You will also see a much larger gain once you get rid of the stock turbo and goto something larger and start runing in upwards of 25psi. It is there that you will see the most gain, no matter if its hot or cold outside. Cause really on the stock turbo at 22psi or whatever you will never outflow the stock intercooler enough to notice anything major.

 

yeah...about what I expected. not much for $800

 

Would you recommend the hks intercooler upgrade for my stock turbo? How much more gain in performance would I see? How much hp will I see? Did you notice a increase in turbo lag with that hks unit? I plan on a upgraded turbo in the future but I want to get the maximum potential gains with the stock turbo for now. I narrowed my choices to the Hks, Arc and Buschur intercoolers

Thanks

 

any three of those intercoolers are a good choice. and you will see similar gains in power. IT will not be till you swap for a larger turbo and raise the boost that any noticable gain from one aftermarket intercooler to the next is noticed.

 

...I love this forum.

 

It seems as though this is being proven as inaccurate. AMS claims upward of 20hp gain with their fmic and recent dyno tests on a bone stock Evo with the Injen fmic showed gains of 14-15 wheel hp. These are actually pretty large gains. The gains from the dyno runs showed the fmic to be a better power adder on an otherwise stock Evo than the exhaust or intake did...

 

"You can expect an average gain of 20 hp at the engine depending on your level of tune, we recommend this core as the ultimate bolt on EVO VIII intercooler upgrade available. "

That is the exact quote of AMS's website. "depending on your level of tune" can mean alot of things.

Injen's test dyno graphs are spikey, and a 15hp improvement doesn't seem out of the question, I just wish they had either increased the smoothing of the dyno software or something. There are some points that you can see a 30hp gain, and then moment later only 5hp.

15hp on a stock car is about what we are expecting for an upgrade vs stock FMIC on the stock turbo at 20-22psi.

 

Lets also not forget that on a dyno you will never be able to flow the amount of air across and intercooler as it would see going down the street. So the gains you see will not be as huge during normal driving conditions. Yes they look great on a dyno because the factory intercooler heatsoaks quickly if there is not an large amount of air passing over it. While aftermarket intercoolers do a better job of cooling with less required airflow across the core.

 

And that statement apparently should be taken at face value. While these ICs are nice pieces, tests with cars approaching the limits of the stock turbo seem to indicate only a ~3-4 hp gain on the dyno.

In a real-world situation whereby the car will see back-to-back repeated WOT events on a hot day, I suspect the larger IC will do a better job of attenuating a buildup of heat.

 

Well...I got 5 runs in on fridaynight. It was very cold out...around 45-49*F. Intake temps would reach 115* at the top of 4th gear. The rate of intake temperature increasing was higher....ie temps would reach 90 by the end of second gear, where it was only in the low-mid 70s with the stock ic. I installed the spearco FMIC right before I left for the track after closeing the shop at 5:30. The spearco Ic took me less than 30 minutes to install.

I ran the same boost within 1psi of last week, but the intake temps after the IC were on average 5-15*F hotter than with the stock ic. AS for cooling effeciency I have to give the nod to the stock ic in this weather.

As for pressure drop...I don'thave a before and after pressure sensor to get exact pressure drop #'s yet. I did leave the boost controller untouched untill the second run, and saw no gain in boost pressure due to the ic core swap. Turning the mbc 1.75 turns from my street setting gave me the same boost pressure as last week. Boost seems to drop off just the same.

Quick test, and certinalty incomplete. Please don't even think this quick test is any difinitive anwers. I was dissapointed in the FMIC upgrade to say the least.

I did get an 11.95 run in..but I attribute that et and the 1mph gain to powershifting the last 2 gear changes. The prevoius run was with normal shifting 12.2 @ 112 about the same as last week with stock fmic. run after the 11 was a 12.1 @ 113 easy lauch and only a 3-4 powershift.

I don't feel the upgraded fmic core was adding anything to the track performance at all.

 

Any picture of the spearco IC?

 

This is really good data. Theoretically, a larger core be able to dissipate heat better. So your data points back to end tank design and how well air is being distributed across the intercooler. I always thought the end-tank design on the stock fmic was kinda funky looking, but I guess it does a decent job at utilizing the whole core.

 

http://www.diamondstarmotorsport.com/evofmicparts.shtml

pics of the spearco fmic.

As for why it didn't work better, possibly becuase the internal flow passages are big, and the core is thicker, that contributes to less airflow being distributed. and that extra half inch of core thickness doesn't help cooling at all, but does help flow capacity.

maybe this core flows too well and the charge air is "going right through it" and not being cooled as effectivly?

Can a core be too big for your application in that you lose cooling effeciency, but don't gain anything from less pressure drop? Maybe on an application like the evo where the stock turbo is pretty much maxed out?

will put the stock Ic back on and run again next week with the cams and try to get some additional data on temps. I don't think cams will screw up the fmic data very much. If anything will just add a little bit of additional airflow.

 

Perhaps the turbo has to spin faster to fill the larger volume of the spearco core and thus creates higher discharge temperatures. But a larger more efficient core should be able to cool the charge air better.

If the internal flow passages were too big, the core wouldn't be very efficient no matter how much air were flowing through it.

Going back to your temperature measurements, if the outlet temperatures of the spearco were higher than the stocker, that really points to poor flow distribution in the larger core. From the picture of the spearco core, the end tanks don't look like they do a very good job of distributing air to all the rows of the core.

 

I think it could be a combination of quite a few factors. We don't have any proof that the stock is isn't more efficient than the spearco. We just assume so becuase it''s aftermarket and expensive...it must be better.

The turbo should still be in the same efficiency spot...running the same boost pressure (22-21psi) and at the same relative flow rate (whatever that rate is for ~345whp). If anything, the reduction in pressure drop that we assume the spearco core has, would require the turbo to spin slower for the same boost pressure, puttng it at a more efficient part of the comp map reducing intercooler inlet temps.

I think the temp increase has got to do with distribution of airflow through the core, and the heat transfer/ surface area/volume properties of the core.

anyway...atleast on my car...the boost pressure didn't seem to change much at all, but the intake temp got hotter under better conditions. so...it's coming off tommorrow. Certaintly did not provide $890 worth of improvement. Selling it, installing stock ic. Doing HKS 264 cams on wednsday, will "test" on friday. Ill find somewhere else to spend that $890...maybe an intake manifold.