Project SR E30: Part 3 – Radiator, Intercooler and Piping

Before we can mock up the intake, we have to cut off the factory airbox mounting bracket.
After mocking up the filter placement, we realized that we can’t fit a pipe between the hotpipe and the turbo inlet. To solve the issue, we cut and clocked the bend on the turbo inlet to make it point more upwards.
After that, we simply clocked a 2.5” J-bend 180 degrees to make the intake pipe.
And that’s the intercooler piping all mocked up!
We didn’t have a TIG welder handy, so we took the piping to a friend, Alex Grimm, (who drives a crazy LS3 240z) to get welded up. He also stacked some dimes on the ends of the pipes to act as a bead, since we did not have a bead roller handy as well.
Here is the cold side after welding.
And, the hot side.
We ended up placing some very difficult requirements on ourselves for this car. Snaking the piping under the headlights and through a tiny gap between an awkwardly placed ABS module and a huge radiator was challenging, and required a lot of precision. Despite that, we are very happy with the result. You will not be able to tell this car is SR swapped until you start hearing loud “chuuuuu chuu chu” noises.

Look forward to the next installment, where we will sorting out the fuel system, and painting the engine bay.

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