Intercooling

[gizzmo]

Hey guys looking at putting the front mount on now there are some kits on e bay for $350

but one guy left negative saying typical chinese crap but others said was good.

So in conclusion how much should i be looking at. Thanxxxxx....

[bored33]

About 400 should be right for a decent one. If you want a hassle free install, I always recommend the ARC. Pricey, but with all the fussing about and hassles the labour would cost as much anyways.

Although JustJap have the stealth intercooler which I still think is a good buy but I think they went up in price.

[SLY-25T]

as the sayin goes, you get wat you paid for.

a couple people on here have got the just jap stealth cooler for i think $550 and have given mixed responses. some say its good, some say the quality is poor but it still does the job.

instead of getting a cheaper one and having hassels, as mentioned, the ARC "stealth" style is a great cooler but with a LARGE price tag. think around $1600?

there are others such as the GREDDY one. http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Gr...le-t231160.html

this does mean cutting a hole on the driver side front section of the engine bay.

go quality not cheap ones IMO

[raZ1911]

Its for the street, you wont see a difference between just say just jap or a jap one.

[Johnny]

I just wanna add some feedback for cheap intercoolers; typically they are heavy and if you know your car well and have one installed you can instantly notice the extra weight on the front of the car; especially going over bumps etc.

I noticed this in my s15 when i had a hybrid cooler kit installed. My friend bought an arc cooler and they are amazingly light which is probably where the extra money is of benefit.

Trust Greddy kits are not too bad either.

We all have nice cars here and its probably best to save the extra money and buy quality rather than the 'i want it now' attitude.

[R31Nismoid]

SAU Traders. Simple as that really. Why dick around with the risk of crap from ebay?

For good, cheap kits. I would go the SAU Traders every time. They all have varying kits for different applications etc etc.

A $1000+ Japs brand name I/C kit for a car with less than 250-300rwkw IMO is a pure waste of money.

You simply don't need to spend that much when your not running big power setups.

The cheaper $300-$450 cooler kits hold well enough on a car with mild mods, the differences wouldnt come near justifying the $700+ difference in price tag

[money pit]

Hi Gizzmo,

My 2c's worth.

Have just finished fitting a cheap ($400) I/C into a R32 Gtst, the I/C was advertised as fitting 32 & 33's. While as Nismoid mentioned it will do a satisfactory job in a car with light mods the biggest hurdle is getting it to fit without butchering the car. We never expected the I/C to just slide right in and this a list of stuff we had to do to get it in;

1. Make a top bracket for the cooler so we could mount it the reo bar. We could have used the home-made bracket and bolted the cooler to the central upright but as its fairly weighty we wanted support at both ends not just in the middle.

2. Drill 2 bolt holes in recessed sections of the reo bar. Bolts must have ground down heads so that they won't foul the front bumper and rub holes in it and also allows the bit of shiny plastic that sits in/on the centre of the f/b to be screwed back on.

2. Bend the bottom brackets to the correct shape so they were a neat/tight fit.

3. Cut a hole under the battery tray using a hole saw. If you haven't already got a hole-saw then it will cost roughly $70 for the saw and a mandrel and the saw will be stuffed by the time its cut the hole.

5. Cut the bracket off the main pipe (one that runs across the front of the motor). The bracket may have been of some use in a R33 but it serves no purpose in a 32.

Now for the bits we really didn't like doing.

4. One of the pipes that runs directly off the cooler was too long. It didn't matter how much we twisted, turned, jiggled or wriggled it the bastard thing was TOO long. So we cut about 15-20mm out of the pipe. The problem with doing this is that now we had to seal it without the rims/lips on the end of the pipe to stop it from pulling/popping apart under load. So we bought a longer (150mm) piece of silicone hose, used emery paper to take the shiny finish off the pipe (dull don't slip as easy as shiny) and then used 4 decent hose clamps to hold it together.

5. Got the whole thing together and looking okay. Then we shut the bonnet, F*CK, the bonnet pushed the main pipe down about 10mm so that the fan blades were clipping the underside of the pipe.

6. Undid the drivers side pipes and pushed, pulled and twisted the pipes around until we got it so the bonnet doesn't push on it (just touches) but obviously the fan was still hitting.

The bit we really, really didn't like.

7.The only quick around the fan blade problem is to trim enough off each blade so that it clears the main pipework. Luckily we have an old fan which we did a test run on then trimmed one of those blades and using that piece for a template we marked and trimmed the good fan.

8.Trimmed the front bumper.

If the main pipe had been just a slightly different shape then these last few problems could have been avoided and if we do have any problems then we'll be off to an exhaust shop to get a specially bent pipe which is probably what we should have done in the first place.

Not prepared to publicly name the type of I/C it is as it was cheap and it did eventually fit, sort of, but as you can tell it is not a straightforward procedure. I suspect that there is many SAU members who have far less hassles than we did but I also suspect that theres a lot who have had as many if not more. Different brands may well give a different result i.e. a better fit.

We reckon you should do as much homework as possible before spending your money. If all of the above sounds like too much hassle then save up till you can pay some-one else to do it.

More like my $20 worth.

[jay1]

arc are great coolers best value for money

[gizzmo]

Thanx money pit great advice will do my homework before rushing in.

Don't have the the time for all that with work and kids.....