Long story short, I purchased what I thought was a "Helix" copy intercooler from eBay seller 4WDValley. That ad has been taken down but everything, including the pictures, is identical to the one in the link below.

eBay Helix/Forge intercooler bait and switch

Despite the first picture, I received a "Forge" copy intercooler instead. Guess it was shame on me for not examining the other pics more closely, and of course the listed dimensions weren't even close. It arrived with a bent mounting ear but I didn't want to deal with an eBay return and decided to try installing it anyway.



I thought I was pretty careful during the install but to my horror, the fins were so soft they were deforming just by touch. Here's the installed pic before the car was even driven, and you can see where I touched it.



This was the result of one third gear pull with an ambient temperature of ~55 degrees.



Needless to say I wasn't thrilled with the IAT being 63 degrees above ambient.

As soon as I got home, I ordered the G-Plus branded "Wagner" eBay intercooler clone others on here have had success with and installed it two days before an autocross. My car is equipped with the Hypersport body kit and this intercooler was even larger than the "Forge" copy, and required more bumper shaving to fit, but here it is installed. Right away, I noticed the G-Plus was about twice the weight of the no-name unit, and the fins and overall construction were very solid.



With no prior testing, I went to the autocross and flogged it all day. This was the result.



Ambient temperature was 66 degrees. Despite a lot of time idling and the low airflow, high throttle environment of autocross, the IAT never went higher than 25 degrees above ambient. Any time I was off throttle or at partial throttle the temps dropped to about 20 above ambient. I call that a win. Here's a link to the G-Plus intercooler I purchased:

G-Plus Wagner intercooler copy

Lesson learned. And in case anyone was curious, I snapped pictures of the insides of both.

Forge interheater copy:


G-Plus "Wagner" copy that actually worked:


And just for fun, here's the video of my full run:


For the record, my car's other power mods are a JCW intake, turbo muffler/noisemaker deletes, MarioKart Stage 2 tune, Milltek downpipe with high-flow cat, and an eBay Rev9 midpipe/secondary cat delete with a 2.5", 10" long TotalFlow resonator and stock catback. Suspension is pretty basic with JCW springs, Koni Yellows, NM Eng RSB and IE camber plates. Brakes are stock with EBC Yellows and RBF 660, and I was on old-*** Hoosier A7s that have been cycled a few too many times and made the car want to try and kill me LOL.

 

See this thread, it's a sticky: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...iscussion.html

Lots of data in there, the better intercoolers are able to keep IATs to about 10 degrees above ambient.

 

I run the same Wagner copy that njaremka and others who posted in that sticky have, this post was more about my crappy experience with the eBay bait and switch sellers. I'd read the entire thread and didn't see any data from autocross. Given the conditions I'm not surprised to see the IAT go to 20 degrees above ambient. You're constantly on and off the throttle, you never get good airflow through anything since your top speed is ~60mph and only for a couple seconds, and you're right back to idling again with no cooldown after the run. Look at the coolant temp compared to my cruising around video. But if the mods want to move my post into the sticky, that would be great

 

for the price, I love my “Wagner” eBay clone

 

My Wagner clone by G-Plus is killer and I am seeing temps only 10-15 above ambient on idle, after 20-30mph im usually at or maybe 5 degrees over

 

As it pertains to the pictures above and below... scientific white board explanation of what's inside your intercooler and why some are more effective than others....

Ready to start cutting your intercoolers open? If you do please post pictures.

You Tube

 

I know old post but I'd like to point out a HUGE missed point..
it's not only about iat , iat isn't big issue until it gets hot and pulls timing , so long as your under that threshold your fine...
buuuuuuut what EVERYONE seems to over look is pressure drop.
sure that 1x ic cools better but I guarantee it's cooling better because your experiencing less boost.. that other ic may run abit hotter BUT I guarantee your max boost levels are higher along with peak power too...
the folded fin it's I found are generally garbage unless they have built in air diverters or the correct sized core.
the bar and plate ( I may be getting names confused) has larger openings through the core for much better flow.. imo , you gotta find that good middle ground.
I dod extensive ic testing with the r53's but that's a sc and these are turbo BUT the end results are the same.. you want as much boost with as low iat as you can.
but is it worth sacrifiing boost for iat ?? You make more power with more boost than you do with cooler iat..
if I were to choose an ic out of the 2x above , based off my experience I'd choose that gplus " interheater"..

 

bump for solid info shared with community