Have a think before you buy a cheap FMIC
 

I would like to give some advice to people who are concidering upgrading to a FMIC.

I Purchased a FMIC from Ebay and the fitment wasnt very good at all, lots of ball Ache, bloody, and Tears. The Pipework was neat but just didnt fit. I had to chop things off, Weld things on. The Car its self was going better with the TMIC fitted than this ebay FMIC. I understand the car was not mapped to suit. The Throttle responce seemed poor and the Spooling was well not so hot.

I went to see Harvey Smith to ask him about a few things and i decided that i was going to get his FMIC kit the quality straight away looked much better and the pipe work was routed in a much much much better way. The Core of the Intercooler is a lot stronger too the fins are strong and dont bend lika a old KIT KAT wrapper.

Fitting the intercooler was really simple, i had to cut some bits of the car to get the pipework down to the front but i simply used a Dremmel. This isnt as scarry as you may think. The pipes all met up perfectly and the Intercooler looks extremly good upfront. The Kit he provided me came with a cold airfeed pipe and MAF holder so you can take the filter away from the engine meaning that the car sucks cold air, i also got a K&N filter to fit to the kit too.

The Car still has not been remapped but the car is now going like a rocket, less throttle, much better spooling of the turbo and effortless to drive now.

Im sure the Indction has made a lot of the different to the way teh car feels, But just a something foy you guys to think of is it worth paiying a extra £100 for a kit that fits the car and is made from decent quality materials.


Many thanks to Harvey Smith for the help ill be doing a guide on how to fit this kit in the next few days ;)

Well said. You get what you pay for, and as I know from having Harvey's ported headers and up-pipe, he will go the extra mile to make sure you are happy.

Andy,

I ran my car without boost before being re-mapped with CAIK and FMIC. When mapping it was found to be a lot leaner and would have been a problem for the engine had I being giving it a lot of throttle.

HTH.

I thought it was bad to the the car on a FMIC without a remapp?

Looking forward to your write up :thumb:.

S!

Good thread mate. Always wondered about the really cheap ebay ones. Thank god i forked out and got an HKS one. Perhaps not THE best but it fits a treat and also performs well.

Fitting a FMIC wont make it run leaner unless you up the boost at the same time and max out the injectors/pump or hit the limit of the MAF which will in turn give an incorrect load site.

Otherwise the AFM will see the extra flow and the ECU will increase injector duty to match the AFR in the Fuel map.

My e-bay bargain HYBRID FMIC is spot on... cost me £190 quid... payed a extra £17 quid on top for a oil catcher tank...
The Hybrid FMIC is a great fit... or was for my car... needed minimal cutting to fit... recommend one of their FMIC's to anyone...
Easy DIY job...

I've also got a Hybrid one direct from them on Ebay and I'm certainly pleased with it - it's a pretty good product. Yes there might be some rough ones about but bear in mind that whilst you can get cheap ones that are nasty you can also get expensive branded stuff that is really no better.

I think the moral here is not about how much you spend, but more about what homework you do to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

The quality if the autobahn one that i got from the group buy wasn,t that bad and as silent has said the temps are down iwth his one I shoped around when looking for front mounts for the group buy and their are some shoddy ones out their so as andy says do your homwork first before that bargin becomes a blunder, look forward to the write be nice to read a comparison of the one I recently done on fitting the autobahn ones dont forget plenty of pics :thumb:
KIP

The FMIC won't cause immediate problems if you take it easy, but IIRC the CAK most certainly will. I recall being told by a mapper that you must not drive the car on boost with one of these fitted as the MAF needs rescaling. Apparently this is a possible engine killer!

Ns04

I also was advised by many experts....DAVID API and THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT that you MUST remap the car before you boost it about, otherwise you danger the Engine of going bang!:eek2:

A CAIK will make the car run lean, re-map and rescaling rectifies this.

Well it wasn't really an issue for me, because it didn't even cross my mind to run the FMIC without getting it remapped straight away. It was only on for the 3 hour drive to Zen for mapping and I took it pretty easy the whole way.

I dont wish to come across rude to the gents who have these 190 kits as value for money is always a option, go have a feel of how week the fins are on the intercooler and then say have a look at the fins on a HKS or a better quality one. Dont get me wrong i thought the kit that i got was great but i was sold the kit and i think it was for the wrong car TBH.

I have the car mapped already but not for the FMIC. Its on low boost and dont go into boost if i can help it, only did to test the pipes were not leaking ;)


Andy

I've recently swapped my Autobahn88 one for a Hybrid GT spec, and it is much better even before a re-map, the throttle response is better and there is a lot less lag after gear changes :).

Like they say you get what you pay for.
Wish i'd bought a Hybrid from Harvey the first time round, but tried to save a couple £££, ended up costing more in the end. :brickwall

Exactly right!, you get what you pay for. We generally use the Hybrid as our fit-of-choice FMIC kit and the results speak for themselves.

I have seen Autobahn 88 off a car and fitted and was not impressed with the look of it. I understand that the stainless clips are poor, but that is easily rectified.

