evo8ltw, it is not the same. The 3" exhaust will flow enough and evacuate the exhaust gases perfectly up to let's say 600 whp on our dyno. It's not that I don't recommend a 3.5" exhaust, if a car actually needs one then I recommend it. We built 15 systems to date, all of them were on 37r or larger turbo cars. My RS just ran 9.6 at 151 with our 3" exhaust on it......

The race FMIC on the other hand will keep the AIT's extremely low which will allow for substantially more HP to be made, it also has less pressure drop than the smaller cores. There is no down side to low AIT's. With a smaller turbo running high boost the outlet air temps are even higher than a larger turbo which means you need an even larger intercooler to keep the AIT's down. Therefore I suggest using the Race FMIC on every EVO.

So as you can see there are specific reasons why I suggest one and not the other.

The extra weight of the FMIC is easily outweighed by the additional performance gained from it's low pressure drop and extremely efficient cooling.

If you are worried about the weight on the nose, put in a lightweight battery and throw the front crash beam in the garbage, that's 34 pounds of weight savings.

 

xs-power is garbage chinese copy crap that named their products after xs engineering so that they could use their premise to sell products. a larger ic will increase pressure drop (due to larger internal volume,) but not so much you'll notice.

 

BBS, a larger FMIC doesn't increase pressure drop. The pressure drop is the difference between the inlet pressure and outlet pressure. A good FMIC core will have less pressure drop than the stock FMIC.

 

Have you tested a 3" vs. a 3.5" exhaust with lower HP cars, either on the street or dyno? I recall years ago that one of the more known f-body mailing list drag racers had a 3" exhaust on his car. He ran about 11.2@132 with a supercharged LT1. When the 4" exhaust came out for the f-body, he was a big naysayer saying that if he could run what he ran through the 3" exhaust, then everyone else running a lot less HP certainly didn't need it. Then he finally decided to switch and try a 4" -- 10.9@135 with just the exhaust change. When you quote what your RS ran with the 3" exhaust, it reminds me of this guy. The thing is, with a turbo car I think you'd pick up even more, including better spool. The only downside is weight, and that weight is minimal and well distributed on the car.

I can believe that the larger FMIC keeps AITs down, but I question how much the extra little bit that you can get from the larger FMIC (through more aggressive tuning) really offsets the handling penalty. Just a little better stick in the corners tends to pay off better than a little more speed down the straight on a road course. For a typical street/strip car, I absolutely agree with going with the biggest FMIC, but I question it for a time attack car still.

 

This is a great beneficial discussion... It has peaked my interest in the topics at hand. The best part is everyone maintaining a professional attitude and actually SHARING information...

This is wonderful!

Cheers-
Erich

 

im sorry but REV-MOTO, u really have something to learn about these cars and car in general.

the EBAY is the biggest waste of time and money.

remember this for a point of referance.

Fast and Cheap = Not Reliable
Cheap and Reliable = Not Fast
Reliable and Fast = Not Cheap

so do yourself a favor and get a good core.

 

* Not always........

* Great post!

 

sorry that me refrase that

the EBAY FMIC is a waste of time and money

 

Yes, I have tested exhausts but not 3" to 3.5". Even better, 3" to NOTHING at all and on the 400'ish whp EVO's we tested it on there was no gain from the catless 3" exhaust with the bullet or our old race muffler to an open exhaust.....I don't just type things and say things to hear myself, I do it after I've done some testing and have some proof

The "standard" 3.5" thick cores that mostly everyone offers at high boost can gain anywhere from 30-45 degrees in intake air temp on a single gear pull. Typically the race FMIC will gain under 10 degrees. That difference in intake temp makes pretty substantial difference in the timing and air fuel ratios you can run.

At the shootout this year Dave L. was here. Very well put together EVO Green car. I tuned and tune and tuned, I could not get the car to 400 whp. I told him if he just swapped out the FMIC he'd get over 400 whp (which was his goal). He bought it, installed it out in our parking lot and ended up going from the 390'ish he was at to 415 whp.

 

thanks dave for your input and shutting up some of these smack talkers in here.

 

To make that statment i can say...


the ATP KIT is a waste of time and money.......


ebay fmic works well... Everyone ive reccomended it to has been hesitant, but once its on the car and tuned no one has swapped it out, and they have ran faster times and felt a difference.


Its all preference and youre scaring people away from it that dont know better, until recently i wouldnt have been able to afford a $700-$800 ic. I bought the ebay ont he notion that ona 650whp car thats producing much power power than the ebay ic is rated for it only lost around 10-12whp... Not bad at all for only $130


I dont road race, 99% of people on here dont either, for road racing the ebay probably cant keep up, but on the street and ont he strip it does its job very very well and is garenteed power.

It only takes .1 hp more for a vendor to say theres makes more power than another. And you all know that a ic cant really be tested on a dyno, it needs air to make a real difference, a larger one wont get as hot as quick as a smaller one since theres more area surface.


In the end how much are you willng to pay for each whp... It cost be $5.20 per whp...

Assuming a larger ic for $700 does make me an more power, lets say 1 more whp thats $26.92 per horse power

 

It's great the results you're getting with meth! It is a very nice supplement to pump fuel for added fun While impressive, we still feel that you'd see additional gains from upgrading your intercooler.

Our customers regularly report the ability to increase boost by 2-3 psi and add up to 6 degrees more timing from their previous knock threshold on the stock intercooler when running pump gas (91-93 octane). We've also had customers in hot climates insist that their EVO feels like a completely new vehicle after installing our intercooler Consistent and lower AITs translate to higher boost/timing without knock, thus the bigger power numbers. Repeatable performance is another benefit. With better heatsoak resistance, the car will pull just as hard time after time as it did on the first rip. That's a huge plus for any kind of track use or even "spirited" street driving It's of course up to you to upgrade or not, but we honestly feel it worthwhile in every regard. Good luck!

Tom

 

So which one is the ATP kit falling under?

Scorke

 

Yeah but if your calculating power during all times of driving, this means, on the road course, in 110 degree heat, after multiple high speed pulls, then YOU ARE NOT GETTING THAT WHP with an eBay FMIC.

Your IC works, but not in all conditions.

I didnt buy 10k worth of parts for a 30k dollar car to make it fast for only a portion of the time I am driving it, I did that because I want it everyday every minute.

Scorke

 

Well put. I can understand why some people don't want to justify spending an extreme amount of money on a FMIC. I personally don't want to spend an extravagant amount either on one, but I know I'll at least have peace of mind in buying a more expensive and proven one over the cheaper chinese ones. Proven cores aren't cheap to make, and neither is the time and material it takes to make the end tanks, make sure it fits properly, and then test it. I personally have a bit more background in dealing with the chinese inter-foolers than most probably do (with the exception of probably Jrod and other major companies and the sort) coming off of the Honda camp and doing an extreme amount of building and tuning. For those applications I saw way too many cheap IC's being used, and it wasn't unusual to see end tanks that leaked from poor welds, IC's that heat soaked so badly that you could barely touch them, and other various issues. Let me tell you, it's not fun trying to tune fuel enrichment for IAT's (especially in Honda's) just because the intercooler just plain sucks.

Just my .02 on this.