Top Mounted Intercooler for MY99-00 WRX/STi
The goal when developing our new top mounted intercooler was to make it the very best aftermarket top mounted intercooler for WRX/STi... period. We studied our competitors products and fixed all of the mistakes they have made...some of them major. The most obvious error that EVERY one of our competors makes is not supplying their intercooler with proper ducting/shrouding to suit the increased size of the new intercooler. There is no point in installing a larger intercooler and leaving the factory under bonnet splitter/scroud in place. Here is the solution. A properly sized shroud to suit the application.
Below is a pic of our top mounted intercooler installed in a 2006 Forester XT. For demonstration purposes we have removed the factory splitter/shroud and placed it on the intercooler as if the bonnet were shut. Its simple to see that 50% of the new upgraded intercooler would be seeing no ambient air flow... total waste of time and money.
This is how it should be done. Process West intercooler and splitter/combination showing 100% of the new larger intercooler with full ambient airflow over the entire core.
Next pic show a 2005 WRX with the bonnet scoop removed, factory splitter/scroud still in place. The white line shows the actual dimension of the upgrade intercooler underneath. Again...you can see the pointless exercise in upgrading the intercooler and not the ducting.
The next major problem that
we see competitors doing (and they all copy each other) is building
an intercooler that is too
thick. Their design criteria is spot on for bragging rights
whilst marketing.
They say that bigger is better. This is totally not the case
with
an intercooler that is mounted at 90 degrees to the ambient
air flow.
Turbo compessor
outlet to intercooler (Y-pipe) design
Combing all 3 features of out top mounted intercooler gives the perfectly designed top mounted intercooler for Subaru. This pic shows the complete combination of Y-pipe/intercooler/splitter.
Testing A few other things worth mentioning. The test vehicle was a stock (apart from a BPM GT exhaust system) 05 WRX. Stock WRXs consistently put down about 90kw ATW on his dyno. The intercooler outlet temp probe was placed in the silicon hose joiner at the throttle body. (IAT on the data sheet). We started off with the PW intercooler/splitter and did a base line power run. Result was 115.5kw. Looking at the intercooler outlet temp saw a peak of 51C. I must say at this point I was a little disappointed. We saved all of the data collected during the run so that we could overlay it with the results from the stock intercooler. Next we installed the stock intercooler/splitter. Max power was 107.5kw. More disturbing was how badly the factory WRX intercooler performs. This graph shows the before and after power (note the test#...these 2 runs were back-to-back).
This graph shows the before and after intercooler outlet temps. Dark line is the PW unit, lighter line the stock unit. Note, we made sure that we started the test with same intercooler outlet temp to give an accurate comparision between the two..ei: we gave the stock intercooler every chance to perform. You can see both intercoolers started at about 37C. The PW unit saw a max of 51C and the stock unit 66C. This, of course is after one run on the dyno
Next test was to see how badly the stock intercooler is effected by constant back-to-back runs. The below graph shows 3 runs in quick succession. After the 3rd run we were up to 84C intercooler outlet temp. I would hate to see the outlet temps after a few laps at the circuit.
Street testing Ok, real testing is done on the road. The only data that I was able to get on the road (with the equipment that I have) is intercooler outlet temps. I used a Fluke 87 digital multimeter with a K-type thermo couple just before the throttle body. (same position a the dyno test). Im not able log this data so you will just have to take my word for it.(Hence the reason stage 2 testing that will be done) While doing the dyno testing I compared my Fluke meter with the dyno AIT probe and they were always within a degree of each other. So, out into mountains with the PW intercooler/splitter combo. Basically I was unable to get the intercooler outlet temp above 43C no matter how hard I pushed. Great…now Im happy. Back to workshop and changed back to the stock intercooler/splitter. Went and did the same hard driving and saw a peak of 72C which would probably have kept rising but I decided that was enough. The car also felt a lot less lively.
Pic shows factory splitter
rear and Process West unit front |
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www.processwest.com.au - www.jblchargeair.com - www.wrxparts.com.au Contact Kevin Westblade - sales@processwest.com.au PO Box 611 Unanderra
NSW Australia 2526 Updated January 27, 2009 |