Yes its a very tight fit but as long as the bonnet shuts, plus side is you dont have to cut the inner wing, you could cut the pipe at the battery and use a joiner to join it back up that will give you a little freedom

 

We supply and fit Hybrids that come from Harvey Performance. They are superb and work well.

There is a space issue in the area of the battery. oil filler pipe, air con pipes [ where fitted ] We tend to squeeze the turbo pipe carefully to make it slightly oval if a huge great battery is fitted.

When opportunity arrives we fit a Mitsubishi Evo battery which is the same amp hour rating as a Subaru, but half the size.. The space issue is quickly resolved by doing that.

Otherwise, it is mostly a case of getting the pipe that comes up past the timing cover to sit a bit lower and then make sure that the join and silicone connector are tight together. That will lower the overall height of the pipe that runs past the battery and get it below conflict height.

Good Luck all David APi

Watch out for our new rolling road coming on stream soon


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And of course; the well known APi Performance Exedy organic clutch

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API Engines, Subaru Impreza Specialists

01926 614333

 

Jef : Your supplier which I don't think was us, should be able to give you all the information you need to fit your kit properly. Have a word with Just123.
I will post some random photographs of 3 cars parked here with these FMICs and there are no clearance issues nor should there be.
When someone fits a kit for the first time they cannot be expected to know all the tricks or best practice which is why we generally talk through the fitment with those that need guidance. The only reason for the oil filler cap fouling the hard pipe is fitting related as you will see from the photographs below.

 

Also look at the other photographs in this thread.
My phone number if it is of assistance to you 07860 302020

 

thanks for the input harvey - its appreciated

ive been looking at a few pics of these , and in this installation it just struck me as too close for comfort.

your right i didnt buy it from you, but ive not tried fitting yet so havent comer across any potential problems i may encounter. im in no doubt ill need some guidance come the time.

even in some of the pics youve posted the piping seems to be sittin on the + battery terminal

thanks for the pics tho, they are very helpful, id agree that the smaller battery may seem to be the best option, what you think?

harvey im looking for some other induction pipework for my car, is this something you could help with? if so i will give you a call

thanks

jef

 

Thanks for your phone call Jef. I see no problems if you follow the advice given.
If the hard pipe was touching the positive of the battery that would be shocking.
There would be a massive arc and the hard pipe would be holed.
There is absolutely no reason why the hard pipe should touch the oil filler cap or the positive of the battery and I think that photographs are often deceptive. I should have taken you a view showing the vertical separation.
The biggest reason why people have difficulty fitting the pipe that runs to the throttle body is because they have not properly fitted the pipe that runs from the intercooler up the front of the timing chest. You have to get the route and alighment of that pipe right for the throttle body pipe to fit properly past the washer bottle, battery and oil filler cap.
Absolutely no need for a smaller battery if you already have the standard size battery.

 

You can see from these photographs how much clearance is possible when the kit is fitted properly.

 

you don't wanna fit a front mount, there to laggy. arn;t they harvey

















pmsl

 

If the car isn't properly mapped there can be a lot of lag with the fitment of a front mount.
Of course with a competent mapper, unless the FMIC core has a big pressure drop and some do then there is no excuse for lag.

 

just though't i;d jump on before someone else did lol.

where ya been hiding bud, not seen ya for a while

 

I just knew that was a wind up Tidgy. Rotten sod

David APi

 

Fellow FMIC fan here.

I had one installed in my classic and would suggest that

a) you get it done by someone good - the people who installed mine were competent, but didn't, for example, seem to know the tricks that David and Harvey speak of

b) Get that smaller battery: it's a tight squeeze

c) I'd personally recommend you get the pipes wrapped, for sound insulation if nothing else; metal vibrating against metal is irritating!

Ns04

 

i couldn;t resist, tbh im amazed no one caim on a said it in a serious fassion, theres noraml one or two and even some traders lol

 

More pipework = more lag. Simple logic really.

The amount of noticable lag is debateable, but there is no question that a FMIC has more than a TMIC.

Feel better now Tidg?