We are about to fit one, in May, that has been supplied by the customer for us to fit. Full details after we have done the job and pass valid comments on our experience rather than ' we know a guy' etc etc.

David APi

The HYBRID FMIC imo are more than up to the job... I won mine at a great price... others have payed more for the same kit...
If you've got the money to spend on a named FMIC then thats fine.. chances are though you ain't got the spanner skills to fit it... lol
Mine was fitted up the drive with the basics back in Nov 2005...

How does a cold air induction kit affect the MAF signal to make it run lean?

Here was the explanation from Harvey on the following thread:

https://www.scoobynet.com/general-te...+air+induction

Serveral mappers have all said the same thing: No boost after fitting a CAIK untill remapped!

In some circumstances there MAY be a case for a cold air kit, however it is a no no unless you are going to have a remap before you give it big licks. The reason for this is simply that, subject to the finer design points of your CAK, you have probably altered the manner in which the air flows past the MAF Sensor. If the air flow is under read then your engine is under fuelled and with weak running you are likely to nip a piston in the bore.

Maybe I'm not familiar with the design of the one in question, are you saying it diverts air past the MAF so its unnaccounted for?

Autobahn FMIC
 

I have one of the Autobahn FMIC's fitted to my WRX. The intercooler looks to be reasonable quality for the money, if a bit heavy. But for the third of the price of branded products it seams to do the trick. I do have to agree though that the pipe work had to be cut and jointed to fit. As you look at the engine the top pipe on the right hand side had to be cut or it would never have fitted.

With the exception of the ecu all other mods have been undertaken not using the most expensive products on the market and Steve Simpson has managed to squeeze 312 bhp with 295 ft/lb of torque out of an old 2.0ltr WRX. I just hope it the engine lasts long enough for me to save up the money befor having to take the car to Andy for a rebuild.....lol

Would be gratefull if someone can tell me what a scooby with the above bhp and torque should do the 0 - 60 and quarter mile times...

Cheers :wonder:

Any update on your "Write-up"?

S!

The ECU uses the MAF sensor to work out the air flowing past this is on the proviso of using the OEM cross sectional area. Changing to a CAIK most of the time dramatically changes this cross sectional area which the ECU does not know about. So the mapper has to go and rescale what the ECU is seeing by altering the parameters of the MAF readings (don't know what is actually done in the ECU). So going back to your question it is not diverting the MAF it is just the ECU does not know the cross sectional area has changed.

Put simply if you replace the OEM with a CAIK which has a 10% increase in cross sectional area i.e. bigger diameter pipe then all the mapper would do is multiply the MAF readings by 10% to correct :D See mapping a car is a piece of pi$$ ;) Just kidding bit more to it than that.

I hope it makes sense :D

I have the Autobahn88 FMIC fitted to my MY00 classic and it fitted perfectly first time, no cutting or bending of pipes. The core is extremely solid and all the supplied pipes and silicon couplings fit perfectly.

Only grumble I had was with the supplied jubilee clips, one of my couplings kept blowing apart, but after swapping these for Mikalow (sp) clamps there is no more problems.

Bob Rawle remapped my car with a few supporting mods and got 359bhp and 343lbft of torque out of it.

There is a small amount of lag but I am not sure if this is the turbo or the intercooler, either way it is not really a problem.

Working on it mate. need to ensure its done properly as i said to Harvey id send hima copy to send with the Intercoolers for people ;)


be doen over the weekend
Andy

Cheers Andy, Got FMIC to fit and would like to see a fitting guide before I start.

S!

Most people have problems fitting the auto bahn 88 ones to early classics as these are meant for the 96 on cars as are many of the cheaper ones so you have to modify the n/s pipework to clear the oil filler and gain a bit of extra length wasn't that hard to do as in my fitting guide in the tech projects section Be nice to see a fitting guide for the New Age aswell :thumb:
KIP

Knowing what I do now about fitting an Autobahn to a v4 WRX which should be a straight fit, I'd say it definitely helps to join the two holes in the o/s wing, gives a lot more fitting flexibility. Also, yes, you can get the long n/s throttle body pipe to go in by a lot of twisting around, but it's a lot easier if you just saw it in half near the battery and get another 2.5" silicone joiner to make good.

Final tip is to seriously ovalise the vertical part of the pipe that comes from the FMIC outlet, rather than leaving it round cross section. Otherwise you'll have a problem with clearance and rubbing against either the fan housing or the cambelt cover.

I don't understand, we've had no issues fitting the autobahn kits, their fit is better than the Hybrid used to be. The latest hybrid kit we've fitted is by far the best non "big name" intercooler we've fitted.

Paul

2 years on - cheapo ebay job - pipework was a pita but at around 60 quid OK.

Only issue recently is the flaking of the chrome finish. Otherwise handing the 2.5 20g Andy F mapped power very well. Not bad for just over what is costs to fill her up..

Pays yer money and all that - some right cheap sh1te on ebay no right enough - the pipework is often the biggest headache.