I know obviously that thicker intercoolers, i.e. 4.0 instead of 3.5 arent but between brands i guess.
What is the best to get for the money that is good quality?

 

AMS hands down

 

You get what you pay for, but some are over priced and others imported from China and the like which may or may not be of good quality.

I can recommend the ETS lineup and their 4" FMIC's have served me quite well.

 

Turbo xs or AMS!

 

research air-to-air heat exchanger design. Yes, there's a different, but most of it has to do with core selection. If you do some research and shop around, you'll find some very inexpensive FMIC's that use the same exact cores as some of the higher end ones.

 

AMS and Buschur are thick and heavy, but def get the job done.

 

AMS, CBRD, and ETS all use very good cores.

 

Heavy is mass, mass removes heat

 

All intercoolers are not equal

You have a lot to take into consideration when purchasing a front mount.

The first thing you want to check out is the fin pack design. An offset and staggered fin design will be your best bet in dissipating heat. The straight through fin design will pass the air right through like a tunnel, the offset and staggered fin pack breaks up the air molecules and forces the air to come in contact with multiple fins creating a denser charge air.


** ETS Offset and Staggered Fin Pack


** ETS Core (Dense, Offset and Staggered)


** Ebay Core (Notice how the air flows directly through the intercooler and not off the fins)

The next would be the intercooler core design. We prefer a bar and plate core. This cores does an amazing job at being efficient.


** ETS Core VS Garrett (We do something a little different here by changing the size of the charge row to give us more heat transfer plates. If we have an extra 4 charge rows over the competitor core in the same area we get 8 extra heat transfer plates. This is the top and bottom plate of the charge row. By doing this we can loosen up the internal charge rows which gives us less pressure drop and more external heat transfer area.

Here is a picture of the Garrett core that we cut in half to make a smaller SRT-4 intercooler. The internal results of the Garrett core were a bit disturbing. The core doesn't look like it would flow too well.


** Garrett Core On Top / ETS Core On Bottom


** ETS Intercooler Core Components

Hope this helps you out.

Thanks!

Michael

 

So I know this would probably be considered a "NEWB" question, but would there be any advantage to copper plating the intercooler/ radiator/ charge pipes?

 

I'm not sure it would be cost effective and adding an additional coating to the intercooler would make heat transfer take longer since it would still have to go through the aluminum after the copper. I'm guessing you are wanting to use copper because of how easily it transfers heat?

On a side note, the last thing we need is a bunch of tweakers trying to steal our intercoolers because they have copper

Michael

 

This actually made me lol. To the op I went with.ETS as it was recommended by my builder and have had no complaints. The way I see it too is Michael is very active on here and I have seen him solve a lot of customers issues as soon as they are posted on here. Customer service definitely gives brownie points to ets.

 

Thanks!

Michael

 

wait till Michael breaks out the DP animation.... i have an ETS myself. I think ETS only one that does not require a different IC based on year due to the different point from 2008 to 2010 / 2011 brackets.... not totally sure though.

 

Love my down pipe animation Your correct, our intercooler works for all models from 2008-2011.

Thanks!

Michael