Does anyone no if there is a benifit to be had by turning the inlet manifold round and piping up front the front.
Im thinking of doing this and going down the fmic route but dont wont to waste my time if its of no benifit.
Has anyone done a guide before on how to do this, ive looked but carnt find anything.
Its for my99 uk.

 

What spec are you going for and what are your aims?

 

well im currently doing 345bhp with the sti8 tmic but i wont a fmic just to be safer and thought i would reverse the tb and make a proper job instead of having boost piping every where.

 

someone must have done this

 

From what i have read on here its a lot of work not not a great deal of reward.

 

catalunya 172, look in his project thread.

 

i have seen that but his minfold is different to mine and wondered if its been done with v5 one as it looks like the intake pipe wont fit undeneath.

 

I would recommend sticking with your current TMIC. More than capable.

Reversing the inlet isn't straightforward and a FMIC may not be the best move.

 

ive just read a few things about heat fade, like when in traffic or at the lights the tmic gets very hot and could do damage.
just wont the best for my car

 

It is certainly true that the TMIC shoved on top of the engine is more prone to heatsoak than a front mount. However, even some FMICs can suffer soak off the radiator when stationary (and the fan is off) so it is not an open and shut case.

You will also likely find that many of the people who rant and rave about heatsoak into a top mount "doing damage" have never actually done any monitoring of the charge air temperatures, and are merely repeating what they saw someone saying on Scoobynet - who in turn was probably repeating someone else. Much of the information dissemanated in this way turns out to be less than 100% accurate. Some of the scare stories running round about this are well OTT.

Harvey has done some work into this - as no doubt have others - I run a charge air temperature sensor in the intercooler permanently and thus am well aware how little this issue even needs to be considered, let alone mitigated.

In which case, with the best will in the world, you'd probably be better off avoiding complex modifications that aren't really necessary, and which can themselves cause problems, unless you fully understand what you are trying to achieve. The newage STi intercooler you have right now is a perfectly good solution at the power level you are at.

You could easily end up spending a wad of cash and, if you're unlucky, breaking your engine in an attempt to "solve" a problem that can far more easily addressed by using some simple common sense when the weather is warm.

 

reversed inlet manifolds sole purpose is to reduce the inlet tract to reduce lag when using larger turbochargers and when trying to reduce lag , inlet manifold heatsoak etc has nothing to do with reversing the manifold as the coolant bypass mod does away with this and almost always when reversing the inlet the coolant bypass mod is done anyway as good measure it can be done with a normally positioned manifold , if u are aiming for over 400 using a larger turbocharger , hybrid , garret etc then reversing the inlet manifold would decrease the lag slightly as you do away with about a metre of the fmic piping that would run through the drivers wing ,

 

the alternator has to be moved along with other itemns and i have heard that its not worth the hasle unless u can get sum1 to do a good job of it for cheap which is unlikely

 

Having done this, I would say it's not really worth the hassle unless you are wanting to extract every little bit of spool that you can.

It's an absolute ball ache. I would strongly suggest you don't bother.

 

u would also need supporting mods and a remap , as a lot of people suggest stick with the newage topmount sti-8 one with a water spray kit if ur bothered too much about heat etc

 

Think the above said it all.
i think i will look at sorting a sprayer systerm for now but i like the idea of the reverse inlet and less lag.
Maybe if i up the bhp and save the dollars for a bit.

 

Dont forget that another reason for a front mount is that at higher speeds the air isnt entering the top scoop as well. An FMIC is safer for this reason, but have a look at the 'Top Speed' thread- maybe worth looking at your intake temps at the moment- I used to use a 12v computer temp sensor and display in my old car- about a tenner!

 

im using the larger sti scoop as well so will this still make a difference

 

I wouldn't bother revering the inlet manifold at your power level.

Simply not worth the money and effort when the STI 8 TMIC is coping well.

 

Some Im sure- chek the temps first mate I reckon- my old MR2 turbo used to record up to 70c intake temps with an uprated IC, but their positioning is rubbish, so worth finding out.

 

think its worth getting an in take temp sensor then and seeing what happens.
has anyone else done similar tests

 

the classic intake scoop stoped working at 100mph+ so if the newer more efficient scoops are much better then from what u are saying about wanting to keep ur car running good i doubt you would be doing 100+ anyways even the standard setup would be more than suitable for your needs unless u were hammering the car everywhere ? the sti-8 would lower intake temps but the sole purpose again is for bigger hp cars so.... lower temps help towards less dettonation smoother more efficent running etc u have to remember that the imprezas are running a sofisticated ecu so u lower the intake temps too much and it will become IN-efficient , u need to work with what u have on the car already if its not aftermarket ecu bigger turbo etc then an sti-8 would be fine as it was designed for a car with a higher output than what you have ??? to be fairly honest if the car has a basic spec eg. dump valve , decat exhaust system etc etc then an intake temp sensor would still not be really apropriate unless there was something wrong with the car ??? remember that japan is way hotter than the uk plus the air is denser over here so we run in a colder climate than these cars were set up 4 ??? u are basically monitoring temps in a country colder than the car was designed for so why ??? only after high modification should you start to worry about iuntake temps etc i know people worry etc that something will happen but with your car i wouldnt be worrying too much until u get a higher spec , dont fix it unless its broken lol

 

sorry just noticed u were running 345hp mate so ur car isnt exactly standard but still the v8 tmic would still do you good , dont worry

 

if you feel that intake temps may be a problem and you ARE worrying about it then get an air temp gauge but i can see you going through the proces of fitting , buying etc and finding that everythings more than ok

 

how hard would it be to fit a water sprayer to my car?

 

But your using a TMIC so the pipework can't get any shorter There will also be a lot of extra costs involved in going this route. I have lost count of the amount of people who have told me not to bother going reveresed inlet and in my car would benefit from it compared to yours but I haven't bothered.

 

How much difference do the sprays actually make?

Its not like the waters that cold anyway.

I saw a guy that had rigged up a co2 spray onto his front mount before.

 

co2 spray's fine aslong as your air inlet wont suck any up in to the engine
the water might not be that cold but when injected at high pressure will drop temp quite alot

 

do you mean a direct injection into the boost piping or just the sprayer thats fitted to the under tray of the sti8 tmic

 

a direct sparay must be mixed with methanol u cant just dpray water into the intake btw

 

lol , have trouble typing SPRAY LOL