A friend of mine purchased this kit to install on his 91 talon and let me tell you that my first impression of this was WOW!!! So far everything looks great. Truly a beautifully looking inter-cooler. Although the BOV flange is a bit on the thick side (half inch thick) all the welds are a work of art. The polish job done to the SS end tanks look OK but you can still see some lines from the polish wheel, I'm sure they should come out with a little work. Also it does need to be said that you can defiantly tell this thing isn't aluminum by the weight, it is a weights a ton.
Otherwise it looks really good for that i give the finish 5 stars out of 5
Tech support...
Upon opening the box the owner found that the TB elbow was not in the kit and there are NO INSTRUCTIONS at all..... We have sent SBR a couple of E-mails regarding the TB elbow and have yet to get this issue resolved but i don't see why this will be a problem. Being active duty military i can not just pick up the phone in the middle of the day to make a call and my lunch brakes are almost non existent so that makes it even more difficult to get hold of someone. My friend has managed to get hold on someone this past weekend, unfortunately all he was told was that we needed to call back during the week because "shipping was not in on the weekend"... WTF. Also, while i can understand their reasoning i do believe their return policy for products like this needs to be re-thought a little. If the product has been totally hacked up then there really is no argument, but when there is major fitment issues and it is only small scratches there should some sort of allowance for return.
For these issues I give tech support for this product 2 out of 5
Now for the fun stuff..... The install...
First a quote from SBR website
"Within almost a month of releasing our 1G big front mount kit, the emails started to roll in asking for a street core utilizing a bar and plate core. Well it took longer than expected, but they are finally finished.
Utilizing a Spearco core from Turbonetics, this front mount core measures in at 24" long, 7.75" high, and 3.5" wide. This slightly smaller size makes fitments a piece of cake and you can retain your stock bumper support by cutting a small notch on its lower side. Stock fog lights can also be retained, but you will have to tweak the fog light mounting brackets very slightly.
Be ready upon ordering for what blow off valve flange you need welded on. All piping included is stainless and makes welding a synch."
This cant be any further from the truth... This install has been the biggest PITA and I have started to wounder if it was even meant to be installed on a 91 talon at all. With no instructions we have had to guess where this thing mounts and where the holes need to be enlarged. Quick side note.... The owner of the car decided to do an AC delete even here in Las Vegas with plans to take the car back to Wisconsin. Now I am glad he did as I don't think this would have fit trough the holes on the sides of the radiator support with the power steering and AC lines in place. It looks as though there are 5 mounting tabs on this inter-cooler. One on top directly in the center that may be goes in the small notch in the lower side of the crash beam which I assume they call the bumper support, one on either side just above each tube that look to mount on the studs that hold the crash beam in place, and two on the bottom which look to bolt to the bottom of the radiator support where two of the four holes are for the lower plastic shields mount. We started by trying to mount the two tabs above the tubes. After spending about two hours cutting the holes up on either side of the radiator support we were able to line up the tabs and mark them for drilling. The first thing we found was that it looked like there was no way around removing the coolant over flow catch support. We then decided to see if the crash beam would install because something just didn't look right.... WOW, nowhere even close....this inter-cooler sits so far up that the crash beam wont get anywhere close to the mount studs...
After taking a brake and removing everything from the car we decided to try mounting the inter-cooler to the crash beam and see where everything fits. So after cutting a small notch about an inch and a half wide in the bottom center of the beam and committing to keeping the inter-cooler, we drilled our first to holes and tried mounting it to the car.... Yea Right...Again nowhere even close.... It put the inter-cooler in such a place on the car that the pipes no longer lined up with the holes on either side of the radiator support. This also caused the crash beam to sit out to far to mount it to the car.
We then removed the inter-cooler from the beam and were able to set everything in a place so that we could step back and "See" what needed to be done. We had the crash beam bolted in and the inter cooler as close to being in that there was no way it would work. With the inter-cooler just set in place (a weird place at that) this is what we found. There was no way to mount this beast of an "Street Inter-cooler" without seriously modifying something. With it mounted to the crash beam, and assuming the pipes fit into the car correctly we would have had to cut off about 60% of the front bumper cover to make it fit not to mention that the inter-cooler hung down almost 2 inches below the bumper cover. With some of the speed bumps in his apartment complex there was no way that would have worked. If we had decided to remove the crash beam and install the inter-cooler in its place i believe it would have been alright however I don't believe we would have been able to mount the front bumper cover back on the car without making a custom mount for it. This would also make the car illegal to drive on the street, although if this inter-cooler mounted to both studs on either side of the car instead of just of just one i am sure it would make a fine crash beam by its self.
After debating selling this for a loss and picking up something else, we decided to give it one more chance and see if we could make it work. As of this moment I am waiting for my rotozip to migrate back to my house so that we can make some more modifications. Final install looks to be that we have the inter-cooler mounted to the car on the studs where the crash been goes and we will be modifying the crash beam to fit over the inter-cooler. While I don't believe this is the best thing in the world something is better that nothing. I will get more pictures today of the install. We did have to completely remove the overflow catch bracket and will have to mount something somewhere to take its place.
