Wagner Pre-Facelift R56 FMIC - Testing/Review

[George Talbot]

I was lucky enough to be sent Wagner Tuning's new FMIC for the Pre-Facelift R56 Cooper S. In agreement of receiving the FMIC, I organised a days testing at 1320 to see how this performed against the stock FMIC and how it performed with a Map on it.



Here are some pics:

Wagner FMIC (black) Evolve V1 FMIC (silver).









For me, there was a huge difference in quality and feel between the two FMICs, I had a long chat with Paul (PD240) about them and he was very impressed with the quality of the Wagner FMIC stating it was the best he had seen from any FMIC. I was very surprised to put my fingers down the feeds of both FMICs and have a very different experiance (no homo)....

With the Wagner, everything has been smoothed for optimal air flow whereas with the Evolve it has jagged edges and the joins and entry and exit feeds are very messy and do not look as efficient or optimised as the Wagner.

However, it must be said that the Evolve is a tried and tested product that works well as MinIan proved on Saturday with good results. I am looking forward to testing out this new FMIC from Wagner and it wont just be Dyno testing, will also included day to day driving performance.

Here are the temps, WHP, WTQ, Tune and Other items used during the day:



As you can see from the data, running the stock FMIC with the stock tune, temps roughly doubled, when the 1320 tune was added, temps increased by about 2.5 with the best run having 191 whp and 221 wtq.

Then we swapped the stock FMIC with the Wagner FMIC to see how it performed with the 1320 tune as we had already seen before in a previous review that the Wanger had performed well with the stock Tune.

As you can see from the data above, running exactly the same setup as stock, it lost 2-5 whp against the best and worst runs with the Stock FMIC and about 5 wtq. However, the main thing we are looking at is the intake temps, as you can see the starting temperatures to finishing temperatures varied by about 5 degrees which is excellent when you compare them to the stock FMIC intake finishing temps.

What this enables the car to do is maintain boost better as the temperatures are much lower, it also makes it a hell of a lot safer when applying more boost when tuning and allows you to take the car further.

Here is all the dyno graphs from the day:

Stock Map + Stock IC



1320 Map + Stock IC



1320 Map + Wagner FMIC



Best runs of each:



Exhaust + Intake Comparison:



Final Tune:



I would like to thank Mark from Wagner Tuning for sending me one of these to test for you all and show how it performs. I would also like to thank Thomas, Scott and Jack at 1320 for preparing the car and running all the tests and logs on the car and for a fun day out.

please post any questions if you have any.

[sef]

Interesting stuff. Did you have the Evolve IC there on the day? Would have been good to see the comparisons across all 3...

[George Talbot]

Nope, the Evolve was not mine as it went on MinIans car at Lohen, I think 1320 have an Alta on their R56 so maybe in future we could test that.

MinIan does have some data for the Evolve though as his tests were run in similar conditions.

[Thepenl]

Reading this, and a little head scratching to answer why on earth are you loosing power instead of gaining with a FMIC, it just stroke me...HAVE ANY OF YOU REPLACED THE PRE IC BOOST TUBE WITH THE HUGE RESONATOR/RESTRICTOR ON IT?
Maybe this is to blame...
Just saying...

I tested the stock, the Forge and the Evolve V2 with various tunes and ALL dyno data were GAIN after GAIN...
I run the Samco boost hose kit.

Even if you don't want to buy expensive silicon tubes, you can eliminate the Resonator replacing it with a simple aluminum pipe.
Please try it...before I loose my hair

[Thepenl]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1352220270.381461.jpg

Number 9 in that photo is the resonator. It won't harm whilst running with the stock IC and the stock boost pressure, cause it was designed to, but becomes a problem when running a 250% larger in volume IC. Flow is messed up big time, even more with higher boost pressure!
This restrictor was designed to eliminate the compressor's spinning noises when boosting. Together with that it achieves to erase any turbo lag, but with the stock boost levels!
Once you alter the volume of the boost hoses system (adding a larger IC) you need to get rid of this unwanted restrictor, cause what you are doing is, you are filling your new larger IC with air that is traveling too slow, hence the unbelievable cooling effect of only +5oC inlet and outlet. What you want to do is to allow air to flow unrestricted into your IC, let it do it's job and gain from it.
That's my understanding and my experience together, and don't worry about turbo lag...your tune is taking good care of it!

[Phil_McCrackin]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1352220270.381461.jpg

Number 9 in that photo is the resonator. It won't harm whilst running with the stock IC and the stock boost pressure, cause it was designed to, but becomes a problem when running a 250% larger in volume IC. Flow is messed up big time, even more with higher boost pressure!
This restrictor was designed to eliminate the compressor's spinning noises when boosting. Together with that it achieves to erase any turbo lag, but with the stock boost levels!
Once you alter the volume of the boost hoses system (adding a larger IC) you need to get rid of this unwanted restrictor, cause what you are doing is, you are filling your new larger IC with air that is traveling too slow, hence the unbelievable cooling effect of only +5oC inlet and outlet. What you want to do is to allow air to flow unrestricted into your IC, let it do it's job and gain from it.
That's my understanding and my experience together, and don't worry about turbo lag...your tune is taking good care of it!

[Thepenl]

@OP:

Can you please add, what's the equipment used to measure various temps and the location of each reading?
Also, what's that engine temp? Engine bay temp? or coolant temp!?

These are vital during tests in determining the efficiency of products.

Thanks George.

ps: just read my own posts and they come a little harsh me thinks...this is not my intention people, I am just trying to add knowledge to an already very well written thread (thanks to George for the effort of testing and the nice write up). These kind of threads is what MT is ALL about!

[George Talbot]

I thought that evolve tested the forge resonator delete pipe and it actually lost power with it the forge pipe on Si they went back to stock?

[George Talbot]

Also the Evolve V1 that was tested at Lohen was a straight swap and running the stock resonated feed pipe and that made 6bhp...

[Thepenl]

Also the Evolve V1 that was tested at Lohen was a straight swap and running the stock resonated feed pipe and that made 6bhp...

With stock boost pressure?