Hey guys and gals, doe anyone have any experience with the FORGE intercooler or the one by GRS? I want to replace my stock intercooler but,I don’t want to put some cheap intercooler on it. From what I can tell those two are good ones. If you now of another quality one please let me know… thanks

 

The ONLY cooler that flows as well, INSIDE...as the stock cooler is the GP cooler !
I must admit, that the above statement comes from a detailed search in looking for a good "radiator" for my car. This was about 1 year ago. It is possible that someone came out with a GOOD design since then.
My car...still has the original intercooler in place..!

Others may have their dyno sheets telling things of greatness in other coolers. But there is NO denying of the interior of the stock and PG intercoolers over others, airflow wise.
Simple tell-all... Look inside of a stock cooler, in the "inlet" side. Then find photos of the GP coolers, inlet side. Then look at most all of the others..! FLAT surfaces, NOT directed airflow.

A properly...designed intercooler, radiator...will have "airflow directors" to direct the airflow into the cooling tubes, to keep the airflow smooth to help as much air as possible into the cooling tubes as possible.
A "cheap..." cooler will NOT have these flow directors between the tubes. So as the air enters the core, it will hit the "flat" walls between the tubes and bounce the air around...until it "finally"...finds its way into the tubes.

It's as simple as...Have you EVER seen an airplane wing with a "flat" leading edge on the wings, or tail ?

Unfortunately, the factory GP cooler is not...cheap. There is a very good reason for that, it's more difficult to build...to GET IT RIGHT !

Mike

 

In my opinion, a water/meth kit is a better bang for your buck when it comes to cooling air intake temps. My understanding is that the stock/GP intercooler recovers faster and retains higher PSI when compared to any aftermarket IC.

 

Also depends on what you will be using the car for and what power it will be running. If your going to be doing track days and keeping the car at high rpm for an extended amount of time, looking for an aftermarket intercooler is an option as the stock ones were meant to be efficient with the stock setup. If you are at GP power territory then the GP one is a good option but not a healthy one for the bank account. 1600 +. Water meth is also a good option. Haven't tried it, can't say anything about it. I personally have the Airtec intercooler and it was more of an impulse purchase and really before they were available in America. Purchasing an intercooler really depends on what the car is used for. Daily driver and streetcar, maybe not but track car, it could be worth the money to purchase a better intercooler. If you do want an intercooler, someone on here made a comparison of the Airtec top mount, front mount, forge and GRS, and the GRS came on top but the front mount did the best amount of cooling but costs about 850.

 

would you buy the airtec again if you were looking for a new intercooler?

 

If I would be looking for a new intercooler. I would go with a front mount especially for track use. Daily Driving, I would have left it stock but I’m planning on doing track down the road I might switch depending on how well the top mount cools. My car makes 16 psi of boost with the top mount. Possibly a little lower with the front mount but much better cooling.

 

Most definitely lower with an S/C car, esp already pushing the M45's as hard as many people are, all the extra volume will effect boost and performance in a negative way, without being able to effectively add more boost to compensate for it, like you could with a turbo.

 

You need to pay attention to more than just pretty.

If you look into the cooling fins, you'll see a large piece of material between each set of fins.
NOW, look into the radiators inlet. Do you see a "flat" wall in-between each tube ? Or...do you see a nicely shaped "wing", or a smooth, rounded divider ?

I'd say that it's a very good thing that the last airplane that you flew in had nicely shaped leading edge of the wing..!

Think about THAT for a minute..!

No matter how pretty, how large, how many promises, I would not waste my money on a cooler without flow directors to help smooth the flow into the tubes, very simple.

Mike