[Romeo86]

Right, I know this is a very talked about topic but i have narrowed it down to 2 intercoolers, Active Autowerke or Dinan????

Now I would love to hear your opinions on them ideally from people that have experienced with them? Also I am still curious about the Helix and rdsport intercoolers, opinions welcome.........

[phil200tdi]

Strange that you rounded down to those two...

I have ETS 5" core - I'm very happy with the quality and fit (you can buy in UK from Neil@juiceduptuning)

Other obvious choices are the helix or forge motorsports ones.

[Cozy]

You'd get a better response posting on the U.S side. You'd also have to import these intercoolers yourself as there are no U.K retailers. From what I've read however is that Dinan is overpriced, it's very good but other brands offer the same build quality & cooling ability at a lower price, ETS for example. Dinan is all about keeping a warranty in the U.S so it benefits to buy the whole package from them, they'll give you a warranty equal to BMW's should your car fail. Most American's not bothered about the Dinan warranty will tell you that they wouldn't buy Dinan parts unless a good second hand part came up.

[phil200tdi]

Forge is UK company

Neil is a UK Supplier potentially with ETS units on the Shelf

[doughboy]

After looking at a lot, we did a group buy on here for the ETS unit, which ended up being run via neil at juiced up tuning.

He imports them now afaik.

Great product, great price, comes with mandrell bent replacement pipework, silicon hosing and pukka t-clamps.

And it really does fit perfectly.

Using the jb4 to display intake temp shows it is very effective at keeping temps down. Long pulls in third and fourth give hardly any increase.

[phil200tdi]

I forgot about displaying IATs with jb4.

Will have to try that to see what effect meth has!

[idnan]

There you go Phil, drop in IATs as soon as meths flows

[phil200tdi]

that is quite a stark and obvious drop as soon as meth flows!!

I just took a look in a log and found the same. When meth stops flowing (between shifts for example) the IATs jump up again by a few degrees. Be interesting to see a back to back comparison same boost with/without meth...

Sorry for the Off topic!

[phil200tdi]

I see you already have a forge intercooler.

Therefore if you wanna reduce IATs and lower the probability of heat soak and limp modes, just get a meth kit - cheaper and much more effective!

[335iLondon]

+1 on the ETS unit.

Have been enjoying it although not been put through its paces over the colder months, but come summer it really pays off.

My advise just go for the ETS any aftermarket unit, it is a dramatic step up from stock (you will see this if you have the chance to hold them side by side)
The difference in performance between aftermarket units, is from what I have seen by way of testing data from US guys, negligable.

[nicktyler]

I've been considering this too and I think I will go for the ETS. With the reviews of performance and fit etc it would be hard to go wrong for the money and convienience of just ordering from Neil at JUT.

[ciomas]

why not go for a proven british brand. Ive had great results with Forge motorsport. And the warranty deal is rather nice too ;]

[Cozy]

Originally Posted by 335iLondon

+1 on the ETS unit.

Have been enjoying it although not been put through its paces over the colder months, but come summer it really pays off.

My advise just go for the ETS any aftermarket unit, it is a dramatic step up from stock (you will see this if you have the chance to hold them side by side)
The difference in performance between aftermarket units, is from what I have seen by way of testing data from US guys, negligable.

How did you find fitting Alex/what did you do to fit it? I hear that it's a little more tricky on M-Sports?

Originally Posted by ciomas

why not go for a proven british brand. Ive had great results with Forge motorsport. And the warranty deal is rather nice too ;]

My last car was Forge'd up, I can't speak more highly of their products however the cheapest I can get their intercooler for, brand new, is still £100 more than ETS. I'd be inclined to pay the extra for Forge if ETS had problems but I've not seen one negative comment at all.

[cssnms]

The BIG TOM IC.

[Romeo86]

Im not really impressed by the forge to be honest, and i have been looking for something better. Yeah it does seem that the dinan is just a overpriced sperco ic, i will most likely end up with Helix/ets/ER....

It has been interesting hearing comments on different Ic's though as no one has commented on Active autowerkes ic....

[m1bjr]

ETS popular for many reasons.
One being it requires NO cutting or fab work.
I use one also, this was a big factor for me...

[335iLondon]

On my Msport the fitting was failry straightforward.
The garage showed me the fitment was tight but it worked.
The input pipe was very close another (i believe the water pump piping) but no issue, and we agreed that it was probably fine and a symptom of trying to gain the largest fucntionaly unit in the small space

I would have no regrets recommending the ETS 5" to anyone.

[Alpina_B3_Lux]

Originally Posted by Romeo86

Right, I know this is a very talked about topic but i have narrowed it down to 2 intercoolers, Active Autowerke or Dinan????

Now I would love to hear your opinions on them ideally from people that have experienced with them? Also I am still curious about the Helix and rdsport intercoolers, opinions welcome.........

I have had the Code3 Performance / Spearco (which is identical to the Dinan IC) for a few years. I think that as long as you don't upgrade your turbos you should be fine with it, and I've seen it hold my IATs quite nicely in check. E92Fan / Tony is running this intercooler also with his upgraded turbos and has been satisfied so far, AFAIK.

Personally I have switched to Helix though, as for my upgraded turbos I wanted an even more efficient core than the Spearco one. So far I'm very pleased with the results.

I also think the ETS and Forge are both very good products and will be a considerable improvement over the stock intercooler.

Should you wish to buy the Spearco off me, please send me a PM.

Alpina_B3_Lux

[conor.ireland360]

I don't mean to be a complete noob on this haha but what does and intercooler actuly do and what type of cars have them

Thanks

[Cozy]

Mega noob haha . Only turbocharged cars have intercoolers, diesels and petrols. It's job is to cool the air that has been sucked through the air filter and turbo before it reaches the engine. The turbo is split into two parts, think of it as inlet and outlet, one side sucks in outside air and accelerates it into the engine (more oxygen means greater combustion), the other side is connected to the exhaust manifold and its job is to expel exhaust gasses as fast as possible. The turbo spins in/pushes out air/gas via two separate turbines however, these are connected by a shaft and spin in unison. The air that has passed through a turbo is red hot, the Intercooler makes sure that this air cooled by making it flow through it. An Intercooler cools the air by being placed in direct path of cold outside air when the car is moving, the cold air hitting the Intercooler as the car travels offsets some of the extreme heat that the air is carrying, as you know if you put something hot onto something cold, the temperature is forced to decrease of the hot item (much like putting cold water in a hot bath). Once the air has passed through the Intercooler it enters the engine, cooler air is more compressed in terms of oxygen molecules therefore the engine can ingest more of it. Now you can realise the popularity of front mounted intercoolers, larger is better normally however if you go too large for the size of the turbo it can create turbo lag as the Intercooler takes longer to fill up and pass air to the engine.

[m1bjr]

Originally Posted by JamJay

Mega noob haha . Only turbocharged cars have intercoolers, diesels and petrols.

Mega noob?
I would say.

You can have an intercooler on a supercharger system

And then there are air/water ICs too...