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JohnnyRacecar FMIC Installed

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joemathews

15+ Year Contributor
490
0
Mar 16, 2004
St. Pete, FL/Cville, VA, Florida
I never thought I would actually get around to doing this, but I finally bought and installed my frontmount. For a very long time I thought the hassle of rounding up all of the parts, or the expense of a manufactured kit, or even the difficulty of the install would prevent me from ever doing this mod, but the stock smic was just not enough for my EvoIII 16g. Rather than continue to drive on a heatsoaked smic, I decided the $300 was worth it for a new smile and less of a risk of knocking my engine to death.

The total cost for the project came in just over $300. The core was $215 shipped from JohnnyRacecar.com (core dimensions 2.75x7.75x25, not including endtanks, 2.25" inlet/outlet). 5 couplers and clamps cost me another $30 shipped on ebay, and 3 mandrel 2.25" U-bends of aluminized steel piping cost $60 shipped from JC Whitney. Then I spent another $20 or so on miscellaneous items like paint for the pipes, having one piece of straight pipe welded to a ubend at a muffler shop. All in all, $310 for a full fmic that has made 500hp on other customers' cars is good enough for me.

I did not bead any pipes, just tightened the clamps very carefully and very tightly--no blown couplers at 20 psi. Needless to say, I did 5 or 6 hard pulls (never exceeding the speedlimit, of course, and certainly not doubling or tripling it) on the way home from my buddy's at 3 a.m. When I got back to my house, the inlet side of the IC was warm to the touch, but the outlet was nice and cool, just as everyone who reviewed it in the past has said :)

I just wanted to share that I am very pleased with the results of this purchase, and to encourage those of you who do not have a lot of money to spend toward an intercooler setup. It can be done well for a fraction of what most vendors want for a kit.

You can see that, although we did trim about an inch wide strip from the inside of the bottom of the front bumper cover, it still presses against the endtanks of the intercooler. I actually kind of like it--it doesn't look SO much like the smiley; to me it looks like a subtle cross between the smiley and the 97+ Talon front 8) Feel free to give praise/criticisms.

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looks good man! i think the addition of a FMIC really brings out the look of a dsm, and fills up the empty space in front of the condenser and radiator..
 
looks good.. nice pics and that diagram..

contemplating getting the JR Race FMIC Kit myself.. not talented and basically lazy to just get a core and do the piping myself.. LOL anybody have any reviews on the big Race kit.. the core thereis much bigger than the Big Greddy FMIC i have now right?
 
about time 1

very nice smile you have there! tartar control crest??? :D

too much hennessy excuse me
 
RedTurboEclipse said:
looks good.. nice pics and that diagram..

contemplating getting the JR Race FMIC Kit myself.. not talented and basically lazy to just get a core and do the piping myself.. LOL anybody have any reviews on the big Race kit.. the core thereis much bigger than the Big Greddy FMIC i have now right?

I run JR's race FMIC kit(theres a pic of my car on the site) I love it, I couldn't recommend it enough. The quality is great and even if I boost my car in hot weather the IC is always cool to the touch.

As for size, it's about an inch longer then my friend Greddy and I think a bit taller, although it is thinner.

Also you can keep the stock fogs.
 
turbodsm90 said:
very nice smile you have there! tartar control crest???

too much hennessy excuse me

LOL...you're excused. And actually it's Ultrabright :p

Do you all think the bumper looks weird? My buddies are trying to convince me to take the bumper back off and trim the parts of the bumper cover where it meets the endtanks. You can see that there are small humps that look different than the normal smiley right at the endtanks:
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^Mine
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^Other guy's with normal bumper. He has his fmic mounted really, really high though.
 
Which intercooler did you buy off of Johnnyracecar? I plan on doing somethign similar to this. Thanks alot for sharing. Do you have a pics of the I/C on but with the bumper off?
Did you have to cut the bumper support? How much of a differance did you feel with it on?

Thanks
 
talontsi97 said:
Which intercooler did you buy off of Johnnyracecar? I plan on doing somethign similar to this. Thanks alot for sharing. Do you have a pics of the I/C on but with the bumper off?

This is the 8" core with offset inlets. $215 shipped in very high quality packaging, with all mounting brackets and hardware included.

I don't have pics of the car with the bumper off, unfortunately. There are plenty of pics on this site (especially in the very long JohnnyRacecar thread) of the way people have chosen to mount their ICs. This is one gallery of images I found very helpful:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2166295093

I chose to mount the intercooler a bit lower than the core in that gallery; the brackets extended about 1"-1.5" below the part of the frame that they were screwed into, and then the IC sat on these brackets.

This pic is from the tech article, and it is what I based my shortroute piping on. I had to go beneath the frame with my piping, so it is a big longer than this setup.
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talontsi97 said:
Did you have to cut the bumper support? How much of a differance did you feel with it on?

OH yeah, the bumper support had to be cut. The 8" core is just too tall (and wide) to get away without doing it--and I mounted mine fairly low on the car. I also put the power steering cooler (big metal loop in front of the radiator) behind its support bracket, then attached the bracket that holds it to its support bracket from the back. This enabled me to mount the IC as far back as possible, and not dent fins on the backside with the metal loop.

There was little difference in performance right away; the advantage of a fmic cannot be fully experienced until you tune the car correctly to utilize the fmic's capabilities. So, at first all I noticed was a tad more lag because of the bigger volume of air for the turbo to pressurize. Now that I've tuned a few pulls, I am getting better timing and less knock, which has improved performance quite a bit. Every time I feel the intercooler, regardless of how many pulls I've done, the outlet side is very cool.

