I guess it dependes on weather 2. I am from PR, needless to say is very hot and humid in here, and i have seen gains of 27 hp with stock turbo

 

Why is that?
Extreme Motorsports tuned his car btw

 

Seriously, I came really close to ordering an intercooler that was less money, but when it came down to it, I had never once heard of the performance gains or the quality of the unit. As far as AMS, Buschur, and maybe even RNR, they have lots of hard evidence that that their pieces work most effectively on our cars. I know for a fact that when my car is ready, it will be producing the most power available from that part, without a doubt. With say, from brand x,s there is a saying, "You get what you pay for". It's kind of like the mp3 player that just took a dump on me. I thought I was saving a few bucks by going with an off brand. In the long run, you end up spending more.

 

agree

 

Yes, extreme weather conditions can make an FMIC more useful, but I don't know how it would increase peak power by 27. I do see how it could help reduce heatsoak during repeated use, but not so much with just a stationary dyno run.

 

Because a straight-up 20hp gain from 3500-7500 is not typical when installing an FMIC on the stock turbo. The stock FMIC is perfect in volume for the stock turbo. Sean and Extreme certainly know what they're doing, but the fact that they tuned his car has nothing to do with how helpful the FMIC was. In fact, if you're telling me they tuned his car and got a 20whp gain, then I would question why you think it was all because of the FMIC when a good portion of that could have just been tuning itself.

 

You won't get high hp gains on a bigger front mount with minimal mods. You'll get consistent power throughout the band though and less likely to heat soak if you raise the boost.

When I had my stock fm. I was trapping 107- low 109's. Installed the AMS fm and I picked up around 1.5 mph. prob. another 10-15 whp. 5 degree diff. on those days.

Although my buddy who just recently ran hit 111 at the top end with a stock fm. Same mods as me except he had a MAS pipe.

 

buschur claims and verifies that an ic will get you 14 hp everywhere.

 

We have a new Intercooler line-up. We redesigned the tanks, core, brackets, outlets, etc. We now have a street 750hp FMIC and a 1000hp FMIC for the extreme cars. We are currently using the 1000 kit on our shop car an making a lot of power on 91 octane.

 

I am running the Greddy front mount on mine and the power band is alot more broad,no more power surge justa smoth pull to redline and no more dip off before redline,,the upgrade is worth it the larger tube & fin design alows alot more air flow,a gain of 1.23 psi was notced on my car

 

Also check out Megan racing they have a smoking deal on IC (bar and plate style)

 

And I know of a similar situation with the very same item where the difference was 3-4whp on a car that was already making good power. There are benefits that a better FMIC can deliver, but don't expect that to be necessarily observed on a dyno with no other changes.

Can a better IC reduce IAT? Yes. Is it an automatic 15-20hp increase for any application? No. It would be great if it was, but that isn't reality.

 

A better set of arguments...

Tube and fin vs bar and plate.
Stock size vs Larger Tank issues
Flow rate
Pressure Drop
Cooling Capacity
Weight of Intercooler
End Tank construction
Weld quality
Fin quality
Fitment