Why do companies paint and coat their intercooler ? I finally bought an r56 alta ic after trying a few other different style intercoolers and my biggest hesitation was the stupid "anti" thermal paint coating these companies use..
nor only is it a pita to remove BUT it negatively effects the it's ability to release heat and to cool down..
I always thought it was wrong and this video told me how rite I've been over the years..
PLUS one thing not considered either is , the paint fills in between the cooling fins too and restricts flow through them which ALSO hinders cooling.. imo , its a sales gimmick to try and make the intercoolers look more catching. Lol though i think they look best shiny .
anyway I scored this alta ic and sofar after a few hours of sandblasting , wire brushing with my rotoary tool and few cans of paint remover... here's how it's looking and how I wish it would have come..
As of now i bought and am using a pre-production forge intercooler because I didn't want it coated and that's the intercooler i will be removing to test this alta against..
Imo the Forge cools great but I feel like it's over kill and I could sacrifice some iat for better flow and peak psi. Im running an aftermarket hybrid 62/64 turbo and full bolton and tune in my 2011 jcw and with my preproduction forge ic I never see iat more than 25' above ambient even on hardest ,longest pull BUT I'm only peaking 22psi. I tried a different ebay one that has bar n plate core with much better flow and saw 26psi but I would see iat's 50-60 above ambient and it never ran at or near ambient temps , always 20-30 above. The forge when just Normal driving It runs at ambient to 5' above only... soooo if this alta can split the difference because it has a tube fin core BUT unlike the forge preproduction, the alta doesn't have the larger 3x thick lower section so it SHOULD flow much better but cool abit less because of lack of core size.



No name ebay intercooler


Preproduction forge intercooler

Alta intercooler








here's now my alta ic looks after getting off all that STOOPID black coating which was a PITA..