bibo_boy

Yesterday the end of the mods were in sight as the penultimate piece of the modification jigsaw fell (well after a little beating!) into place....

The front mount is in and I have to admit, it has made a difference....

At the moment I'm only pushing small amounts of boost occasionally to test the pipes/connections, but already I've not noticed any major lag and if anything , the car is A LOT smoother in acceleration..... so far so good.

Special thanks to Jamie at ESB for "helping me" with the install.

Oh, and watch out for another FMIC coming to another ESC member soon

WRX_Dazza

nice one bibo.

what make intercooler is it???

bibo_boy

Cheers Dazza,

It's nowhere near the best.... an Autobahn88 BUT....

I did a lot of research on the intercoolers available for the budget I had (these ranged from £100 to £350) and I also inspected the build quality and I was quite impressed by the materials and finish of the Autobahn.

The welds are very neat and the core looks up to the job I require it to do..... The only down side really is the pipework......

The finish on these are rubbish compared to the actual unit and let it down. But I will look into doing something about that if it becomes an issue.

I know it's not Frayz approved (sorry mate), but it's good enough for me!!!! (and it's not a dirt cheap, no name pile of poop)

WRX_Dazza

good work, as people say, you buy the best you can afford and you cant go wrong.

gotta be better than the standard unit, at any cost.

i wish you well buddy

frayz

iTrader: (7)

I give up,

That was an hour of wasted convosation wasn't it

wozzaa

Mocom Racing

iTrader: (2)

Me too mate

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

We can have a look when you bring it to Brands

bibo_boy

I appreciate the advice chaps... and I do take it on!!!

But as I said, my budget is seriously limited (I scraped/begged to get the money the buy the car in the first place and then I've managed to spend approx. £3.5k+ due to the engine letting go ) and the Hybrid was over twice the price I got the Autobahn for.....

Because of the above I'm now in debt and the next couple of months, instead of spending money on the right things like my family, the money will go towards this car...

I'm serious when I say "the mods stop here"

I know people will say I should have just left it like it was if that was my attitude, but I had a big hole in my bumper where the previous owner had a FMIC, I felt this completed the look at the front and gave me a small benefit over the stock unit.

In an ideal world.... I would have gone 2.5L with a big turbo and an APS frt mount, but I wanted to get the most from the money I had as i have other things than a car to spend my money on.

I was VERY stressed over the above episode, to the point where I questioned everything about owning this car and was actually physically sick over it (not actually over the car ) As I said, I appreciated everyones advice and help sorting this piece of metal out and I'm glad to say "This is the end!"

BIBO

wozzaa

Bibo at the end of the day it's your car if your happy with the results then all well & good
Not all of us have pots of money laying around & when you've got a family it's even harder. We all work very hard for what we've got so like I said if your happy then that's all that matters

WRX_Dazza

you'll get struck by lightening saying things like this mate

bibo_boy

Cheers Woz

Tell me about working hard!!!!! This weekend will be my 3rd in a row with the Army.... I haven't seen my kids for a whole day for ages (some would say that's not a bad thing), but I need the money.

I know it's frustrating when you give someone advice and they seem to ignore it, but that was a reason for it.... not just stupidity

bibo_boy

Mocom Racing

iTrader: (2)

So exactly how much cheaper was the Autobahn than the STi TMIC I suggested
From data I've collated, lag is significantly inreased and charge temps are higher when swapping a STi TMIC to an Autobahn FMIC on the same car/engine/turbo.

As always, only trying to help when offering the facts rather than the glossy sales pitch

Mark_B4

My STI topmount was only £165 off of Fleabay

bibo_boy

As I said... it was under half the price of the Hybrid...

I did see a really good price via a group buy, but that went dead and I think I'm still the last person to post on the thread.

I totally respect the data you research, but all I know is that I haven't noticed any serious lag (yet) and the whole aceleration process is a lot smoother and boosts for longer....

I'm not sure if you you mean the STI7 TMIC? If so, I agree that may have given similar if not better benefits? But I watched, the "for sale" areas on SN, Scoobycity, SIDC, ebay, for a week and could not find a decent used example. Plus these are not straight fit either....

I know it's not the best but I'm happy with it as I see it as a definite improvement.

I respect what people like Mocom say, that's why I spend my money there.... and they were the only company I wanted to fix my car when it broke.

See you next week....

P.S. sorry just re-read your post..... I thought about the STI7 unit, but I was thinking about your comment on keeping boost running longer when you said the only way really was frt mnt?

