i ran a greddy fmic on my t3t4 in texas heat and i had no problems with it

 

the autospeedperformance ICis a bit of unknown, their core maybe less dense, the Racetec is proven performer, I could always look at a waterspray as wel if needed.

do people run the Racetec if only got a chipped K03?

 

check out evolution raceworks FMIC. They are expensive but pretty dope. Go to Eurocode.com and you can see the different brands of FMIC's they give you.

 

Yes Ive heard the ER are good, but they recommend a new bumper - S4, RS4, for the B5. Im using standard bumper, so Ive decided to go with the racetec. They actually make there own cores to spec, they don't use generic cores. Also my bumper is australian-euro,which are abit smaller than the US bumpers so some of the other FMIC kitsoffered probly wont fit.

 

in my opionion, more important than the quailty of the core is the design of the intercooler. the dirrection of air flow can drastically change the efficenccy of the intercooler. here are the twin turbo intercoolers we make using treadstone cores:



you notice that we use vertical flow design that has proven to be the most efficient setup up. Vertical ic's also flow much more volume than horizontal intercoolers which can be restricted by the number of rows connected to the end tank. because the vertical flow ic's have almost double the amount of columns, there are much more paths for the air to go resulting in superior volumetric throughput. you'd think that because the runs are shorter the air wouldn’t cool as much. this is somewhat true but because most cooling happens in the first 6-8 inches there really is no difference. also because there is more air flow thus less pressure in the inlet end tank, there is less heat. to add to that, there is still about the same amount of cooling area distributed across the intercooler. if you do a quick search you’ll find that vertical flow intercoolers are rated for much more horse power than horizontal intercoolers for these reasons. if you look at people who are making huge numbers they will most likely be running a vertical flow ic or a liquid cooled ic.

with all that said i still think if you aren’t going for HUGE numbers, eBay intercoolers will do the job fine. other than having an intercooler that leaks, there really isn’t much you could f* up. sure you could argue quality but i bet if you bench tested a cheap ic and a $500 brand name horizontal flow ic, the difference would be very minor.