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| The intercooler and piping are now in place. Time to modify the bumper support to clear the intercooler core. |
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| To make room for the core, we had to cut away most of the the bumper support. You cannot simply remove it as the center of the plastic bumper cover might sag. We had to cut most of the bumper support away in the middle as the core is quite large. Other brands of FMIC use shorter and thicker cores and allow you to keep your bumper beam intact but the Greddy core that is taller and thinner would be a more efficient heat exchanger. If you are willing to cut your bumper, the Greddy intercooler cools the charge air temps more. The bumper beam material is a super hard steel and is murder to cut. Howard ended up using a plasma cutter for the rough cuts. |
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| After roughing it out with the plasma cutter, Howard cleaned up the cuts with a sawzall for cleaner edges and a more finished look. The beam ate up a lot of sawsall blades! |
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| Here is the front bumper beam with the center removed. Note that the upper sheet metal part of the beam that supports the bumper cover is still there to prevent the plastic cover from sagging. |
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| Howard also had to remove a lot of material from the bumper cover to clear the intercooler core. Howard used an air saw and a disc sander to make clean cuts. |
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| Our SPTI air intake no longer fit due to it running right into the center of the intercooler piping so we decided to run the Cobb's intake we featured in our last installment. We liked the Cobb intake a lot better due its enclosed airbox which will result in cooler intake air temps. The Cobb intake also has a MAF tube with air straightening vanes to make it less sensitive to turbulence. However, the Cobb intake is designed to work with the stock intake tube. When we used the stock tube, the air filter hit the intercooler tubing due to the angularity. We made a temporary tube out of some tubing we had lying around the shop. This enabled us to drive the car but we still had to fab something for a better fit later. We had to trim the back of the airbox a little to clear the intercooler tube. |
3 comments
Do you have any other picture for where the cooler mounts. Im trying to install the same kit on a 2004 sti and have trouble figuring out where the lower bracket goes.
Thanks
We did this a long time ago but I think it bolted to the inner fender apron.
We did this a long time ago but I think it bolted to the inner fender apron.