Intercooled, part 1

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I've bought an intercooler kit from Universal Intercoolers, and spent an enjoyable few hours in the garage fitting it yesterday. Except the outlet from my turbo is 51mm, and all the hoses were 57mm... and I was short of at least 12" of metal tube. I've emailed the guy and he said he'll get the appropriate parts in the post, so hopefully it'll be complete in a few days. As it's snowing right now, I don't expect to be using the car anytime soon anyway.

The kit didn't come with any instructions, and you have to cut the metal tube yourself. There are photos on the website though, and it's a fairly straightforward job. Some points to note:

  • My car once had air conditioning, which means it has 2 cooling fans - this is a problem, as the primary fan (passenger side) has to come out to make room for the IC tubing, and it's the only way you'll be able to remove the air trunking too (unless you partially drain the coolant and remove the top hose). I plan to refit it in the place of the AC fan, because it's bigger and appears to use the same mounting holes. I will have to extend the cabling to do this, which is a nuisance.
  • I've left the air guide in place, but chopped chunks out of the sides for the IC hoses. I've been running without the undertray for more than a year, but I don't think it would fit any longer as the IC hoses on the passenger side route under the bottom radiator hose.
  • To fit the intercooler, I re-used one of the existing holes on the bonnet slam panel (drilled out to 8.5mm), then drilled a new hole at the other end. There was 35cm between them on mine, but the intercooler looks handmade so measure first. I put a length of threaded bar through each of these, with a nut and large washer on each side, very loose, then put another nut an inch up from the bottom on each (see below). I lubricated everything with WD40, then fed the intercooler up from the bottom and screwed in the bars. Once it was level I tightened everything up, and it's pretty rigid.

It also looks REALLY GOOD. I may have to fit FLOODLIGHTS so everybody can witness the additional boosty threat it represents.

I also had a new set of tyres fitted last week, Toyo Proxes T1R in 195/55R14 V (the widest you can fit on the standard daisy alloys). I bought them online from Black Circles and apart from causing some confusion at the tyre fitting centre, it was all good. They seem excellent so far, but the previous tyres were bald and shredded (hey, it wasn't me) so anything would seem better.

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