 

Look, we have been through this so often it is tedious. If you have the wherewithall to calculate the increased air volume in an FMIC system over a top mount system and work out the engine air consumption at say 3500 rpm you can see that in percentage terms the additional air is next to nothing. I know that on one of your favourite sites it alleges one third of a second lag per gear change. Sorry but someone's imagination is running away with them IF it is an efficient intercooler set up (and there are a lot out there that are not including some of the big names like APS bar and plate that cannot compete with the Hybrid tube and fin) and providing that it is properly mapped. This is the view of competant mappers such as Bob Rawle, Pat Herbron and Steve Simpson.
I have actually seen cars fitted with aftermarket top mounts that performed worse than with the OE STi 8. Indeed, I think there was a magazine feature that said much the same.
Because I am interested in determining facts and not Scoobynet myth or hard facts based on careful trials as opposed to opinions THAT ARE CHANGEABLE SUBJECT TO PERSONAL AGENDA, I fitted an STi 8 top mount to P93 DFR STi 3 Wagon.
1. For the top mount to work reasonably well I also needed the STi 8 undertray and STi 8 scoop.
2. Fitting was actually a fairly big job and took the best part of two days with interruptions and a further half day getting bits and tidying up but the installation looked like it was OE.
3. Had we been charging a customer the fitting charge would fairly have been in excess of £300 whereas we fit front mounts for £185. I must stress this installation was done to very high standards and no corners were cut as with our Hybrid FMIC installations at our garage.
4. The cost of the installation with the undertray and scoop was far in excess of the cost of one of my Hybrid FMICs before you look at your own installation time of paying someone to do it.
5. At the time the front mount was changed for the STi 8 top mount I also fitted another turbo, HS380 and after mapping on the rolling road we had 372 bhp.
6. Further development took place on the turbo which I intended to be my stable 380-400 bhp turbo (that did not happen because of component supplier inertia) and a few days prior to fitting a front mount we had a final mapping session and achieved 392 bhp.I should point out the turbo had been off the car three or four times in the intervening period and there had been numerous rolling road sessions.
7. The decision to fit a front mount was because from time to time during the Summer my air charge temperature guage was showing figures well into the 50 deg.C area with heat soak, even when cruising ACTs could be 20 plus over ambient and 40 C over ambient when giving it the beans was not unusual.
8. The TMIC was removed and sold for far more than the cost of a Hybrid FMIC.
9. Fitting the Hybrid FMIC took between 7 and 8 hours with interruptions and the car was put back on the same rolling road.
10. Gingerly we ran the car up to check AFRs and without any adjustments whatsoever the car made 391 bhp. The car was then mapped fairly quickly for a road test and we had 410 bhp prior to minor mapping adjustments on the road.
11. This is a gain of 18 bhp over what we were able to achieve with the STi 8 TMIC.

These are the facts, carefully gathered over a six month development period and I have all the testing equipment necessary to make accurate observations including air charge temperature guages, ambient temperature guages, laser digital thermometer, thermometer guages and an array of Magnahelix equipment.

The driving experience did not show up any lag and the car actually achieves 1 bar in 4th on a level road a good 100 rpm earlier than with the TMIC.

In view of the above I conclude that all those advised to fit STi 8 TMICs were badly advised.
Because more air is being moved in an efficient FMIC then obviously there is a small amount of lag, nothing like a third of a second which is a gross exaggeration (which I can explain elsewhere but it will be a long thread.) which is countered by the additional power. The only people needing a top mount intercooler beyond certain power levels are those that concentrate on quarter mile times only. Those that use their car as an every day driver, rolling road queens, track cars and anything going flat out for more than 10-12 seconds should have a front mount intercooler when air charge temperatures exceed an acceptable level.

Now these are the facts and other people are welcome to their opinions but as most of the people with opinions contrary to the above have not even invested in an ACT guage their opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Obviously Tidgy, myself and others can refer back to the above any time some poor deluded soul gives duff information to fellow Subaru owners.

 

Hear!, Hear!, Harv, proper facts backed up with fitting data.

Interested parties should take note of the people that fit and map them for your information base , you listening 'netters?

