waterjet

ReSpiration Focal Point - Intake R&D, Part 2: Something's Rustling Up

July 21, 2016

Ford Focus RS Performance Intake 2016+

# waterjet, turbo, RS, PROTOTYPE, intake, ford, focus rs, featured, cai, built ford tough, boost, awd, airbox

The RS has gotten a lot of attention the past few weeks, especially with the ball in our court. Need I remind you of our awesome stock dyno clip?

But somethin's-a-brewin with one of our most recent projects, the performance intake we are developing for this hot hatch. We mentioned earlier that the development of this intake kit is not completely uncharted territory, considering that we made one for the 2013-2014 Focus ST. However, as we dived further into this project, we uncovered the true complexities of this design compared with our ST intake kit.

Intake Construction

What exactly makes this intake pipe so much more complex? It's simple: More attachments and brackets need to be added so that the fit will be accurate. Not only have the number of these attachments increased, but also the orientation of these pieces are not easy to accommodate. There will be bends with relatively tight tolerances, and these measurements must be exact. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? Not at all!

First, we needed

Mishimoto Waterjet Enhancements

March 17, 2016

General

# waterjet, radiator, hypertherm, featured, fan, fabrication, #engineering

Our shop contains many unique tools and equipment to help aid our R&D team in the process of product development and testing. One of our more recent acquisitions is a very nice Waterjet machine. We've used this device to cut airbox pieces, catch can brackets, shop signage, fan shrouds, and many other components that can be constructed from flat sheet material. This tool been helpful in speeding up development projects, and we've really enjoyed learning about its many features.

Waterjet Basics

Despite being compact in physical size, this radiator is a dual-pass unit with a very dense fin composition. Cooling efficiency is quite impressive from such a small footprint. Although pressure won't be absurdly high, this radiator has strengthened tubes that can withstand around 100 psi. In addition to these benefits, the connection points on this radiator feature a threaded female port to accept different size and style connections. We intend to use -16AN fittings for the lines, which is an option

Prototype Fabrication and Fitment - Mini Cooper Intake Development, Part 2

January 06, 2016

Mini Cooper S Intake 2014+

# waterjet, turbo, R&D, Mini Cooper, intake, featured, F56, F55, cooper s, boost, #bts

In our last post for this project, we went through the stock system and left you with a teaser look at our initial design plans for the filter's heat shield. We now have a functional prototype fabricated, which will soon be ready for testing. Let's go through the interesting process of how we were able to make the heat shield and pipe.

Parts Fabrication

Usually, when it comes to creating the pieces to a heat shield, our process involved measuring twice and cutting once with the use of a band-saw, shears and a bender. It was laborious and time-consuming.

With this project, we took a slightly different approach during the design and prototyping phase of our heat shield R&D. After capturing the dimensions we needed from the vehicle, a prototype design was drawn in 3D modeling software. Once completed, we used our waterjet machine to cut the shapes out of the steel metal sheets.

If you don't know about the waterjet, it is an apparatus for precision cutting using highly pressurized water. Virtually