Intercooler questions, all help appreciated...

skydivr7673

Registered User
OK, we are now finally moving ahead with my 95. I am looking to set up a decent FMIC but I want to keep my a/c on the car. First, I have been told two schools of thought. I have been told both that I would have to ditch my stock radiator, and then told that I would not have to. Looking around, of course, there are all sorts of sizes on FMIC's, can anyone help me get a good idea of the easiest way to accomplish this? The car will have bolt-ons for now--OD pulleys, cold air intake, and so on....but the plan is to build it up more as time and funds allow. I do not want to go with the MP setup due to cost, I am going to be spending a chunk already. So I have been checking out the stuff on ebay and other places. I found a decent set of IC piping and now I am looking for the right FMIC. What is a good size that would not require me to rip out my a/c, but still work well enough that it is worth doing?
 
i too would like to know this, I wana keep my ac, but would like a better intercooler.

i was under the impression that the double intercooler and fan would be the only way to keep the ac intact.

could a person cut the middle part of of the bumper reinforcement and make room there for the intercooler?
 
You can install a 24" wide X 12" high X 3" cross flow IC hanging off the front bumper from the top of it with the IC inlet/outlet's at the bottom so the tubes can go under the frame rail and around the rad support and still have adequate flow for your a/c etc. You won't have to cut anything either to make that fit.

I run my setup that way with 2-1/2" mandrel bent pipe and I still use the stock intercooler tubes. I only see a 0.3psi drop between the blower and the intake plenum and I get about 83% cooling efficiency. I'm running an MPX with 20% OD and making about 16psi. Best of all, I still have AC, and I use the space for the stock IC to hold my transmission cooler.

Fraser
 
Youre not still using the stock radiator with this setup, are you? I was told I would need to change to a different radiator, and have also been told that I would not have to...the car will only be mildly modified at this point.
 
Youre not still using the stock radiator with this setup, are you? I was told I would need to change to a different radiator, and have also been told that I would not have to...the car will only be mildly modified at this point.

I'm running the stock rad and only see the temps start to creep to 200F when I'm lapping at the road course on a hot day, but I was seeing that with the DIC as well. My motor is making a lot more power than a stock setup so its to be expected.

If your rad is in good shape, you should be fine.

Fraser
 
Fraser,

I have come across a 25x12x3 intercooler, would that extra inch interfere with how you mounted yours? I seem to recall seeing something in your posts about how you had an inch of space below the IC and that the air dam forced air up there for the radiator.
 
I don't see the extra inch causing a problem, but measure between the rails just to be safe.

Because my IC is a hanging off the bumper, there's an inch of space behind the IC so the chin spoiler can ram air up into the rad area from behind the IC, which actually helps the IC because the high velocity air going up will cause a low pressure zone behind the IC which will have a high pressure zone in front of it so air goes through more.

Fraser
 
Any disadvantages with a FMIC with the inlet and outlet on the same side?

They say that it doesn't cool as well with the "shorter" run. I have a large i/c with the inlet/outlet on the same side and it does OK but I'm going to modify it by cutting off the bottom end tank and reversing it so it's very similar to the MP FMIC set up.
 
I ended up going with the IC I mentioned above, and I have a 2.5 inch piping kit coming as well. Now, if I can get the block out of the car, I can get that sent off for machine work while I get to work on some of these other parts of the project. It will take a little time but I will update when everything gets put back together...
 
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