Before I get into my new intercooler install and the info about where you guys can buy it and I promise you all you will all want to buy one let me post some photos and a very short history of past intercoolers and the problems as I saw them.
The first thing I want to make very clear is that I always take a very long time going over any mod before I take action. I look at the past attempts and previous mods on the SLK's if any were made and then I will just sit back and look at my car. If possible I will ask Damo to photo shop the mod if it is a mod that requires photo shopping. I will then sometimes take another 6 months just asking others what they think and taking my sweet time before I take any action.
In this case it has been around 4 years of gathering info. Buellwinkle made a lot of attempts and I owe him a debt of grattitude for the large amount of time and money he spent on his car so many thanks Carl.
The intercooler that Renntech made for Carl had the worst end tanks I have ever seen in my life. No wonder they had such bad results. From what I have seen each intercooler made for the SLK's all had design flaws. Even the Brabus intercooler, with some of the finest welding I have ever seen, and that is the cores were just to damm thick and as a result there was to much pressure loss. On a car that has a turbo you can just crank up the boost controller but on a car that uses old small roots blowers you cannot afford to lose boost period. The Brabus intercooler is almost 4" thick!!! Another flaw was that no one modified the air dam on the front bumpers to get more air to cool that frontal area of the core. Another more serious flaw was that they did not install custom intercooler shrouding. A really BIG mistake that Brabus made was that they mounted the intercooler so far forward that even if a person was to modify the air damm to increase the air flow and install custom shrouding the intercooler is so far foward there is no way to get that extra air flow over the core. I know Brabus knows what they are doing but anyone who knows about air flow can see my points are valid. It is about Brabus knowing thier customers and what they would be willing to spend versus results but I also bet thier engineers would agree with me 100%
Brabus claims thier intercooler gains 10bhp. The OEM intercooler is just a tad under 5" X 22" X 2". This is 220 square inches. The Brabus is 22" X 7" X 3.34 for 514 square inches. Snogard paid 1.5K for his and since Brabus no longer makes parts for the R170 anymore if you were lucky to find one I am sure the price would be well over 2k and quite possibly well above that amount depending on where you located it. I LOVE anything BRABUS and do not doubt any claims they make but this is one claim I would have to see to beleive. The Brabus intercooler is well over 200% larger than the OEM intercooler. The ACC intercooler is 530 Euros and this translates into $780.00. It is 75% larger than our OEM intercooler. I have serious concerns with the inlet endtank. Notice how square it is. This cannot be good for smooth air flow. The reports on the German SLK forums are very positive and the owner is Gerad and his is really a nice man. I just think it is not tall enough and for me it is all about the frontal core area for cooling efficency.
The intercooler I purchased off of Ebay is 2 1/2" X 22" X 7" and is 385 square inches or 75% larger. It is the high quality bar and plate design. Matt from our forums came over to give me a helping hand. To our amazment it slide right in and required NO grinding, cutting or any modifications at all. I thought on the left hand side of the radiator bracket I might have to cut out a piece that is angled just a tad bit to ensure I could have it as far back as possible to ensure it would get as much air flow over the core for all of the reasons I mentioned above. I only had to drill 2 holes for the top 2 mounting brackets. For the bottom 2 brackets you can use 2 existing holes!!!! What more can you ask for!
Matt used some rubber stripping with adheasive on the back that I had purcahed from Home Depot some time ago for my doors. He placed it on the bottom of the bracket and on the top of the bumper to when the intercooler sat it would be sealed air tight and it would not rub against any metal. It also sits against the bumper but is against the rubber seal.
I am going to use this weekend to remove the bumper, install the shrouding, and cut and modify the air dam on the bumper to flow more air. It will bring out the grill mesh I bought flush with the same mesh I used for my fog lights that I removed. The stock air damm is 3" tall and when I am done it will be around 5" tall. The one photo shows what it will look like. I think it will make my car look much more agressive. Not for everyone but I love the look. We used rubber washers so the intercooler is mounted tight but has leeway.
I bought the 2 90 degree silcoine elbows from Boost Controllers.com. They are 2 1/2" and I also bought 2 metal 2 1/2" couplers from them. I would recommend buying 1 2 1/2" to 2 1/4" reducing silicone elbow for the inlet side and of course one 2 1/4" metal coupler for the inlet side. We used the 2 1/2" tube and coupler on the inlet side but damm was it tight. If not for Matts skills with rubbers we would have been up shit creek without a paddle. The outlet side has an OEM reducing rubber piece that works real good so Matts skills were only required on the inlet and not the oulet. This is starting to creep me out. I think he used a lubricant which he said .......................lets stop this right now. Matt is really good at what he does....................... oh you guys get the picture. My family was right upstairs and the door was wide open. The garage door. STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The intercooler is from Ebay. The seller is ETD Motors. The title of the item was CXRacing INTERCOOLER 28x7x2.5 HONDA CIVIC CRX DEL SOL. COST........$59.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was going to post photos of the older intercoolers but I will post photos of the Brabus intercooler to show you guys how far forward it is mounted and how thick it is and the rest is of mine and that silly guy is Matt. $59.00 vs thousands. Pressure loss. I felt none. My wife says she felt the car ran faster. I am going to now replace the intercooler inlet and outlet piping with 2 1/2" piping. Geting ready for that modified M45 boys!!!!! $59.00 boys!! !!!
They have a website at CXRacing.com. You can just buy the intercooler right from them and they also sell the tubing and couplers really cheap. Nice people and the product speaks for itself. Much better design that the ACC and $780.00 versus $59.00 and that ACC price does not even include the import and mailing price. Best part I have ever found on my own for my car period. The Duke is looking down on me smiling with pride doing shooters saying "Thats my boy". Ask Matt What he thinks. Well Matt????????
