Getting the ball rolling with winter projects and oil cooler / intercooler upgrades is on the list. I am wondering what would be the best choice for an intercooler.. SFR front mount or stock with modified end tanks. This is going to determine the size of oil cooler I get and where it is mounted. The LR stage 2 I am not even considering because it's not to far off the SFR front mount.

I am wondering however if the front mount is overkill for my 2.5L with a 60-1 that does not see more than 15 psi on the track. I'm just afraid I might kill throttle response with a larger core and still a pretty mild turbo setup.

 

I've got the LR Stage 2 in my car, but haven't been able to test it's abilities or anything yet. I also didn't purchase it so cost doesn't matter to me. From what I've heard about SFR is that it takes a lot of work to fit it. If you are going front mount (as in non-factory placement) then why not just piece together your own kit? I'm sure it would end up being cheaper than the SFR setup. As far as the IC having detrimental effects, I don't think it would be anything easily noticeable. You'd have to get a HUGE FMIC that would probably require tons of hacking of the bumper and support before you'd notice anything bad.

 

i would be interrested to know which front mount size we can fit in our car

 

I have a large FMIC that I fabbed myself, I can sy that after bashing the car for 20 mins straight it's still cool to the touch, it took very little work to get it to fit, just had to make a short set of IC pipes to connect to the regular tubes.

 

ill sell you an rx7 oil cooler for $100 shipped lol

 

What did it cost you to fab this yourself? Where did you get the innercooler from?

 

total cost about $150 onmy end. I pulled the intercooler from a customer's honda and swapped it with air to water setup. I cut off the original side outlets. I then bought a pair of 90 deg alum mandrel bends and welded them to the top of the intercooler and made a set of short tubes to connect to my intercooler tubes. I didn't cut or drill anything on the car, it worked out a lot better than I anticipated. I gave him him 50 off for the intercooler and the rest was just the alum bends and my own welding time a couple of silicone connectors etc. Took me a part of a weekend. Those intercoolers are readily available on ebay and the like and rather cheap to buy. The customer had painted it black so I stripped it and polished the tanks up a bit.

 

Usually I am the do it yourself type but think i'd rather do something premade to save the trial and error. Not to concerned about the install, i've dealt with worse! I am still wondering though if it's worthwhile to go with a frontmount. In that case I'd put the oil cooler under the nose panel. Have to think about utilizing the stock IC shroud to feed it, don't want to bother with a vented nose.

Decisions decisions..

 

I have the lindsey stage 1, installation wasn't bad however you need to remove one of the stock IC mounts with a grinder to fit the end tank. I noticed better spool up and low end, but i did install SFR hardpipes at the same time.

 

It would be interesting to see benchmarks between, stock, LR S1, LR S2 and the SFR solution. I have the LR S2 but I am considering the SFR solution. In theory it looks good and there are a couple of testimonials. However, I am waiting to make the investment until the final verdict is in.

 

I would really like to see more pictures of completed installs (and during the install process) of the front mount from SFR. Not much available on it. I always like to be 100% informed of what I'm buying.

 

I think the stock intercooler, while touted as something that's just fine to X amount of power, actually does a bit of constricting at higher RPM. Maybe not, but between the anemic end-tanks and the weird crush bends on the factory hardpipes... I see fit for a reason to switch to at least a little bit of an intercooler upgrade, as well as better hard-pipes.

 

If you consider the SFR unit, let me know if your LR unit is for sale

 

SFR's stuff is always top notch, I have used a few of tims items and heard from several others who have as well. My setup is a bit of a knock off of his, or at least I used his pictures for ideas/inspiration. The stock one is a very sory piece in my book as far as the endtanks go. anyway. I have two spare stock ones I was gonna experiment on one for the other car. If it turns out to be fairly easy I may entertain doing some for other people, that and a coolant tank.

 

I wouldn't read too much into the 'Bigger i/c means slower response' theory. The system pressurizes virtually instantaneously so don't let that idea scare you off a bigger i/c. Having said that, your setup/psi level doesn't sound like it's screaming out for a massive fmic so perhaps a modded stock one is ok?