So I've had an on going 99.5 project for a little over a year now. It was my Daily driver till the trans went about a year ago. While the car was up in the air all ripped apart I decided to max out the K04 power upgrade by getting it just about every bolt on upgrade for a PC-16 file. One of these upgrades of course being a front mount.

I decided to go the Ebay DIY route.. I found a great deal for 2.25" pipe kit, with couplers and clamps and a 2.5"x30x7" intercooler for $160. The pipes are perfect!! Best I've ever seen actually.. I took the samco hose elbow from the driver's side and put it on the pass side.. I then did a little triming and ran a 45degree hose up to the intercooler.. fit like a charm! on the other side I used a 75degree pipe, a 90degree coupler, a small straight, and another 90degree coupler.. again worked perfect!

The intercooler fit behind the bumper with less triming then I thought, HOWEVER.... when I went to put the lower stock lip on.. it just would not fit, the intercooler sticks out too much on the bottom, and I have it as high as it'll go.

I'm gonna try cutting out the bottom lip under the intercooler and actually mounting a stock WRX hood scoop under the intercooler and blending it all together.. I'll post some pics when its done so we can all see how horrible it ends up looking. I'm more worried about just protecting the bottom of the fmic more then anything.


But just so everyone knows.. If you are thinking about doing a fmic and keeping ur stock 1.8t bumper.. go smaller then 7" tall! fyi

 

How are you gonna get low with a scoop hanging down there!? Is this a new scoop or the old big ones?
Seems to me, an intercooler has a much better survival chance against a speed bump than some fiberglass scoop. Maybe custom build a skid plate, reinforced and such. You could even add air diverters to the underside to direct air into the FMIC!

 

Its an old one, and its actually made from solid plastic, I plan on doing a little bit of both as far as the skid plate.. and the scoop wont be mounted to the bottom of the bumper, it'll sit up a little higher inside the bumper and come out. once all done it should only hang 1" lower in the front and be a 24" opening wide...

I'll get pictures of what it looks like now, and what it looks like when its done.. I'll be a few weeks tho. But I'm actually pretty good at fabbing up custom stuff like this, so we'll see how it works out.

 

The height isn't actually the issue, it is most likely the design of the end tanks. My guess is the end tank design does not have the inlet/outlet at the very bottom. If it has too much core below the intake/outlets then it will sit too low and keep the bumper from going on or just end up pushing the valance down. I know this because I used to run a 10.5" tall core behind my stock bumper and most of the kits out there are well over 7" tall but they designed the end tanks correctly to work on the A4. This is why universal kits dont always work on all cars.

The racetec fmic core is 10" tall and people have been installing those behind stock bumpers for years, same goes for the EvoMS kit which was first made over 11 years ago.


Funny thing is I was dealing with a company that was making B6 1.8t FMIC kits and they tried to use that same kit for a B5 and it sat way too low because the inlet/outlet were basically right in the center of the core.

 

I want an FMIC but I don't want to loose my stock fog lamps either.

 

That actually sounds about right with the what the problem is.. and the way I ran the pipes and using only 2.25" I'm pretty sure I'm going to be keeping my fog lamps.. again I'll post pictures.. once I figure out how to lol

 

The bumper is not fully mounted here and the intercooler still needs to be mounted I believe.. Notice I flipped the plate holder over, so the intercooler gets more face.


not to shabby..

 

wait.. did that not work?

 

nope, no pics. I think you're pullin our legs.

 

i tried using facebook and webshots.... I have no idea how to get pics up sorry