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Its not the lag that is an issue mate, although it will be much laggier. Its the fact that the cores are cheap chinese **** made using air conditioning cores and offer almost no heat rejection.
You would of been better keeping the TMIC you had.

bibo_boy

Didn't think it was the Autobahns that had the internals you spoke about

My old cooler needed shifting as it was in poor condition.....

You say it will will be laggier???? (is that a real word?), but as said, either they arn't as bad as the hype surrounding them or I'm driving it wrong

As I said I looked into these in detail and alot of people rate them as fine.... do a search on here.... it's 50/50... if everybody had slated them, I'd steer clear.

My car is a never going to be some fire breathing track monster, I just want a car that is reliable and not too slow....

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Forget cost, power, spec or fire breathing track monsters right now.

You've clearIy missed the point mate. I'll explain in short.

The FMIC you have does not work!

wozzaa

[quote=frayz;7154262]Forget cost, power, spec or fire breathing track monsters right now.

You've clearIy missed the point mate. I'll explain in short.

The FMIC you have does not work![/quote]

Frayz please explain

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Please bare with me as im typing on my mobile.

As ive previously explained. The core used in these coolers is cheap chinese rubbish taken from cheap air conditioning units. They have little or no internal fin design and so offer almost no heat rejection from the incoming charge. We have actually tested these units back to back.

Even cruising @ motorway speeds the ACTs are unacceptable. In the 50 plus degrees area!

They are total rubbish, and far worse than even the stock OEM TMIC.

yellowvanman

Clear, concise and to the point!

Ian, can understand you going for the front mount, as the bumper had already been cut for one, and it probably looked odd without the FM, but for a function point of view it probably would have been good to listen to the advice offered?

bibo_boy

Is this not down to opinion.....? Frayz and Zak say that these are not worth putting on.. Fair enough, that's their view and I respect that...

BUT you can't say it does not work because I'm the one driving the car and I've notice a dramatic positive difference.... (what's next are people going to say I'm lying!)

I took lots of advice and made my decision... I don't see why people have to post how disappointed they are in the decision I made It's my car and I like the results.

Some feedback:

Spool on mine is 1.2bar at 3200rpm on td05-16g with autobahn FMIC and 93WRX heads. Throttle response seems pretty crisp. Certainly no driveability issues as it is very competitive in its national sprint class. I did have an issue with pipes blowing off when I went over 1.3bar midrange but that was partly down to my dodgy installation! I doubled clipped the errant hoses in the end which stopped it.

I haven't seen pressure drop figures for the different cores, tbh if they are all of similar dimensions and bar and plate construction I doubt there will be big differences. The pipe runs themselves will probably have a greater effect being as you have to modify them to fit pre 96 and I imagine there are a few different ways of achieving that.

have ran mine at around 360 bhp for 18,000 miles with no issues whatsoever.

Daz

Autobahn 88 seems to work well, available for as little as £180 new. Seen cars running up to 350bhp with this no problem

My experience in brief with an Autobahn 88 kit:
1. You definitely need a remap.
2. It works brilliantly with no noticeable lag over the TMIC once the remap was done.
3. A TMIC will handle a hell of a lot - for a short time. With my FMIC you can just keep your foot down forever and not worry about it, charge temps will always be under control.
4. Compressor surge has been a problem with my big bore inlet pipe and FMIC. On the TMIC it wasn't a problem. I am expecting to get rid of it by going back to a standard inlet pipe.

On balance, an FMIC nowadays is too cheap to ignore

yellowvanman

Ian,
it is of course allways your choice,
and indeed it fits the hole and looks good,
If you are getting positive gains then fantastic.

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Show me where these so called customers measure the charge temperatures?

After all it is an intercooler... cooler being the key word here. Can someone remind me what the purpose of an intercooler is please?

mrs_b4

Does this mean this isn't Frayz approved?

bibo_boy

Mrs BIBO here, I know nothing about cars at all but one thing I do know is Ian researches everything before he buys and when your working with a budget you go with what you can afford.....

Frayz I dont know you but your time was not wasted with Ian he did take it on board as he does with all comments on his car.

Whats right with one person does not always work for someone else......

bibo_boy

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Okay... So the argument in your case is budget. If my budget only allowed me to by something that isnt fit for purpose, would I buy it anyway?

If budget was that important, wouldn't you just save your money and leave well alone?

Especially after all that research you did?

bibo_boy

This is your opinion mate.... Lot's of other people say it is up to the job....

What I do think is that you haven't been very diplomatic in explaining your views... Whilst doing all the research I noticed you weren't "quite" as honest to Kips when he fitted his? i.e. no mentions of waste of money or they don't work....

Anyway, as people have said, there's no point discussing the same thing again and again... let's just leave this one here mate.