DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

well after many hours of work (although I feel it was a very fun install personally), pissing around with piping and cutting my bumper support and another hole in the fender well.... with a Dremel.... It's on! complete finished pics to come, my camera ran out of F'ing batteries and its too late to take pics now. I gave her a very very small amount of go pedal on the way home and it started goin lean so I can't boost it w/out a tune now.....but I'll get that fixed very soon and after i install my 75mm tb/plenum that gets here tomorrow.

If anyone has any questions or wants me to do a write-up of my install just lmk. I see there is already a sticky on IC installs so I didnt waste time typing everything out but if you need details lmk.

here are some pics.. I will add the completely finished pics tomorrow

MMMM.... pretty

here's how you get from this:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ntercooler.jpg



To THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Yes you have to cut your bumper support there.... with a dremel and cutoff wheels it takes a good amount of time LOL!

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/126.jpg

ZOMG the snail moved to shoot air downward!!!!!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/125.jpg


arbitrary piping routing pics.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/123.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/122.jpg


Ya thats a hole I had to cut..... And yes it somewhat saddened me to cut holes in my car....until it was all bolted up. pipes got a bit scratched but hey, air still moves through them so I could care less...plus all others need to see is taillights not my intake piping right?
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/121.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/120.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/119.jpg




ya so its not mounted perfect... but u can't tell with the bumper on so who gives a ****!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h278/bigedog8/118.jpg

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

Very cool, now swap pullies, get a tune and cook some tires =)

E.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

very nice work. how much did you end up spending?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

for everything right there... not including my boost pipe and the couplers im gonna replace.... like $250 bucks and lots of time lol

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

where did u find all the piping and rubber couplers you used... because I need to extend my intake from dragging on the ground to up into my fender.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/3-Int...QQcmdZViewItem

thats the exact kit i bought. if u need 2.5 the same seller has 2.5 also. it wasnt a bad deal and I still have like 3 extra pieces left over.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

how long did it take you?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

hmmm. I'm gonna estimate around 6-8 hours or so.... give or take, It was a 2 day leisure project so it was on-off sort of deal. unbolt some stuff. do some cutting. go eat easter dinner. work more then go inside for an hour or so to rest.... so it was hard to keep track of, but maybe 6 hours of total work. now if I would have had a torch or angle grinder w/cutoff wheel. it would have taken significantly less time, keep in mind I used a dremel to cut all that **** out lol. bumper support took a long time to cut. had to cut some pipe too. because re-clocking the intercooler is just cut an allen key down and undo 6 bolts,turn the s/c and bolt it back up. piping really wasnt too long. my buddy was helping me out doing the discharge side so it didnt take long. but he only helped about half the time of working on it so it was mostly only me since he had work on monday and I had no class.

If you had the right tools for cutting and worked hard (we were drinking beer pissing around most all the time because thats a necessity to work on vehicles and have fun doin it) it probably wouldnt take more than 3-4 hours tops.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

you have a battery relocation i'm assuming? 8 hours isn't much at all really.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

very sexy. i think im going to do this myself as well. did you leave the maf on the intake side of the supercharger or you going to move it to a blow through, that way you can run a nice bov :D

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

nope leaving the maf where it is for now. dont really wanna bov... if you couldnt tell I am going for the sleeper (or however much of a sleeper a gt can get, but it seems like the sohc 4.6 is underrated a lot these days), and I actually am getting some notice from others on town, my buddy said theres people posting stuff about me on a local forum lol. saying i think its supercharged but nothings done to it so I dunno haha.

no battery relocation at all. my piping comes nowhere near the battery and it has plenty of ground clearance.

here take a look ahaha, got my pics of the finished front now. i know the bumper flares down a bit but ill fix that by either trimming it or moving it up somehow. but i had to slap everything on there to get home in time for school so i gotta do stuff as open time comes.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...8/SD530210.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...8/SD530211.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...8/SD530213.jpg

