question: my friend just got a 03 wrx. he already has an intake, exhaust, and a bov. he wants to get a front mount intercooler. i know shit about wrx's. does he need any other mods befores switching to the front mount? also, does anyone know a store or site where i can find good prices on intercoolers?

 

i dont know about the first question but look up at mastro subaru at the APS or MRT front mounts...those are nice

 

i would upgrade the turbo as well depending upon which you choose some will cause pretty big lag for the little td04
the greddy has a smaller core where as the mrt and aps are pretty big

 

there is no need. the stock top mount is more then enough for the car. the tdo4 would be WAAAYYY to laggy with a front mount, having to flow/fill the piping...... which is the only thing that sucks about front mounts for WRXs.... more piping to fill on this car then about any other out there.

 

thanks

 

Don't buy a front mount unless you have a good sized turbo behind it. Ask Ryan about his week running the TD04 on the MRT FMIC.


Kyle

 

lag,lag,lag,.....boost@5000rpms was the case when i had the td04 with the front mount for that brief period of time

 

i was gonna try that, im glad i didnt!

 

You should pickup the latest issue of SCC before you do anything in regards to your intercooler. They performed some experiments with the project WRX and a upgraded intercooler(APS top mount) vs the OEM WRX intercooler. The results are pretty suprising and the only benfit to the upgraded intercooler in their test was that it wouldn't heat up as quickly while sitting idle w/ the motor on. The problem was that it wouldn't cool off nearly as quickly once the car was moving again and it would actually increase in temp before it would start cooling off. They also ran into some other issues resulting in about the same power as they started with and drivability issues even after Vishnu dyno re-tuning the beast. Their car is pushing about 30 more HP on the dyno compared to a stock STi.

Read the article it has some good information.

 

but money for advertising sells all. sorry, i just cant justify $900 for a slightly thicker top mount. When the car is rolling, it doesnt matter.