During last month's mapping session, Graham Martin (aka enginemapper.co.uk) was reading ACT's of between 30 & 40°C when it was ~15° ambient. He recommended a FMIC (and a bigger turbo, VF35) to replace the standard WRX top mount fitted now.

Thing is I don't think I'll be changing the turbo any time soon as I'm quite happy with power levels, so question is will the front mount work with the VF22?

Engine is an EJ20 with std heads, full 3" decat making ~315bhp

Thanks

 

FMIC is a good addition, then again so is a newage TMIC which are meant to be very good to 400+ without sacrificing spool from no lengthy pipe work. If your question is based solely on Temps i would go with the FMIC though. I use this on a vf which i am overly happy with.

 

I'm wondering if the front mount will overwork the little Vf22

 

FMIC will be best for Classic,because on Classic you will need bigger scoop plus IC under tray if you want go route New age STi TMIC.

I don't think will overwork VF22,if you are planning in near future track days and diffrent turbo i would go for FMIC.


Jura

 

FMIC just requires a map tweak, otherwise it will overboost and overwork the turbo. The benefit of a front mount will be lower temps all round and more power from the same amount of boost.

Although a bigger and better TMIC work, they only work properly when running forwards with the ram air effect, so don't cope well with high under-bonnet temps and standing still.

Hope this helps,
Graham

 

Hi bonesetter,

I had pretty much the same set up on a 1996 Version 3 WRX a few years ago.
Was running 324bhp when checked on RR - it had a VF22 & FMIC set up etc.

Car was a daily driver, short & long journeys - never let me down or missed a beat, until I wrote her off !

I will be looking to use the same formula again on my new running project as early 3's ample power for me.


Hope helps,

 

Thanks Guys

Graham - it's being fitted this Thursday, so I'll be needing a slot allocation from your goodself, and perhaps a RR session?

I've just thought - wont the air intake be lost?

 

Generally the break points are as follows:
93-96 cars 280 bhp.
97-00 cars somewhere over 300 bhp but certainly by 320 bhp.
WRX 01-05 probably OK up to 350 bhp.
STi 01-05 a little bit more but not much as although the intercooler is bigger, there are still gains to be had not much past 350 bhp.
I sell Hybrid HDi FMICs and as much as I would like to sell you one I would suggest that until you are knocking on the door of 350 bhp you are not going to show an additional power output adequate to warrant the FMIC and once I see temperatures much beyond 25-30 C over ambient then it is clearly time to look for an FMIC. Despite your low power (relatively) you have fairly high ACT but if the car was on a rolling road that may be the reason why.
In the past I have seen ACTs in excess of 70 C. which was off the scale of the guage in use at the time.
Personally I would improve what you have got until you are ready to add more power. Rubber edging to help seal the scoop and undertray to the intercooler to help force air through the intercooler, good fiting undertray, heat wrap or blanket on turbo exhaust, delete the water to the throttle body and so on.

 

With no other change than a FMIC the car I did today went from 306.1bhp to 333.4bhp. Ambient temperature was also hotter than the last mapping session.

Gains are there to be had regardless, cooler air means more power.

Good points from Harvey, although the ACTs we saw were on the road. I don't buy into poor cooling on the rollers to be honest unless there is a particularly poor cooling setup. When you think about how you drive a car predominantly you realise that most of the time you are in it you spend doing low speed or standing still, perhaps for some it's big motorway cruises. But the standing still and low speed increases ACT tremendously fast on a TMIC. So i'd expect to see much higher ACTs on the road when driven in a 'normal' manor.

That's my view on the situation anyhoo!

Graham

 

Graham, ignoring low and medium speed running cars generally run cooler on the road than they do on the rollers when driven hard or WOT. A lot of rolling roads have inadequate and unrepresentative fan cooling arrangement.
The best setup I can think of offhand is at TEG Sport/Steve Simpson where the building has induction and extraction, a very large fixed fan feeds the front of the car and a separate feed is ducted and sealed to the bonnet scoop.

On my own cars I need 55-60 mph before the FMICs are working particularly efficiently. Below that the FMIC does work but is a bit slow/lazy.

As well as air charge temperature a core can achieve the pressure drop across a core is very important. This is why an efficient well designed tube and fin core can outperform top mounts in terms of lag and response. If someone tries to tell you they have a bar and plate core with a .5" pressure drop across the core, walk away. They do not know what they are talking about and they are telling lies.