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

very nice fella. yeah, my car has a nice sleeper look to it. til you start it and hear the blower and the entire car shakes from the heads and cams. i may have to get down on a DIY intercooler. i'm assuming you didn't even have to lift the motor out either. after i get my fuel system in this month, i don't really want to trust 600+RWHP to just meth.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

oh hell no to lifting the motor out lol. it was easier than installing the supercharger imo. it was not bad at all. like i said i enjoyed it. all it is is some cutting bolting and then routing piping, only place that needed to be cut for piping was the passanger side for the pipe to run down to the intercooler, theres a pic above. other than that, everything else just routed nicely, bought the piping kit and had to cut a few but in the end it wasnt bad at all. once i get it all cleaned up with a lighting iat and clean up my hoses and all, I will post up more pics of under the hood complete. it was not bad at all and i highly recommend doing it, its pretty gratifying too fabbing your own stuff. just dont do all of the cutting with a dremel and it will save u lots of time hahah after i ran out of the badass reinforced cutting wheels i had to do it with the regular ones... i dont know how many i broke/wore down and had to change. hahaha but where theres a will theres a way I tell u. worked out good in the end

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

could you tell us how much of each piping that you used and couplers. like 2 - 75* elbow, 2 - 90* coupler etc.

thanks !! :D

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

i'm tempted to get one of them kits on egay and try this out. i'd like to make it so i don't have to do any cutting and chopping up of the car though:)

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

that looks great. I cant wait until my piping comes in and I can get started on mine. Arent you supposed to bolt the I/C to the top of the bumper support though? Doesnt look like its up far enough. Im the same way though. Ill just get it on there first and fix it later...

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

I like it mounted right where it is... It could be up higher but I don't want a different bumper and u need air to flow across the core otherwise it doesnt do a whole lot. right now the inlet in the bumper (which has a flap on each side to funnel air, youll see what im talking about) so all of the air that enters there has to flow right through the middle of the core for good cooling. if i had a diff. bumper i could mount it higher but thatd show it off more and I don't really want that since its somewhat of a sleeper car, hence why i got the sq which is the quietest of the vortechs.

I'm pretty sure its-(ill double check)
3 straight pieces of piping. 4 if u include the little 6 inch on on the intercooler to extend it out to make the bend
2 of the 90 ish pieces of pipe-both coming off the cooler.
1 45 degree pipe cut short (this is the pipe connected to the TB)

7 straight couplers
1 90 degree bend coupler
1 45 degree bend coupler

I also have the smaller coupler on the discharge side still on the vortech. I cut it real short and shoved it all the way on the blower... doesnt hang over. and then clamped the 3" coupler on there. u will need a coupler that downsizes from 3 to 2.5 to use only one coupler if u have 3 inch pipe.

Now. also when doing this depending on how your setup is now. I have the iac in the pipe right before the TB. pics to come. but I bought a lightning iac because it is threaded and you can tap that pipe and install it so it doesnt leak. that is what i am working on right now. my bypass is also hooked up to that , i just made a small hole and stuffed the hose in there, im getting a bung welded within the next few days, ill have pics of that all when its done too. and its getting tuned at brenspeed on the 27th!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

really?!

could you send me the pics of what you have left over, I might be able to use them and send you some $$!

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

This is a little off-topic but I havealways wondered, how do you setup a BOV with a supercharger?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

any finished product pictures with the boost pipe and bypass valve attached?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

i just talked to the boys at my local speedshop about these DIY rigs. they told me to give pro charger a call and i can get the piping for a couple hundred bucks. this way it's made for my motor and i won't have to do any fabbing. think i may have to look into that:D

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

Well it is better for cooling, but I would just be worried about scraping the bottom of the I/C on the street. My bumper has scarsunderneaththere from who knows where.

