes are not tuned. The clutch that sticks and slips works at any frequency as long as the amplitude of the vibration is high enough to make the clutch plates slide, and dampeners that use a lossy liquid share this frequency independance. I'm sorry I made the point poorly before. But it just depends on loss-mechanism chosen, that's all. The rubber donut, ring mass design is just cheap and easy to make. Too keep going with the original analogy, if you had a tunded dampener on a specific bell, then changed the bells pitch, it may not work. But it doesn't matter what bell you coat with peanut butter, it dulls them all! So, it came with a cheap rubber/ring tuned dampener. It's encouraging, but saying all will be well based on the testing of a single item isn't statistically sound. The confidence of the claim is low with so few samples. But if I put down my **** retentive hat for a moment, I honestly don't know if there are any risks. To really find out, set up a motor with a load, and run it for as long as you can at crank ressonance RPM. This would be an accelerated lifetime test. And would mean little with just one as well.....

While this is true too, quoting the percentages is a bit missleading, especially when a better estimate can be done with a little work. For those not educated in the math and physics, the implication is clear and inaccurate. This is true, but it's also dependant on the rate of change of RPM. If you hold RPM and measure HP, there is NO difference based on the lighter rotating mass. The best way to do it is to ramp the RPM the same rate that you get in a 0-60 launch, so that the energy required per time to accelerate the rotating assembies mimics the real world of drag racing... But this would be a big PITA, so.......

The point of my poist wasn't to claim the answer in the dampener vs no dampener debate. I honestly don't know. I'm just trying to keep the details accurate.

Matt

 

Actually, that's what I was talking about. I have the chrono pack...no nav. It has some good information, but no boost. It is also ugly as hell. I'd love to have a replacement piece for it.

Dude, that was scary. Please don't ever suggest I--or anyone--ever look at their products again. You hear me people? STAY AWAY!

Look forward to seeing the dyno graphs.

I understand that it isn't going to be cheap, but maybe if you could combine it with another product like a larger ported SC or something then it would have "kit" appeal. I think it's hard to justify paying 1.5-2k for a FMIC, but if you were to combine it with some other relevant power piece like SC, intake manifold, intercooler runners, etc., people would be willing to pay more. Why? (I speculate) because it's hard to fork out anything over 1k for a 10whp gain when we've already gotten that with cheaper mods. But a kit that gives an extra 25-30whp will have people lining up.