Basic Spec:
Material: carbon fiber reinforced nylon.
Manufacturing Method: 3D Printing.
Fitment: Plug & Play. No cuts or modifications needed. All necessary hardware is included.
What is included in the kit?
One 3D printed carbon reinforced nylon charge pipe.
5 stainless steel crash bar spacers.
1 silicone hose for the bypass.
2 high pressure fuel lines to connect the vacuum lines.
And all the necessary hardware for the installation.
OEM vs TPE Precision:
Unnecessary geometries are eliminated and most importantly a constant tapered design starts from the throttle body diameter up to the supercharger inlet.
Our approach:
Due to our automotive and CAD engineering background we were able to approach the project differently than in most tuning companies.
At this point I should clarify that TPE Precision is not a tuning company but an engineering company. Having projects from product development, RnD, CAD, CFD, FEA, reverse engineering and feasibility studies.
How did you manage to give that shape?
This shape is possible to manufacture only via injection molding, composite materials (with not traditional molds…I will explain that in a next blog post) and of course 3D printing.
Is it optimized?
Yes it is! This is version 5! Believe it or not changes in the overall angle or length have direct effect on IATs and hp.
*In a later blog post we will show you another charge pipe that was designed prior to this one, below you can see a prototype version:
Which after 24 versions (yeap 24 that’s correct) was finally plug and play. We saw 12whp without tune and 7 degrees lower IATs! (Yes we will produce a very limited run, 10 to 12 kits but not anytime soon.)
How does it fit in this space?
By checking the available space seems impossible. How can you keep same throttle body position, but with increased internal volume (in some areas over 45 %) and avoid contacts with the gearbox or the radiator fan? The answer is 3D Scanning and of course CAD.
First we 3D Scan the original part and we took all the points that must stay the same, like throttle body position, vacuum lines position etc.
Then we 3D scanned the engine bay without the bumper, crash bar, water cooler etc.
Finally we 3D scanned the bumper assembly with crash bar and the radiators on.
Assembling all the files gives you a 3D space of the available design space.
Is the kit tested?
TPE Precision as you may already know (or maybe not) is located in Greece.
The charge pipe was first installed in our demo…daily car! Driving more or less 80 km every day. The first R53 Charge Pipe Kit prototype did 18,000km in a mix of heavy traffic, highway driving, many dyno pulls and spirited driving in the mountains around Athens. All of these have happened with 38 to 40 degrees outside temperature (I mean come on! it’s very hot here during the summer period!)
And with the tiny OEM intercooler we were constantly above 55 degrees (IATs).
Of course for the charge pipe these conditions are not even close to its limits!! Carbon fiber reinforced nylon is used in the industry for high stress engineering components, for fixtures, JIGs and components that exposed to fuel and engine oil. Temperature wise this material has a constant working temperature (not max!) of 140 degrees Celsius, which is way below the under bonnet temps or the air temp that pass inside the pipe.
OK OK OK tell me about the gains!!!
On 2/9/2020 we did some dyno pulls with our charge pipe kit at 1320 MINI in the UK.
The vehicle was loaded on the dyno with the OEM charge pipe. Result 233.9 whp and 186.2wtq.
Off the dyno and installation of the TPE Precision pipe starts:
And with that … back on the dyno!!
First three runs was with the same tune and only difference the TPE Precision charge pipe, resulting in 237.3 whp and 187.6 wtq.
The 1320 MINI team saw that the AFR value was off, thus more power was on the table. After tuning, the car made 240.5 whp and 189.4 wtq!
That's a difference of 6.6 whp and 3.2 wtq.
Of course numbers along are half the truth, as the car gained whp and wtq in the whole RPM range!! And yes you can feel the difference in the road!
I believe living in a hot climate, the biggest difference is the behavior of the car in hot days with the air-con on. Somehow the car feels that at last can be driven with the air-con on!
With the TPE Precision charge pipe you will see an average reduction of IATs from 3 to 5 degrees Celsius even if you use the OEM airbox. Additionally you will see increased boost pressure of up to 1 psi.
Feedback on our product:
Thanks again John for trusting TPE and doing all these tests!
How do I order?
Due to the fact that we don’t keep stock and that we need many hours to prepare the kit (45 hours of print plus another 4 hours cleaning and sanding) we will keep a priority based order list. That means that when you want to order you sent an email at info@tpeprecision.com or you can direct message us in our social media page declaring your interest in our product. Your name is going to go into a waiting list. You don’t need to pay us until is nearly your turn, which of course we will notify you two-three days in advance.
Before sending money to us we will need:
- Full name
- Address.
Then you can pay through PayPal or bank transfer.
Shipping:
World wide shipping is included in the price and no we do not ship with the slow service…!!
High priority mail, to your door.
From Greece to
UK usually 2 days.
USA usually 7 to 9 days.
Hong Kong usually 10 days.
Group buys...in the near future because:
At the moment it just not possible but we really try our best to find a solution on that! First is that we don’t keep stock… So the first weeks are going to be hard on availability... Additionally we really try to find a way to reduce cost in big orders (for example 10 to 15 charge pipes in one go).
None of you could believe how low our profit is right now…
Well let’s say sometimes you can buy take away meals that are more expensive compare to our profit!
In the past some people asked, why you do that? Why don’t you increase the price? Why so obsessed with plug and play fitment and good materials. Is it an engineering exercise for you?
Well… yes!! Our business model believe it or not is not producing performance parts!
As I told you before in that post, we develop and engineer high end automotive products for companies! We take care the whole engineering, RnD and design. We are involved to 3D scanning, 3D printing (even exotic materials), reverse engineering, product development, CAD, CFD, FEA. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to present our work due to NDA agreements… We hope to showcase some truly amazing parts we did.
With that said please feel free to contact us concerning the TPE charge pipe or any other project you have in mind.
You can always reach us on info@tpeprecision.com and our social media pages.
Thank you for reading this post.
Sincerely yours,
Tsakonopoulos George
Automotive CAD Engineer
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