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I learned to weld on my lunch breaks, and used my new skills to re-route my intercooler pipes. They are made from the cheap aluminum universal kits I had laying around, then I gave them a brushed finish. The radiator shroud (I forgot to take a picture of that) holds two 12in spal slim fans.
The intercooler is a massive CX Racing Starion unit that was harder to fit than I expected. But the pipes pointed the right direction so I made it work. I painted it black before installing, but you can see it next to my old intercooler.
The radiator brackets were replaced by the aluminum sheet I had laser cut at work, and the cold air box and turbo heat shield got me some weird looks when they cut and bent those in the factory. Modeling the heat shield in CAD was like trying to model a rock. I just needed it to come out close enough that I could weld up the seams, and I think it did fine for that.
NB is a bit easier then the NA for over the top. I have found on the NA that a ton of the time you end up having to cut up the hood some.
No need to cut the hood on an NA if you drop and pivot the radiator. Not sure how much clearance there would be to PS/AC, but without there's plenty of room for a thicker core and aftermarket fan assemblies.
Here's the lower brackets. Just water-jet cut .25in 6061.
And the upper mounts, which I machined out of Delrin stock and added a rubber isolator off M-Carr.
And the 'end' result. Still need to make radiator ducting. The bottom of the radiator is still a good 30mm+ about the steering rack/subframe meaning a continuous splitter tied to the subframe is very much possible and would provide protection. I used silicon 90s to connect as the paths are super short and I wanted to provide some flex to account for engine movement as well as avoid aluminum-to-aluminum contact with the hood if there is some interference under 'duress'. There's maybe 10-12mm of clearance between the piping and the OEM hood structure ... it ain't generous, but it does clear when static.
06-03-2020, 10:49 AM
New Intercooler Routing
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