My IC project

[Pisobiker]

Hi guys.

Seen around the forum many of you are upgrading to big and fat intercoolers lately, so, even though I'm not finished with it, I thought I would share my project with you.
About a month ago I bought an IC with 600x300x76 mm core, probably the same as some of you have bought recently (it comes from Hong Kong... )

Following are a couple of pictures of it compared to OEM ABY one:

[Pisobiker]

and second one

[Pisobiker]

When ordered it, I already knew there where some aspects of its construction I wanted to modify to suit my needs:

1) I didn't want the inlet ot it interfering with the oil cooler air feed (to be used either for the oil cooler, or for the air filter in a future layout);

2) I wanted inlet to face towards the back of the car and slightly upwards to minimize inlet ducting lenghts;

3) I wanted inlet to come in at the higher part of the endtank, being this IC used with a custom tubular EM and bigger Turbo (soon, probably as next winter project) which will stay higher than OEM turbo, therefore again minimizing inlet ducting lenghts;

4) I wanted inlet ID to be in the Ø 58-60 mm maximum;

5) I wanted outlet to be in the higher part of the endtank, facing towards the back of the car and slightly upwards, to minimize inlet ducting lenghts with the use of a "front mount TB" IM (to came soon in the future as well.... don't know when);

6) I wanted outlet ID to be no more than Ø 66 mm (TB plate size).

So, since the IC came with side inlet and outlet, and both ~Ø 70 ID, only solution was I had to completely modify the endtanks.

Following are a couple of pictures of the woking process.
I used its left endtank, cutted off inlet, welded part of the RS2 IC inlet on it (the wrecked RS2 IC, of course) but with a Ø 58 mm ID inlet, then filled and smoothed out all internal surfaces, trying to keep dimensions as good for flow as I could:

[Pisobiker]

and second one

[Pisobiker]

For the outlet I didn't have anything to adapt on, and endtank the IC was coming with couldn't be modded as much as I wanted, so I had to entirely custom build my endtank, out of 3mm aluminum sheet:

here is final result with my new crossmember: guess what I've used to build it?

[Pisobiker]

another one

[Pisobiker]

and one from behind

[Pisobiker]

It still needs to be finished:
I have to cut off the hanging ring, to place it closer to the crossmember, and find another one for right side.
I'm in fact planning to use these for hanging the IC, with rubber bushes for absorbing some vibrations, instead of the threads already welded on the core.

I will also weld the mountings for the snub mount bracket on the cross member.

From the first tryal fit it seems to be positioned quite well without interfering with the RS2 front bumper.
Then another problem will need to be faced: RS2's front bumper doesn't have big enaugh main air feed to it

[Pisobiker]

By the way, the car on the pictures is my old Coupè 2.0L 20V (NM engine) I converted to full 3B specs some years ago, and now used as template and..... spares

[Pisobiker]

All the work is being done by a friend's machine shop (some hours a week, time allowing), who is also letting me use his very expensive TIG welder (with some fear, at the beginning ).

All I have here posted is not intended to say my project is any better than others (and it probably is not, at least considering the time and effort to modify the IC from its original layout), but it might be another way to manage the job.



Marco

[martinjs]

Looks excellent marco, that is how i wanted my inlet/outlets to be but i havent got access to a welder so left it as it is, maybe something i should consider for the future, my inlet tract is a bit long at the moment.

martin

[newsh]

here is final result with my new crossmember: guess what I've used to build it?

Could it be the piece of alloy (side impact bar) from inside a coupe door?

[Pisobiker]

Could it be the piece of alloy (side impact bar) from inside a coupe door?

You got it, man

:mischeif:


Marco

[audiman]

Looks nice Marco, I will send mine over to you for the same modifying!!! I too am going to alter the end tanks on the same IC. Not quite as much (i think?)

[Stick Insect]

There is a section in a book called Sheet Metal Handbook about making custom ends for Intercoolers. ISBN 0-89586-757-5.

An excerpt is shown below:

David