FrontMount intercooling

[Zach]

I saw a real neat wrx driving round the other week. He front mounted his intercooler, at first i thought his car was an evo lol because of it.

I also got to check out CUDDAS car the other day and it looked heavily modified really neat! He also front mounted his intercooler but his entire engine bay looked so so different from your conventual Turbo Subaru. But what I want to know is why this is not done more often? I googled it and I read like 20 different answers :-\ But what I think they seemed to be saying was that the front mount air travel route is not all that great on horizontally opposed engines.

I just want to know if it viable or not and why thanks anyone

Thanks to all the contributors for all the great info provided on this thread, Really appreciate it Yo

[Guest]

I thought it was more common than top mounts tbh. Basically cooler/denser air is betterer. Because sub engine bays are set up shit house for a fmic the piping is hideously long. If you flip the mani you shorten it up massively and twisting the turbo can help or flipping the comp housing so the piping doesnt run over the hot exhaust. Running it under the lights you can get it almost as short as an evo. Worth noting that 2" is good for mega powar and most kits are 2.5" most of the way through.

[Zach]

That make sense. I also just read on this guy who had tilted his intercooler up a tad that caused it to scoop more air

[Koom]

There\'s all sorts of opinions on it but the distance that the air travels is no worse on a Subaru than something like a 180sx for example. I used to get harrassed about the implied negativity of putting a front mount on my RS but side by side with my flatmates Nissan, we had about the same amount of piping.

There\'s way\'s around it aswell i.e.flipping the manifold is easy as and takes about 0.5m out of the pipework. You can also flip the font mount upside down so the inlet/outlet is at the top and run the pipework under the headlights (only on the models where you can get away with cutting the metalwork in that part of the car!) and that removes another metre of piping.

Have a search for Subaru FMIC. There\'s million\'s of them out there. They\'re so common that they\'re almost like vagina\'s, half the population has one.

[Guest]

 Zach said:

That make sense. I also just read on this guy who had tilted his intercooler up a tad that caused it to scoop more air

Not to discredit the chap or say its shite but dont buy into anything you read on the web unless it comes from a reliable source unlike me.

[Zach]

lol nar dude your a great source. You and koom are pretty Knowledable people. Luv it. Gona eat your brains oneday for real 8)

[Marky]

 evowrx']

[quote name='Zach said:

That make sense. I also just read on this guy who had tilted his intercooler up a tad that caused it to scoop more air

/quote]

Not to discredit the chap or say its shite but dont buy into anything you read on the web unless it comes from a reliable source unlike me.

Internet high 5 for that one

[Marky]

 Zach said:

Gona eat your brains oneday for real 8)

I thought we had a no-zombie policy on here

[Koom]

 evowrx']

That make sense. I also just read on this guy who had tilted his intercooler up a tad that caused it to scoop more air

Not to discredit the chap or say its shite but dont buy into anything you read on the web unless it comes from a reliable source unlike me.

There is some merit in tilting them a few degrees, but its one of those "in some situations" setups as most FMIC kits are less than perfect so you\'re not going to gain as much as getting the rest of the system right.

[quote name='Zach said:

Gona eat your brains oneday for real 8)

/quote]

I thought we had a no-zombie policy on here

If you believe the movies, it\'s inevitable that the Zombies are going to take over eventually, just like Communism was going to take over the free world during the 70\'s/80\'s ;D

[Zach]

No zombies? Thats ok Ill be Highlander and chop heads off and then Inherit there powers. I seen it on t.v once it works

[Guest]

My curtain just twitched and a cold breeze entered the room.

V mount must be done for a good reason but I leave that stuff to smarts like koom.

[Koom]

Na I don\'t mean a full mean mount evowrx. If you imagine an intercooler sitting flat into the wind and the air flows straight through it, exchanging heat on the way through. If you tilt the intercooler about 5-10 degrees (at a guess) then as the air flows in towards the intercooler, the air has more of the intercooler to "hit" as it has to bend slightly to flow through the core. Increasing the amount of heat that it can transfer on the way through. If you slow down the air to the optimum velocity (mass flow rate) then you can get a more efficient heat transfer.

But in the real world, you buy a kit, mount it and see how well it goes Well thats what I did until a few years later when I started playing with the piping lengths.

This ain\'t mine, but was my favourite car to work on (although it ruled our lives at the time!)

This is my one.

[Guest]

Im planning on welding straight to my end tanks when I do mine also well got a few ideas when I redo it.

Yea I dont get into the science of it all I just knew you would know lol. When you say it it makes sense.

[Zach]

Sweet deal. Did you need to do anything computer based after these conversions?

My wrx has the stock black top mount intercooler. I cant upgrade it because a bigger flat sti one wont fit because of the turbo housing. So if I was to front mount it would mean I could get away with an upgrade provided it fits horizontally. But I surpose an aftermarkit kit would be an upgrade in its self because this black top mount is tiny.

[Guest]

The gain in the early tmic is the sti y pipe. V7- sti tmic are a bigger upgrade but they all suffer from heat soak. Just go fmic and make the piping as short as poss. It can never be a bad thing.

[Zach]

Also flipping the manifold. Is any Welding involved in that? Thats such a simple and great modification, Why on earth are they not stock like that?

Also thanks Evowrx for that piping tip and tmic info.

[Koom]

 Zach said:

Sweet deal. Did you need to do anything computer based after these conversions?

I didn\'t originally, and ran it like that until I upgraded my turbo and started toasting motors left right and centre. It was fine without ECU tuning but I can\'t say that it will be fine on everyones car as once we start changing things, they\'re all different. On one car it may be perfectly fine and on his neighbours car it may run super lean and melt a piston....

Can get AFR and det checked with a power run on a dyno to make sure?

[Zach]

Thats sound advice koom Thanks for that. When I get this new engine in Im gona try get front mounting and manifold flip. Can the flip to the inlet manifold be done without any choping or welding?

[Guest]

Whats the car?

[Zach]

V2 Jdm Turbo wrx class C. GC8 1994 or 5

[Guest]

Just get one thats been cut and welded the opposite way round, save messing with anything else then it will just bolt straight in no issues. Im unsure if they flip straight around or not Im sure Ive seen them straight flipped though. You just need to sort an alternator bracket and mod the mount it sits on so itll flip right over. Not hard at all and split the rails while youre at it.

[Zach]

So its easier to source one thats already been customized. And expect a new thread up soon because Im going to google "Splitting fual rails on a wrx" lol

[Guest]

Search it first...

[Koom]

Those ones do flip straight around and bolt up fine. The problem is the powersteering reservoir wants to be in the same space as the idle control valve. Old way of getting around that was putting a plate over the idle control valve hole and cracking the throttle open a touch. No cold start help from the ECU though and they have a tendency to idle rough. Easier to get someone to chop and weld the throttle body flange or buy one thats already been done as evowrx stated.

[Guest]

 Koom said:

Those ones do flip straight around and bolt up fine. The problem is the powersteering reservoir wants to be in the same space as the idle control valve. Old way of getting around that was putting a plate over the idle control valve hole and cracking the throttle open a touch. No cold start help from the ECU though and they have a tendency to idle rough. Easier to get someone to chop and weld the throttle body flange or buy one thats already been done as evowrx stated.

Do V3/4 flip straight around? The early p/s res is diff to v3- isnt it?