An Autobahn *88 actually behaves worse than a top mount. It's ONLY saving grace is that it is in the cold airflow. So the rad is colder, BUT the actual flow through the intercooler of induction air is rubbish.

David APi

 

great info guys

 

so is an autobahn 88 fmic piece of garbage?

 

by the looks of things they are, im also another autobahn victim lol i wanted to upgrade but house move and refurbishement ment i couldnt do it just yet.

 

im tmic at the mo an works fine. i was gonna buy 1 of these until i read that the alloy piping isnt very good against road dirt, stones etc. and prob wont go fm until i go 400 plus

 

who told you that? i don;t know of anyone whos had issues with stones and the piping?

 

How do you know that your top mount intercooler works fine? Do you monitor air charge temperatures and can you access your ECU?
During the Winter the road salt can attack the aluminium hard piping on both the Hybrid and Autobahn and anything that is made with aluminium. The only pipes affected badly are particularly the hot feed to the core at the point where it joins the core and to a lesser extent the cold feed hard pipe just as it leaves the core. For this reason I offer a service, and have done for some years although I see someone else copies me now, to stone chip the possible affected areas on both of the relevant pipes. Two coats of stone chip is £13. Note I always publish my prices.
The other hard pipes under the bonnet, especially the pipe to the throttle body from the timing chest can be protected with an occasional wipe over with WD-40 and a rag.
In any case, those going for maximum performance probably wrap the hard pipe to the throttle body to prevent absorbtion of heat. See the relevant photos already posted. There is no point wrapping the hard pipe that comes from the turbo compressor as that is losing heat into the engine bay but that said after yesterday's rolling road session I think the heat from the compressor pipe which passes immediately below my cone filter probably results in slightly hotter than ambient air being ingested so I guess I have that to wrap now along with the turbo that did 403 bhp when we left the map safe on road fuel and 413 bhp again when we left the map safe on road fuel but with water injection.

Nobody has ever heard me say that on the most recent Autobahns which are a copy of the Hybrid GT (now superceded by the Hybrid GT2) but what I have said is that the Autobahn does not perform as well as the Hybrid GT, the core is not as well made which anybody can see from a visual inspection inside and I came to this conclusion after purchasing an Autobahn FMIC and testing it.
It is a budget solution and the difference in cost between the Autobahn and Hybrid is not sufficient IMHO not to purchase the better alternative.

 

i never said u had said that mate ive just read up in past quotes that autobahn dont fit very well and the piping can be damaged from the road salt etc. i cant monitor charge temps sorry but have had my remap an was told its all good. only time i feel it is when im stood there in traffic an can feel it sluggish on acceleration for a few seconds

 

My TMIC works fine.

It runs at a few degrees above outside temp at 1.7 BAR. Left to soak it gets hot obviously, but within 100m or so it's back to normal, and I don't run the same advance or boost in 1st and 2nd, so never had an issue.

 

Andy Forrest (not someone who could be described as a fantasist) provided a detailed mathematical calculation on SN a couple of years ago demonstrating that the additional pipework required from a FMIC adds about a quarter to a third of a second of additional lag over and above a TMIC. This (relatively small amount of) lag cannot be 'mapped out' as is often erroneously reported on SN. Andy's calculations concur very much with my own experience when fitting a Hybrid FMIC (ie the additonal lag was slightly noticeable), which is why I took it out and put back a TMIC.

Having said that, there's a lot of subjectivity about how this impacts on the driving experience. For me, a really crisp throttle response with zero lag between gear changes was more important that absolute power. Other people however don't seem to notice any real difference in this aspect of performance. And of course, if I were to track the car regularly where hard sustained throttle was the norm, I'd fit a FMIC without a doubt. However, I'm happy to wager that that in the road, on the move through the gears in typical British driving conditions, my TMIC car with 415bhp will outperfom a FMIC fitted car with an equivalent power output.

 

Yeah, Paul at Zen eluded to me the same sentiment too. If you want to ring the last ounce of performance from the FMIC, then yeah, relocate the number plate. Otherwise the std position is perfectly adequate (as per just123's earlier photo).

 

Bob if you are going to mislead people, badly, then it's only fair that the truth is put before them.