When you call them ask for Kevin. They are very helpful and return emails right away and are located in California so support South Cali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The first thing I want to make very clear is that I always take a very long time going over any mod before I take action. I look at the past attempts and previous mods on the SLK's if any were made and then I will just sit back and look at my car. If possible I will ask Damo to photo shop the mod if it is a mod that requires photo shopping. I will then sometimes take another 6 months just asking others what they think and taking my sweet time before I take any action.
In this case it has been around 4 years of gathering info. Buellwinkle made a lot of attempts and I owe him a debt of grattitude for the large amount of time and money he spent on his car so many thanks Carl.
The intercooler that Renntech made for Carl had the worst end tanks I have ever seen in my life. No wonder they had such bad results. From what I have seen each intercooler made for the SLK's all had design flaws. Even the Brabus intercooler, with some of the finest welding I have ever seen, and that is the cores were just to damm thick and as a result there was to much pressure loss. On a car that has a turbo you can just crank up the boost controller but on a car that uses old small roots blowers you cannot afford to lose boost period. The Brabus intercooler is almost 4" thick!!! Another flaw was that no one modified the air dam on the front bumpers to get more air to cool that frontal area of the core. Another more serious flaw was that they did not install custom intercooler shrouding. A really BIG mistake that Brabus made was that they mounted the intercooler so far forward that even if a person was to modify the air damm to increase the air flow and install custom shrouding the intercooler is so far foward there is no way to get that extra air flow over the core. I know Brabus knows what they are doing but anyone who knows about air flow can see my points are valid. It is about Brabus knowing thier customers and what they would be willing to spend versus results but I also bet thier engineers would agree with me 100%
Brabus claims thier intercooler gains 10bhp. The OEM intercooler is just a tad under 5" X 22" X 2". This is 220 square inches. The Brabus is 22" X 7" X 3.34 for 514 square inches. Snogard paid 1.5K for his and since Brabus no longer makes parts for the R170 anymore if you were lucky to find one I am sure the price would be well over 2k and quite possibly well above that amount depending on where you located it. I LOVE anything BRABUS and do not doubt any claims they make but this is one claim I would have to see to beleive. The Brabus intercooler is well over 200% larger than the OEM intercooler. The ACC intercooler is 530 Euros and this translates into $780.00. It is 75% larger than our OEM intercooler. I have serious concerns with the inlet endtank. Notice how square it is. This cannot be good for smooth air flow. The reports on the German SLK forums are very positive and the owner is Gerad and his is really a nice man. I just think it is not tall enough and for me it is all about the frontal core area for cooling efficency.
The intercooler I purchased off of Ebay is 2 1/2" X 22" X 7" and is 385 square inches or 75% larger. It is the high quality bar and plate design. Matt from our forums came over to give me a helping hand. To our amazment it slide right in and required NO grinding, cutting or any modifications at all. I thought on the left hand side of the radiator bracket I might have to cut out a piece that is angled just a tad bit to ensure I could have it as far back as possible to ensure it would get as much air flow over the core for all of the reasons I mentioned above. I only had to drill 2 holes for the top 2 mounting brackets. For the bottom 2 brackets you can use 2 existing holes!!!! What more can you ask for!
Matt used some rubber stripping with adheasive on the back that I had purcahed from Home Depot some time ago for my doors. He placed it on the bottom of the bracket and on the top of the bumper to when the intercooler sat it would be sealed air tight and it would not rub against any metal. It also sits against the bumper but is against the rubber seal.
I am going to use this weekend to remove the bumper, install the shrouding, and cut and modify the air dam on the bumper to flow more air. It will bring out the grill mesh I bought flush with the same mesh I used for my fog lights that I removed. The stock air damm is 3" tall and when I am done it will be around 5" tall. The one photo shows what it will look like. I think it will make my car look much more agressive. Not for everyone but I love the look. We used rubber washers so the intercooler is mounted tight but has leeway.
I bought the 2 90 degree silcoine elbows from Boost Controllers.com. They are 2 1/2" and I also bought 2 metal 2 1/2" couplers from them. I would recommend buying 1 2 1/2" to 2 1/4" reducing silicone elbow for the inlet side and of course one 2 1/4" metal coupler for the inlet side. We used the 2 1/2" tube and coupler on the inlet side but damm was it tight. If not for Matts skills with rubbers we would have been up shit creek without a paddle. The outlet side has an OEM reducing rubber piece that works real good so Matts skills were only required on the inlet and not the oulet. This is starting to creep me out. I think he used a lubricant which he said .......................lets stop this right now. Matt is really good at what he does....................... oh you guys get the picture. My family was right upstairs and the door was wide open. The garage door. STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The intercooler is from Ebay. The seller is ETD Motors. The title of the item was CXRacing INTERCOOLER 28x7x2.5 HONDA CIVIC CRX DEL SOL. COST........$59.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was going to post photos of the older intercoolers but I will post photos of the Brabus intercooler to show you guys how far forward it is mounted and how thick it is and the rest is of mine and that silly guy is Matt. $59.00 vs thousands. Pressure loss. I felt none. My wife says she felt the car ran faster. I am going to now replace the intercooler inlet and outlet piping with 2 1/2" piping. Geting ready for that modified M45 boys!!!!! $59.00 boys!! !!!
They have a website at CXRacing.com. You can just buy the intercooler right from them and they also sell the tubing and couplers really cheap. Nice people and the product speaks for itself. Much better design that the ACC and $780.00 versus $59.00 and that ACC price does not even include the import and mailing price. Best part I have ever found on my own for my car period. The Duke is looking down on me smiling with pride doing shooters saying "Thats my boy". Ask Matt What he thinks. Well Matt????????
When you call them ask for Kevin. They are very helpful and return emails right away and are located in California so support South Cali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
