I have just fitted a temp probe after my newage WRX Intercooler, in the pipe that connects it to the inlet manifold.
I want to see if I need better intetcooling.
2.0 with big 16g running 353bhp and peak of 1.7 bar, anyone want to hazard a guess what temps I'll see? Not driven the car since fitting the gauge

 

If you are running that kind of power on a wrx intercooler successfully, I guess it is pointless for me to swap to a sti one when I put my billeted td04 and pinks on my wagon shortly ? I thought that anything above 300bhp really needed better intercooling ?

 

I would guess 20-30 c above outside air temp

 

3 or 4 decent pulls, the gauge will go off the scale

 

This is my worry, think it reads to 70 odd degrees. Tomorrow/next week will be the test. I think with better intetcooling and a retune the car could make more power

 

So 30-40 degrees C, 30 is acceptable to me, above 40 is a worry

 

Better intetcooling will always yield more timing/power so it's always a benefit. But no, you don't need it at that power, nor do you need the pinks 👍

 

I'm running brand new billet 16g td04.Blue Hawk injectors and standard wrx wagon intercooler. I'm over 300 but not sure how much.
Rich at fb tuning said maybe 310,310.
Not bothered about rollers.

 

the STI topmount would do better, I've seen figures of high 20's.
also a turbo running at 1.7bar would create more heat than at 1.5 bar

 

For sure, more boost is more power though, if you can keep it cool. I'll not be going to STi top mount or front mount route, I would be using a charge cooler if I find my ACT's are high.

 

14 mile drive to work today, ambient temp started off about 3 degrees, rising to about 6 degrees by the time I got to work. The only pulls i could do (running out of road/getting too much speed up etc) I managed to get the temps up to 14-18 degrees, so about 10 degrees above ambient. This is holding it at 1.7 bar for 10 seconds or so, bit of left foor braking too just to add load to the system.
More testing required for sure, but the OEM intercooler doesn't look bad?

 

It's not day to day driving you need worry about. Mine was fine at 300bhp on an STi6 intercooler...........until I did a bit of "spirited" driving against a GT4 on a vfrench motorway, arrived at a toll booth, queued and drove away, to find that heatsoak had killed the engine.

I now have one of Harvey's FMIC's, my temperature probe shows about 6 deg above ambient, never more.

 

I have a new age intercooler fitted to my V3 STi and have a temp gauge fitted in the exit of the intercooler in the flow of air to the throttle body so a similar place to yours.

I find that in normal driving mostly off boost type stuff I run at about 6 degrees C above ambient. If I give it the beans it'll obviously run higher but with the bigger intercooler the temp comes down quite rapidly. A bigger intercooler is well worth it to get temps down quicker.

 

But thats all I do, day to day driving. Im never in traffic (there isnt any here)
Heatsoak is an issue (on the drag-strip que perhaps), but cant this be fixed with fans? As an intercooler it seems to work well

 

perrin did some testing which could be of use here:
http://blog.perrinperformance.com/th...ercooler-test/

They saw around 60-65 degrees on their standard top mount test.

Out of curiosity, where did you get your sensor kit - any pics of it installed?

 

I will go have a look, my temp gauge is just an LCD battery operated thermometer, bought it off ebay a hundred years ago, quite accurate as it shows my body temp bang on the money.
Looks gansta, Its just poked tight in a hole through a temporary silicon connector after the intercooler.

 

Even when I thrash my car around in really hot temps I don't see a lot more than mid 40's at most. That's country lane type thrashing so up and down the box. On motorways/Dual carriageways it doesn't get anywhere near as hot as that.

If it's parked up after a bit of 'spirited driving' or stuck in very slow/stationary traffic I've see temps up to 60-65 but once the traffic moves the temps fly down.

Front mount will always be better and more consistent with temps as it's not sat on top of the engine.

 

After reading the Perrin test it seem flow is more of a consideration than just temperature alone. bigger intercoolers flow more, and subsequently drop less boost pressure higher up the rpm range.
I am considering a charge cooler to keep the boost pipe lengths short, increase flow and keep the temps cooler for longer.

 

Absolutely!!

The temps I quoted are pretty extreme examples but once the car's moving, even fairly slowly the temps come down steadily. I also have intercooler spray which helps a lot after heat soak.

 

I too have the spray, another thing to test. im not convinced about it

 

I've found that using the spray cools the intercooler quicker than it does when I don't use it. Quite a lot quicker to be fair.

 

to be accurate the device needs to read at least twice a second as it could well miss the temperature spikes being produced by the turbo.
I monitor pre- intercooler temps and they can fluctuate between 70c up to 140c and back down in a split second depending on the pressure of my right foot. For measuring heat soak this wouldn't matter of course.
The figures you've posted seem good though and are confirmed by the power being achieved on a wrx topmount

 

Tbh my temp gauge refreshes every 8 seconds! Not brilliant as you say, but as long as your pull is 8 seconds you get a good idea of temp.
Did a pull in way home, 1-2-3, top end of 3rd was showing 42 degrees! 11 degree ambient. Came down pretty quick

 

Always interesting to read these type of threads.
I've been looking into this and the good old debate of 'TMIC versus FMIC' but I don't want to take this off subject but there was some good points in this thread https://www.scoobynet.com/954531-bhp...nd-fmic-4.html

It's interesting when you look at flow through the intercooler rather than just size!

 

Boosted, interesting reading as Im about to fit my big 16g, sti7 tmic and 550cc injectors to my sti3. Before I do I was thinking the same about logging some charge temps. What guage did you purchase?

 

To quote trevsjwood; (I agree entirely that the heat comes from the compressor and that it is here you should look first)
I just wonder how many people have installed a fmic when they didn't really need to.
I was stuck on a below expectation 380hp and the advice from two top mappers was to go front mount.
What actually was happening was the oem dv was bleeding boost, causing the turbo to overwork, creating excessive heat, 180c+ pre intercooler. The short of it is, the dv was replaced,temps now 137c pre-intercooler at 1.6bar, the car went on to produce 421hp on straight Vpower, (at 380hp it was on Vpower/10%meth with no further progress possible). On 20%meth it produced 441hp/480lbsft, all this on a 400hp turbo, the MD321H. The tmic is an AVO which is a good bar and plate type and slightly smaller than the V8 STI TMIC.
Ok, I run a water/meth injection system which helps bring the ACT's down to 5/6 degrees of ambient and EGT'S of 600C at full boost. Previously the W/M system was only helping to mask the problem of the overworked turbo by keeping ACT's in some sort of check.
My next step is to fit a BILLET T which I'm hoping will give me another 30hp and a stronger top end which the H does lack on my set-up.
My point is more work should be done on whats coming out of the compressor wheel end of the turbo because in my experience it can vary enormously and any intercooler be it top or front would be challenged by temps of 180c+ and a lot better off with something around 130c.
Trev

 

Just sold a spare STi top mount I had. It came with the IC to TB hose though so I've kept that as I was going to rig something up for mine to monitor the temp also.

Don't forget you're doing this in November also, in July your 42 degrees would be a **** load more!

 

yeah the temps are 32 degrees above ambient, so your speaking 55 degrees act when the car was mapped in the summer! ouft.

 

I plan on fitting a chargecooler similar to the ones I have used with success before. One on a 2.0 16V peaking 2.0 bar boost and holding 1.8. Another on a 2.8 24v peaking and holding 1.5 bar boost.

 

Few guys in the states have done that. Fitted in the top mount location with the heat exchanger up front in the normal FMIC place.