First let me thank you for your continued patronage and support of ALTA Performance Products. North American Motoring as a group has been very influencial in our success in the Mini Cooper market. We value your business but more importantly your opinions, feedback and concerns. Our goal is to make each one of our potential customers happy and confident with the money they have worked hard to earn and are now investing in performance or visual improvements to their vehicle.

This thread is specifically designed for our engineers, sales people and marketing staff to address any concerns you may have, questions about a new or old product, parts combatibility and general technical advice. We welcome you to offer up anything that we can help you with. All questions will be answered in detail using factual information and promptly! We intend to revisit this thread on a daily basis to keep on top of what ever is of interest on that particular day. Feel free to also voice any concerns you have about any product. From how it works, how much it costs, and also if you would like to see something different. We would love to compare our parts to others and discuss the reasons why we make parts the way we do.

As always thanks in advance for the feedback. We appreciate it! Finally I can always be reached personally at our offices via e-mail or phone if something is not being answered properly here.

 

I have a question.

Why does your CAI Foam only come in Red? Got any tips on changing it's colour?

 

camelpilot,
Great first question! We actually get this alot. What color would you like to see?

Having seen and used other reusable filters in the past, the one thing i really hated about some, was knowing when to clean them. Manufactures state 10,000 miles or once a year, as do we. The truth is that there are many things that make that interval change, longer or shorter. Being able to visually tell when the filter needs to be cleaned is a great way to tell. If it looks dirty clean it! That is what i do!

Anyway, the red is a good neutral color that works with most colors of cars (except purple) and also shows the dirt. We can make the filters in most any color, but we choose red for its universally exceptable color. Pink-ish red isn't my favorite like some use.

Trust me, i too think that a black or dark grey filter is much nicer looking but you won't be able to tell when it is dirty.

BUT, big BUT, we are more than happy to change the color to something like black, as long as people are willing to clean their filters at a peticular interval, then no problem.

 

Alta- Your intake:

Can you make the filter so that it doesn't fall off the heatsheild
opening even for a newb? Maybe like a snap feature and then clamp
over it? (mine hasn't fallen off, but have read several people's
falling off).

Can you try making the heat sheild's opening for the factory hose
a tad smaller so that the hose fit easily and snugly? the clamp will
seal it anyway...why is that opening so tight?

:smile:

 

kenchan,
Good point, we too hear people say there filters fall off. Even though a simple cleaning of the oil will stop this from happening we can fix it. Our newer boxes will have a longer tube to hold the filter. This change is simple and i agree that this will eliminate the few people that forget to clean the oil from the filter, and having their filter fall off.

The intake tube opening is a little bigger to fit our larger silicone intake hose. This was its original design and since it does fit the stock tube we decided to sell it with out the silicone. This also make our intake more comparable, ONLY price wise, to the other intakes out there.

 

This may sound familiar but here's another vote for the 05/06 MC foam air filter.

I'm not concerned with color nearly as much as the ability to tell when it needs to be cleaned - service intervals must vary quite a bit on where the vehicle is in service and in my case (AZ) I'd appreciate a color easy to quickly ascertain whether it's time to clean.

 

I have a catch can. It catches mostly rusty condensation. The routing Alta suggests combines two vent passages. Does this not create a pulsing effect versus a flow? Should there be a can for each circuit?

Given the amount of oil in the intercooler, it suggests there should be more caught in the can.

 

Here's a hint that I posted some time ago. I took ~2 feet of some stiff (#12 or so) solid house wiring wire (I chose black) an fabricated a noose from it that looks like this:

Bend it until the filter cradles in the bottom of the "noose" and hook the ends over the firewall like this:


The idea is to transfer the weight on the firewall end to the piece of wire. Min has been in since late 2002, and I've driven over a lot of bumps. The filter element has NEVER fallen off. The fix takes 10 minutes to build and if you use wire with black insulation, you can't even see it!

Good Luck -- Tom

 

Alta Guys,

I'm sure that this has been brought up before but as it still isnt on your web site I was wondering if you could post efficency numbers on your TMIC? Dyno charts supporting the HP gain? Pressure drop? Intake temperature numbers? All of this relative to stock of course.

Thanks

Chuck

 

Hi Alta folks -

In the past on other cars I've used steel mesh intake filters with great success. I see that no one seems to offer such filters for the MINI. Is there a reason for this? Does the steel mesh require a larger volume than paper or foam or is it just not the fashion in the MINI world?

/gary mc

 

If the 2% crank pulley is so much easier to install that a 15% SC pully and provides the same results, should I skip the supercharger and go straight for the bigger crank pully? I don't understand why people are still messing with the supercharger.
Joey

 

the object is to speed up the supercharger; you can do it with a reduction pulley on the sc or a larger pulley on the crank. there is a quickly reached size limit for the crank, maybe 2-3%, so if you want more, the sc pulley is the only way...duh!

 

Thanks....i guess
whats with the duh?

 

I was just going to post the same exact thing.:smile:

 

sorry, I was drinking alky, but it seemed you were suggesting only using the 2% crank pulley and comparing that to the 15% sc pulley leaves a 13% difference in the speed of the sc.

 

Well, I was drinking too -so the question didn't quite come out right. What I meant to ask was why are people bothering changing pulleys AFTER they go down to a 15 (upgrade from a 15 to a 17 and the like) when changing the crank will do the exact same thing, and is easier. Reading back it does say what you thougt it did, sorry bout that.
Don't drink and post.
Joey

 

 

Hi Jeff Perrin

Love you products and you have the best customer service in town.
Always get my question answer from your staff. Keep up the good work.


Look what I got from your company [Alta 22" sway Bar, Alta intake, Alta spring, Alta adjustable control arms]

 

ok so lets confirm this. If i change my crank pulley to the ALTA one and leave my SC Pulley stock, we would have the same results as the 15% Pulley reduction? If thats the case, I think for those who only want to do a 15% Reduction should just opt for the larger/light crank pulley?

 

No Pat, a 2% crank pulley would be the same as a 2% supercharger pulley.

2% is 2% whether it is on the crank or the SC

The reason for looking at this choice is that as you get to 17% and more so 19% the size of the SC pulley gets so small that the belt has problems gripping the pulley and some times comes off. So you can get the effect of a 17% or 18% pulley without the downside of the smaller pulley by starting with a 15% or 16% and adding the 2% or 3% crank pulley without having to use the smaller SC pulley.

Bill

 

Deleted cause I can't read...........

 

Perhaps ALTA2 can chime in here - I began a thread to answer these crank pulley vs SC pulley questions. One reply??? I would have thought more of us would have a question or two???

JLM - if I read your reply correctly, a 2% larger crank pulley vs a 15% SC pulley still equates to 13% difference...slower or faster for the crank pulley or SC pulley? And, why? 2% larger at the crank should equate to 2% at the SC???

Michael

 

Most likely the debate over harmonics and the fact that the underdriven crank pullies arent available yet.

 

If you add only the crank pulley ( which isnt relaeased yet ) you will get only a 2% increase in sc speed, add a 15% pulley and you will get 17% if you have a 17% already the crank will make it 21%..and so on.

I think what was meant by the 13% was that a crank only would give you 13% less than a 15% pully by its self.

 

There is no rocket science here. The 2% crank pulley adds 2% in size, therefore increasing the belt speed by 2%. This increase in belt speed ADDS to the under drive ratio of the S/C pulley.

I have one and it works great!
I am now testing a -19%S/C with +2% Crank and TMIC combination.

Dave