Just noticed that some of the vent things on my intercooler are bent over/flattened, basically looks like some tool that had the car before me put a spanner on top of it and flattened some of them. I've spent about an hour tonight straightening them out with a pen knife but they don't sit perfectly and some are broken. So as the thread says do I need a new one or can I fix it with a pen knife like i've started doing?
Thanks for any help.

 

if its just the fins that are flat then no,what these do is dispense heat from tube to tube helping it run cooler and air flow pass the tubes same as a radiator does.

 

yeh it's just them, so wouldn't them be bent over stop the heat from dispensing properly, i'll get the pen knife out again tonight I think it's gonna take me another 2 hours at least.

 

i tried to straighten mine too and it was okay for a day but they all went flat again so i changed it to a autobahn tmic. if your one goes flat again you could upgrade to a sti8 one supposed to be a great upgrade

 

Could be the case but more likely whiles driving bees, bugs, stones ect get chucked into it. Found a few wasted wasps on mine.

I have straightened mine out before but found that some of them snap off this is still better than having them totaly bent over and not letting any air through.

 

I've just upgraded my intercooler so have one up for grabs, not sure if it would fit yours - standard WRX intercooler from a blob eye. Sure someone will put us straight on this. also have the tray and scoop in silver too.

 

Obviously the thousands of thin, tiny fins layered within the core create a massive surface area - this is the key to the rapid cooling effect that an air-to-air IC offers. The heat of the boosted charged air within the tubes of the IC rapidly conducts to these many fins, and the ambient air - forced through the IC via the entry through the bonnet scoop - rapidly 'carries' away the latent heat stored within the fins, from the top of the IC, down through the core, out via the bottom and away under the car.

The fact that only a few (relatively speaking) - i.e. 10s, or possibly 100s - of the top layer of fins are bent over, won't significantly reduce the IC's cooling efficiency. Although obviously it is best to either straighten them (if possible), or simply break them off, to alleviate any restriction to the cooling air's pathway through the IC.