Overall I'm still very pleased with this intercooler. The whole experience was top-notch.
 
hey im still on the stock t-25 but id ive been thinking about getting a johnnyracecar intercooler for a bit i was goign to get the 6 inch version would i still have to cut the bumper support or get rid of any of the a/c componets with just the 6in version... hopefully ill feel some power free up since that stock side mount is pretty crappy.. then again so it the t-25 but i dont have money to upgrade that now
 
I didnt have to mod the crash bumper at all to get my JR/ETS 7" street kit to fit right. In fact the IC came with tabs to affix it to the bottom of the crash bumper. :)

A/C condensor had to come out, along with the two aluminum A/C lines that come directly off of it. (get the A/C properly purged first). This is easy since all you have to do is pull both radiator fans out, undo the two radiator latches, and kink the upper radiator hose so you can tilt radiator back a few inches. A/C condensor is affixed with two bolts at the top, and out it comes.

Some of you will bi*** about wanting to keep your A/C but all I can say is that I was not happy at all with the way the install went before i decided to pull the AC crap out of the way. There are major clearance issues with the short route piping and with the endtanks bumping up against the AC lines that do the 180* bend where they meet the condensor. Before I took it all out i also could not get the piping and core to sit low enough to clear the 5mph crash bumper: the AC lines that run through the core support were too much in the way.

For those of you with larger kits that basically require you to shit-can the crash bumper, you wont have to worry as much about getting the piping as low as possible since you wont need to tuck the core under the crash bumper, but it will still be a cluster #### with the A/C lines. If you do alot of urban/city prowling I would be very wary of losing the crash beam...one 5 mph tap from some dumb SUV driving broad on her cell phone and your shiney new IC core is now a wadded up soda can. OMG OMG OMG

Hood latch support bracket also came out on my install...was too close to rubbing up against the back of the core for my liking. Not a big big deal if you trash it, just dont be doing the 3-foot hood drops to look cool in the parking lot anymore.
 
DO they still sell these I/C on ebay?
Where can i get a 7" jrc intercooler i dont see them listed on there site.
The ets i/c is the same company as JRC? where can i look at these?
Thanks for the help
 
talontsi97 said:
DO they still sell these I/C on ebay?
Where can i get a 7" jrc intercooler i dont see them listed on there site.
The ets i/c is the same company as JRC? where can i look at these?
Thanks for the help

No, ETS (extreme turbo systems) is a small company owned by a guy named JR Perrott in Vancouver, WA:

http://www.extremeintercoolers.com

I picked up one of his 7" street kits and am pretty happy with it, only a couple minor nitpicks I would change on it if i had designed it. At $675 its def. one of the better values right now. All in all seems to work as advertised.

JRC (Johnny Race) I dont have any firsthand experience with. I dont think they make full kits, just cores, although I heard they do offer DSM-specific cores at this point.
 
ihave had this kit for about 3 months let me give future buyers some advice:

primer and paint the mouting brackets the steel rust over very quick. i live in SoCAL and the mounting brackets are already covered in a fine rust. If you live in a state where its rains and snows alot PLEASE primer and paint ur brackets :thumb:
 
DSMSpyder99 said:
ihave had this kit for about 3 months let me give future buyers some advice:

primer and paint the mouting brackets the steel rust over very quick. i live in SoCAL and the mounting brackets are already covered in a fine rust. If you live in a state where its rains and snows alot PLEASE primer and paint ur brackets :thumb:

I don't know when you bought your kit, but Tyrus now includes a note in the package telling the customer to paint the brackets to prevent rust. It's a 10 minute hassle, but no biggie. I think it is remarkable that he can afford to include brackets and mounting hardware with his core for $215 shipped to your door. Great deal.
 
Yeah, I wish I could keep my fog lights. But that isnt happening. I have a 97+ bumber sitting in my garage waiting for paint, but it wont allow me to use the stock foglights on that bumber either. The price you pay big fmic. Here is a pic with the 97+ bumber and my sig has one without. :dsm:

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This is probably not new, but I got an idea and it works perfect. Save on money, takes two seconds and anyone can do it. Instead of beeding the ends, I did this. Before they kept blowing off no matter how hard I tightened the couplers. After this, no problem what so ever. Just thought I would give a heads up, if anyone has done this or heard of ill effects, let me know. I have not researched it at all yet. Hope this helps!
 

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I met jr at a run this year and they have all kinds of intercoolers, I also believe they have piping, if not they are available from his friends at english racing. I think that is englishracing.net.
 
SexyGsX said:
This is probably not new, but I got an idea and it works perfect. Save on money, takes two seconds and anyone can do it. Instead of beeding the ends, I did this. Before they kept blowing off no matter how hard I tightened the couplers. After this, no problem what so ever. Just thought I would give a heads up, if anyone has done this or heard of ill effects, let me know. I have not researched it at all yet. Hope this helps!
thats just a ghetto flare you did to the pipes. it works, but its ghetto. :thumb:
 
i phene for ghetto flair



im getting ready to put a jr fmic on my colt, all of my friends with turbo hatches and crx's and coupes etc,we all run them because there cheap and never had a problem,there going 11.52 @ 129 all the time,so the intercoolers are helping somewhere

i know im putting one on my colt 2night
 
when you do the fmic on the colt be sure to post pics, im interested in a similar setup
 
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