The Project Pad

"Remove bowling ball from passenger side floorboard"

Current progress:













More to come

Do like. I need to research air to water setups.

Did not know or expect a water-air setup coming but looks great! They do package really well

Should have logged some intake temps before and after. Maybe you have some to compare?

I did a few logs last week just for comparison. Hopefully this works well, lol.

Looking good so far man!

So discussing this setup with Aaron, the IC being over all of that heat is a bit of a concern. I may try to re-position the IC closer to the fender or come up with some creative heat-shielding. Luckily the downpipe is wrapped and I just ordered a "turbo blanket".

Yeah that obviously isn't ideal, but the truth is that the ability of the heat exchanger to remove heat will dictate your results. Either way, definitely get it as far away from the heat as you can! The heat certainly doesn't help. Looks like you should definitely be able to get some tighter bends on there. That won't hurt your flow much with 3" pipes and or the short run you have. Heat shielding really works well too by the way. The more you can shield, the better!

Whoa. Crazy man. Some shielding would surely help? Hood vent time...

It might interfere if you go tube header or with some OEM stuff if its still there but what about running the compressor outlet down under the frame rail and mounting the IC vertically(ish) in the PS fender? Like kinda above the OEM oil cooler/charcoal spot?

I would find a different spot to mount the exchanger. There HAS to be some other place it can go. Looks like there is plenty of room in the fender, but Shawn makes a good point - when you install a tube header it might become a problem.

Clearly the best solution is a front-facing intake manifold with all the plumbing/exchanger in the front of the car, but obviously that requires a new IM amongst other things

That would be cool if you could fit it into the fender area, or is there any way that could could move it closer to the TB and just have it right in front of the coils?

The intercooler looks smaller than it is maybe, but there's not way to arrange this core in the fender area near the oil cooler. I could have went with a cooler like this:



Right off the side of the turbo however it's rated for half the CFM/"HP" as my current core.

I am going to go crazy with exhaust wrap and make some kind of creative heat shielding and run it. I'll see how it performs. If worse than stock, I'll throw the stock stuff back in for now and more or less throw $500 away, lol.

That being said, I will never change the intake manifold, ever. So the plumbing will always come through on the exhaust manifold side.

Also, this setup won't work with an "OTS" tubular manifold, that's for sure. Maybe something custom can be done. I'll see what happens when I get to that point.


Side note, FP HTA Super 94 is on sale and tempting.

lol wtf is up with the weird obsession with the 3B intake manifold?

Ed, what are you calling the heat exchanger? Looks like it is already in the front of the car to me! Technically you can call both things heat exchangers, but it seems easier to call one the intercooler and one the heat exchanger.

Yeah, they're both heat exchangers....but it's pretty obvious which one I'm talking about

EDIGREG wrote:lol wtf is up with the weird obsession with the 3B intake manifold?

If I could do it all again, I'd go AAN serpetine setup and front radiator...

or 07k.

This is my URQ with 07k, the front spoiler rubbing is from a 3b dampener that would rub above 150mph down the front strait at Miller.

EDIGREG wrote:lol wtf is up with the weird obsession with the 3B intake manifold?

Never understood that either. It's all wrong... backwards, even!

amd is the best wrote:

Side note, FP HTA Super 94 is on sale and tempting.

Big Journal Bearing turbo on a 2.2L, I hope you're revving high bro...

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

mushasho wrote:

amd is the best wrote:

Side note, FP HTA Super 94 is on sale and tempting.

Big Journal Bearing turbo on a 2.2L, I hope you're revving high bro...

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

The super 94 I'm pretty sure is ball-bearing and it spools nearly identical to the HTA 3794 (which is at the top of my list right now). Either way, they are both going to be laggy. 10:1 will hopefully help a bit. We'll see...one day. lol

A little progress:

Heat exchanger mounted







Tial flange welded on:



Waiting on a few more fittings, the water pump bracket and I bit the bullet and purchased a set of Nology Hotwires. My wires are a bit tired.

That .. is a really nice exchanger
It's far more efficient than a simple air/air intercooler or it's just a little upgrade ?

Hot shit, Nick!

I love seeing the videos of your car floating around on fb

Clem86 wrote:That .. is a really nice exchanger
It's far more efficient than a simple air/air intercooler or it's just a little upgrade ?

Thanks man! I honestly can't say with any certainty that this is going to perform even as good as stock, we'll see. On paper, for the type of driving I do and the lack of front air-flow for a large air to air intercooler, the liquid to air system should work quite well. Fingers crossed. Testing will begin soon.

AudiSport4000 wrote:Hot shit, Nick!

I love seeing the videos of your car floating around on fb

Haha thanks Mike! Can't believe it's still getting posted all over the net!

So, more progress has been made today. Everything is installed and the system is filled and bled (with water for now). All that's left if to do the wiring

Silicone coupler fitting to 1/2" NPT for my IAC:


Installed in the coupler:




On the car:




I took it for a quick spin with the pump system not running just to hear the BOV and it almost seems as though the spring on the Tial is too stiff. It does blow off, but not quite as easy as I would have thought. Any idea how to tell if I have the wrong spring? How do yours act? Will it blow off very easy reving it for example or does it take a little bit of effort (actual boost) to get it to crack?

Turbo blanket is in the mail and I'll be working on some heat shielding soon.