Nick's adventures in "Intercooling"

[Elsabor67]

So..........I had purchased a ETS 7" intercooler on E90post from one of the guys there. Nice and heavy looking thing and definetly an upgrade to the "intercooler" that we have in our cars. I decided to install it yesterday at the craft shop on Graf and said to myself "this should be easy".

Yeah right!!!!! Easy was the removal of the front bumper......and the stock intercooler......and stock piping. But ran into a slight issue. In order to fit this intercooler I had to do some trimming. So I searched and searched and most everyone I spoke to told me to do like the HPF video. Surprisingly though, I had to go from this.....



To this



Install took me about 2-2.5 hours since I decided to take my time but can be done in about 2 hours or less. The rear sits sort of flush with the fan shroud but the right tab barely touches the shroud. No issues though. It appears that this intercooler sits about 1/4 inch lower than the stock one and is about an inch taller than the stock IC. It also sits 3 inches forward than the stock one, hence the hacking of the lower trim.










Overall impressions as I plan to do some logs to see the difference in IAT is that air is coming in much cooler than before and the car seems stronger, specially between 3000-6000 rpms. Once I do the logs (JB4) I will post some before IC swap temps and new temps. LMK if you have any questions.

Oh yeah....last part, the mesh screen goes on tomorrow. Thanks you bird....
Nick

[135i OREO]

If it makes you feel better, we had to do the same thing with the HPF on my car last weekend. Looks good though!

[Mr Kleen]

That thing is huge!
Interested to see the logs.

[smellthebeans]

I dont think you will see a huge difference unless you get into a heat sink situation where stock cars begin to experience HP fall off as temps rise. Usually only on a track in HOT temps.

That thing is huge, nice upgrade and any thing that will help a turbo'd car stay cooler is money well spent.

[BrokenVert]

holy! Wow!

[Elsabor67]

Well, decided to give it a run and was very impressed with the results.

Pic below is before the IC change were you can see almost 117f IAT's



Here is the most recent I did today. I made sure to have the oil temp about the same as the log above which was around 231f. Higest IAT was 91f, a difference of -27f



Very, VERY HAPPY with the change. Next stop........A dyno to see what I can put down on map 5 and map 3/meth

[BrokenVert]

wow thats quite the difference!

Did your wife buy the "It was the bird that broke the old one!" story?

[Elsabor67]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

wow thats quite the difference!

Did your wife buy the "It was the bird that broke the old one!" story?

She didn't even notice the difference.

Anyways, I forgot I did a Map 3 pull with Meth and got this......average of 69-71f with a low of 66f on a 3rd gear pull from 2000-7000 rpms. This run was done after I did the Map 5 run.



My weekend is good

[Elsabor67]

And finished

[FDM68]

Damn Nick you could put a whole pigmy nation in that thing!!!!

[Swadeness]

Originally Posted by 135i OREO

If it makes you feel better, we had to do the same thing with the HPF on my car last weekend. Looks good though!

Yep, whoever said there is "just a little bit of trimming" for the HPF is a liar! Those silicone connections on the ETS probably made things a lot easier though. The log temps look good.