Pro's and Con's of a FMIC

[SMKNG ACE]

Hi guys. I am considering to replace my standard inter-cooler on my CA With a Front Mounted One ?
Anny Gains and loses on this .

I might Have to move the Battery To the trunk or is it possible to put one in without doing the Battery to the trunk mod ?

[Grant222]

it is possible to put one in with no bat to trunk mod

[SMKNG ACE]

Thats cool man.
I will ask the guys going to do this for me if they can do it, shouldn't be a problem.

[POWDER]

Hey cuz,

it definitely is possible to do withought moving battery, I have done it on mine....

I would suggest 50mm boost piping, the pipe between turbo and FMIC will fit through the original hole by the air filter area and the pipe between intake and FMIC will need to go under the radiator, with 50mm even 63mm your piping will still sit safe and should still sit higher than the lowest part of your car / bumper..... So no need to worry about grazing.

Benefits: Cooler charge air, better performance, more boost possible, less restriction on airflow
Down sides: Depending on size you might have slightly more lag, that's only ever the only downside to having a FMIC, O ye and it does block airflow to the radiator, so some air channeling pannels might be in order if heat is a problem, but I never had issues with my CA like that, just mount against front valance, that will give gap and angle for better air flow.

Hope this helps....

P.S. If you want some good advice and wanna keep your piping short as possible, then try find a radiator that is about 10 to 15 cm shorter on the width, but about 50mm thick with 2 or 3 cores, that should allow the temps to keep down and then you can run the pipes directly past the radiator with ought needing to move battery or worrying about going underneath the car, Thats what I'm looking at doing myself....

[aep886]

you need a after market ECU to make gains... FMIC on stock fuel management = loss on SR

[POWDER]

What u going on about? Was wondering though when u would chip in

[NIZAN-R]

What u going on about? Was wondering though when u would chip in

haha

[SMKNG ACE]

Good guys you make me crack over here. And thanx POWDER i appreciate all that info.

[POWDER]

you need a after market ECU to make gains... FMIC on stock fuel management = loss on SR

And just to correct you, a FMIC does not gain or lose on power, it gains or loses on response, which in short means that it will either cause more or less lag, more or less air density.....

in fact, if you have a FMIC same size as the std one and your plumbing has the same flow rate and total capacity, it will give you better performance (Meaning response) than the original one in the original position due to better cooling, thus allowing you to access more of the possible power that is already available, more efficiently...... Kind of like the difference between driving on a cold day vs a hot day.....

When you have a larger FMIC there is more cooling adding a higher air density, allowing you to access more power, but at the same time what your actually feeling is not loss in power, but loss in response, delayed boost due to compression time.

So no, no loss or gain power wise, but yes there can be loss or gain in response time. Less or more lag.

[POWDER]

Good guys you make me crack over here. And thanx POWDER i appreciate all that info.

No probz cuzzy, any time

@ NIZAN-R -

[NIZAN-R]

stock cooler my boost was always .6 bar

with front mount it went up to .7 bar due to way beter flow

[NIZAN-R]

[POWDER]

@ NIZAN-R -> I'll make u like with my machine.......

[Daniel]

you need a after market ECU to make gains... FMIC on stock fuel management = loss on SR

And just to correct you, a FMIC does not gain or lose on power, it gains or loses on response, which in short means that it will either cause more or less lag, more or less air density.....

in fact, if you have a FMIC same size as the std one and your plumbing has the same flow rate and total capacity, it will give you better performance (Meaning response) than the original one in the original position due to better cooling, thus allowing you to access more of the possible power that is already available, more efficiently...... Kind of like the difference between driving on a cold day vs a hot day.....

When you have a larger FMIC there is more cooling adding a higher air density, allowing you to access more power, but at the same time what your actually feeling is not loss in power, but loss in response, delayed boost due to compression time.

So no, no loss or gain power wise, but yes there can be loss or gain in response time. Less or more lag.

I believe he has a post somewhere on this forum where he had a dyno run after every modification to see the performance gain (or loss) and the results showed that adding a FMIC alone actually resulted in a loss of power (it was negligible iirc though). Now I find it hard to argue with these results as there are printouts.

I have seen back to back dyno runs with a MK IV Golf GTI comparing stock IC to a FMIC and it too netted less HP with a FMIC. Only after a tune (some blufin something iirc, cant actually remember now) did it make significant gains.

I hear what your saying about response etc. and how the arse dyno percieves things to be, I'm not arguing those as they too could be factors. I just wouldn't ignore the fact that power can be lost. How its lost or if it is always the case..? I haven't got a clue.

And if I can add some more personal experience, recently I have added a large FMIC (800x600x76) to my otherwise 'standard' CA in prep for the larger Turbo I have.
I was expecting more 'lag' and/or a increase in engine response time due to all the extra pipework that needs to be filled. To my delight however engine response has increased and the 'lag' is at worst no more than it was before.
I am certain this is attributed to the sh1tty standard wmic that seems very restrictive, my boost pressure has also increased by 0.1 bar just by adding the FMIC
How much power i have gained or lost in reality is lost on me and barely noticeable I'm sure.

Even if I had no intention of putting a larger turbo on and having it tuned I would still be happy with the FMIC, not too even mention the fact that heat-soak of the IC is almost eliminated now that the WMIC has found the bin.

just my 2c

[POWDER]

Hey Daniel,

No problems bud, some facts are always more appreciated than fiction in all cases...

My point was just to indicate that if you do replace an apple with another apple, it still remains an apple, especially when there has been no added steroids.... As you might note, the FMIC they probably used would have been a fair size larger than the standard, thus causing different dynamics.

What would be an interesting dyno result sheet comparison would be if all dynamics were kept the same and then compared..... This might actually be a fun project at the same time that I could attempt to set up for the purposes of science Also, might be fun to check if a larger WMIC might yield the same results....

I think it is time for a nice experiment..... Anybody willing to sponsor some parts and a few Dyno runs in the name of fun and science?