While you have been advertising GT at £349.99, GT2 at £374.99 and GDB at £399.99 I have happily been selling at £290, £315 and £350 respectively. Because of my keen pricing you have now been forced to bring down the GT2 price to £309.99 "first five people only, Crazy Weekend etc"..
In the run up to Christmas 14th to 31st December I will happily offer for sale an ulimited number of Hybrid GT2 to Scooby owners at the same price as the GT ie. £290.

You are now advertising Unfortunately this is a complete fabrication on your part. You have put these intercoolers on e-Bay with a price of £549.99 and elsewhere claim this is the list price. What utter rubbish. There is no Hybrid list price as you well know but you persist in attempting to deceive fellow Scoobynet members.
You have more spin than Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair and New Labour put together.
Let us not forget that you proposed a price fixing arrangement at inflated prices which apart from being illegal was totally contrary to the interests of fellow Scoobynetters and Subaru owners. You then threatened me with unspecified action. So much for proclaiming yourself as the Scoobynetter's champion.

Really ???

As I am :
Authorized UK & Europe HDi /Hybrid Performance Products Distributor

and

Premium Dealer / Pro Installer / Technical Adviser

I was asked by Hybrid to take the first Worldwide delivery of the GT2 in June of this year and carry out testing. We were sworn to secrecy, did a number of fitments and testing in the field and reported back to Hybrid with product release in August.

Now my memory is that you posted that you were shut to get your paperwork up to date followed by several other lame excuses at weekly intervals that lasted throughout August although you could still take online orders only. Refresh my memory. What were the other excuses? Now it is a matter of public record that Aztec Performance Limited, Company No : 06405706, was dissolved, 23-06-2009, No Accounts Filed, having been incorporated 22-10-2007 and a new company Aztec Peformance Limited, Company No. 0700278 was incorporated 27-08-2009.

I havn't the least problem if you want to sell below my prices but please don't try to deceive people with claims of best prices and never beaten on price. It was a customer that pointed out my everyday flywheel price was cheaper than yours despite your best prices claim and the same is true on clutches.

I maintain a good stock level of Hybrid products including boost controllers guages and boost distribution manifolds and my commitment to my fellow Scoobynetters and Hybrid does not cease when the exchange rate deteriorates. You obviously remember you stopped stocking Hybrid for this very reason last year/earlier this year. I also maintain a comprehensive stock of spare parts so that any customer that has a mishap can be back on the road very quickly. Coupled with that is technical input and hand holding for all those that want to fit their own intercooler that have never done it before.

I just thought we should get all that clarified.

 

Some people like to just waffle and waffle.

TMICs and FMICs both have their upsides and downsides. TMIC can suffer from heatsoak and the TMIC scoop isn't ideal for high speed runs, but pipework is very short (min lag). FMIC has longer pipework (more lag) but doesn't suffer the same heatsoak or highspeed issues of a TMIC.

Dyno numbers aren't really relevant, (and we all know how inconsistant they can be) as it doesn't measure what you are trying to prove/disprove.

On the 1/4mile however, the lag/response between gearshifts is important and shows on various results.

If there really was no lag/reponse difference between a TMIC and a FMIC, care to explain why moderately powered cars equiped with TMICs seem to perform so much better than similar spec cars with FMICs?

I would hold some weight to what one of the best mappers around has to say on the topic rather than a FMIC salesman.

 

selective correspondance at best

 

This is what I said.

In view of the above I conclude that all those advised to fit STi 8 TMICs were badly advised.
Because more air is being moved in an efficient FMIC then obviously there is a small amount of lag, nothing like a third of a second which is a gross exaggeration (which I can explain elsewhere but it will be a long thread.) which is countered by the additional power. The only people needing a top mount intercooler beyond certain power levels are those that concentrate on quarter mile times only. Those that use their car as an every day driver, rolling road queens, track cars and anything going flat out for more than 10-12 seconds should have a front mount intercooler when air charge temperatures exceed an acceptable level.

It would seem that we agree that a TMIC may be the best option for quarter mile. I guess you did not read my post properly as you could have cut down on waffle. At least we agree about some things.