Rs4 Intercooler Damage

[Whooby]

Hello all,

I'll keep the uninteresting parts of the story short....

****I had no reason to doubt the performance of the car as it drove well and still quicker than cars with 0-100kmh times of ~6.5 secs(Golf GTi 4Door)****

After suffering some front bar damage we decided to pull it off and repair it, while it was off I thought I'd clean up the SMIC becuase it was looking a bit sad. I didnt know how sad till the cleaning began......

I could scrap the grease off with a screw driver, thats how thick it was. Didn't think too much off it till the degreaser started to work its magic.

While cleaning it off, I found that a core row on the cooler was cracked on the end tank, at BOTH ends. Not massive but big enough to see it wasn't right.

The cracks were hidden by the grease, possibly the grease had sealed the holes ?! As the grease cleared i noticed the bottom row of fins was completely stuffed.

(Hope these images show)

At this point I was amazed because the car doesnt have any damage in the area, and it hasnt had a FMIC as far as I can tell.

Also pretty annoyed becuase I had to get another cooler now, even though it's been 10 months on this one .

I rang helpful Jeff at NizzPro he said he had one, drove down to his shop but with his craziness making room for new arriving goodies we couldn't find a good cond. stock side mount.

Luckily Myles was able to help out and sell me his original cooler.

Here are the pics as a comparison between his near mint cooler and whats left of mine.

As you can see one of the end tanks is no longer straight and it has been pushed in on the cooler.

Also note that the cooler is BENT and TWISTED, much to all of our amazement.

Even though the cooler was in this condition, the turbo still made 8-9psi

I think I've covered all of the details, but if not i'll be sure to fill in any blanks, or answer any questions.

My advice even though your car might be running well, even really well, still pays to double check.

Cheers,

Hugh.

Edited August 20, 2008 by Whooby

[Whooby]

All back together and all happy.

Faster and boost level is closer to 10psi on the guage now. Idle has also changed. Seems to be firing better.

time for a run on a dyno.

[Liquidity]

Perhaps the car was in a little side bingle eh?