Im thinking about doing the same thing with adding flaps to direct air into the I/C

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

sweet! pro charger sells all the piping and everything needed for an intercooler for $350 out the door.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

all the piping and everything needed including the intercooler itself? or + the cost of the actual intercooler?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

that's just the piping by itself. but you can get that piping, then get an intercooler off ebay to go with it. the piping from pro charger is already cut perfectly for a centrifugal blower on a 4.6. you won't have to do any custom rigging to get it installed and run.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

too answer some questions here
1. yes i can send u some pics of the piping. but its only like 2 pieces haha.

2. I'll have pictures of the under hood intake, but like i said I had a test today and im going to get my iat sensor right now from the dealer. I have an internship interview and hafta make the 400 mile journey home this weekend and it wont be in my car so itll be after the weekend til I have complete finished pics of all that.

3. and I didnt add flaps they are already there installed by ford from the factory :D

4. ya I coulda got the custom piping but for 90 bucks shipped I couldnt beat the ebay piping. especially cuz i only had to cut like 3 pipes tops.

5. I don't have my car lowered so thats another factor that lets me mount it like it is. but I dont hardly scrape my bumper at all, if i do its from pulling up too far to a curb or something. which I am much more aware of doing now lol.

ohh ya and it goes up to brenspeed the 27th to get tuned and dynoed!!!!!!!! so ill have some numbers and it'll be tuned well. then to the track for new numbers haha. w00t!!! im excited

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

Nice work man. I've been researching diy kits myself. You should take more pics once you get that bumper unflared. Looks kinda strange.

What brand of intercooler did you go with?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

mmm pretty.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

oh ya i will def. get more pics once thats finished. I just got one off of ebay. should be plenty good for me, im not shooting for like 600+ hp or any crazy **** like that so it should flow good. I have a carshow for our car club to attend saturday so everything will be fixed up by then for sure :)... oh ya i actually got on it today instead of pussy footing it into boost and i guess it isnt that far off for a/f it was in the 11's so thats all good, but i didnt have enough road to boost for a long time. plus im loosing a bit out the iac hole until i get this new one i picked up installed.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

Hate to break it to you, but thats not a very efficent intercooler you have there.
would have been MUCH better if inlet and outlet ports were not lined up both on bottom

Its better to have one on top and one on bottom.

The way you have it, the air is only using the bottom half of
the intercooler and bypassing alot of the top.

sorry, dont mean to bash. just offering some advice.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

What?:eek:how is air bypassing the top of the intercooler?Under boost theentire intercooler is pressurized. You make it seem as if it were sucking in water or something. His intercooler is efficient enough to max out his vortech s-trim. The top to bottom intercooler are more efficient but theres a negligable difference until you get over 600whp. Side to side intercoolers have been used since forever.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

sorry to bust on the bubble some more, but that setup doesnt look right at all, wheres the bypass and air meter? Also the earlier poster about the offset inlet and outlet is correct, im interested to see what kinda gain you get from this setup

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

Can you post some pics of the I/C and of some overall photos?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

and as for an update to all of you guys (will have pics when everything gets welded). I installed the vortech mini race because the bosch valve blows, and also found some new piping on ebay for an amazing deal. 100 bucks shipped with beads welded on the ends of the pipes,4 ply couplers AND T-bolt clamps!!!!!!!! hell of a deal and theres lots of them on ebay. at first i paid 100 for no beads,crappy worm clams and crappy couplers.....to give u an idea then spend another 120ish on the couplers and clamps..... I will have pictures as soon as my new bungs get welded and all.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

planning on doing this soon would like to see some complete pics good job by the way. the only thing that threw me off is the bottom how it bends out.

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

ill take some more pics real soon, of the new pipes and then friday when I get my boost pipe (intake pipe) back from the welder, ill take pics of the final

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

i keep reading posts that there are going to be more pics but i don't see any........[8D]

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

what brand intercooler did you go with?

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

ok finally i took pics lol..... hope everyone is happy, and i got my intercooler off ebay. its an xs turbo i think a turboxs knockoff.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...og8/cooler.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...g8/cooler1.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...g8/cooler3.jpg

RE: DIY Intercooler Finished!!!
 

did you just rubber bung your IAT?