Overall. Install was a PITA no instructions and the lack of installed pictures for this inter cooler on the Internet made this very difficult. 1 out of 5 stars
Turbo "J pipe"
Very nice and looks to be very well constructed. The welds are every bit as good as what is done on the inter-cooler. The only issue I have with this piece is that you may want to pick up a stud for the install under the pipe. I used allen bolts for this and will need to cut down an allen wrench to tighten the bolt. With an allen barley clearing the pipe I am not sure that a regular bolt will so a stud might make it a little easier. otherwise very nice.
5 out of 5
Couple things to note about this install/review. First, we do have the following items removed from the car radiator, AC, and engine/transmission. This has made the install easier, with those installed I think we would have given up a long time ago. So far I think we have a total of about 9 hours trying to get this installed and we haven't finished yet. Second, this has been my first experience with a 1G DSM. I don't know if the eclipse crash beam are any different but if they are then that might help.
A couple of suggestions I will make to SBR is that the driver side pipe needs to be moved toward the center of the car by about a quarter of an inch as it is squishing the wiring harness on that side of the car and I an not sure i will be able to get the silicone elbow all the way on. I think it is safe to say that they should be able to knock off almost 2 inches from the height on the core and make the install a little easier, again I don't know if this will apply to the eclipses or newer 1G cars but I will defiantly let them know of our problems. Also one of the two lower tabs is off by about a quarter of an inch and the tab on the passenger side that mounts to the frame has already started to crack in the bend. I think the bend is a little to sharp for SS, and the tab in the center top on the inter-cooler can probably go as it is doing nothing. Also not a big deal but the pipe that runs between the inter-cooler and the TB is aluminum... not sure what that is all about but when SBR clams that all the piping is SS.....Whatever. For the price of nearing $800 I would think that you would see a couple of things, the J-pipe included in the kit and may be an option to have a sensor bung welded to the inter-cooler pipe for an IAT sensor to be mounted. with ECMlink v3 out and SD on the way/ready it would make things a little easier.
Over all this has a gorgeous look to it but i don't think I would do the install again unless this was on a race car or show car that doesn't require a crash beam. 2 out of 5 stars
Hope this helps someone with making a decision this experience has taught me that if you have a 91 talon street car, you might want to consider something else for an inter-cooler.
Otherwise it looks really good for that i give the finish 5 stars out of 5
Tech support...
Upon opening the box the owner found that the TB elbow was not in the kit and there are NO INSTRUCTIONS at all..... We have sent SBR a couple of E-mails regarding the TB elbow and have yet to get this issue resolved but i don't see why this will be a problem. Being active duty military i can not just pick up the phone in the middle of the day to make a call and my lunch brakes are almost non existent so that makes it even more difficult to get hold of someone. My friend has managed to get hold on someone this past weekend, unfortunately all he was told was that we needed to call back during the week because "shipping was not in on the weekend"... WTF. Also, while i can understand their reasoning i do believe their return policy for products like this needs to be re-thought a little. If the product has been totally hacked up then there really is no argument, but when there is major fitment issues and it is only small scratches there should some sort of allowance for return.
For these issues I give tech support for this product 2 out of 5
Now for the fun stuff..... The install...
First a quote from SBR website
"Within almost a month of releasing our 1G big front mount kit, the emails started to roll in asking for a street core utilizing a bar and plate core. Well it took longer than expected, but they are finally finished.
Utilizing a Spearco core from Turbonetics, this front mount core measures in at 24" long, 7.75" high, and 3.5" wide. This slightly smaller size makes fitments a piece of cake and you can retain your stock bumper support by cutting a small notch on its lower side. Stock fog lights can also be retained, but you will have to tweak the fog light mounting brackets very slightly.
Be ready upon ordering for what blow off valve flange you need welded on. All piping included is stainless and makes welding a synch."
This cant be any further from the truth... This install has been the biggest PITA and I have started to wounder if it was even meant to be installed on a 91 talon at all. With no instructions we have had to guess where this thing mounts and where the holes need to be enlarged. Quick side note.... The owner of the car decided to do an AC delete even here in Las Vegas with plans to take the car back to Wisconsin. Now I am glad he did as I don't think this would have fit trough the holes on the sides of the radiator support with the power steering and AC lines in place. It looks as though there are 5 mounting tabs on this inter-cooler. One on top directly in the center that may be goes in the small notch in the lower side of the crash beam which I assume they call the bumper support, one on either side just above each tube that look to mount on the studs that hold the crash beam in place, and two on the bottom which look to bolt to the bottom of the radiator support where two of the four holes are for the lower plastic shields mount. We started by trying to mount the two tabs above the tubes. After spending about two hours cutting the holes up on either side of the radiator support we were able to line up the tabs and mark them for drilling. The first thing we found was that it looked like there was no way around removing the coolant over flow catch support. We then decided to see if the crash beam would install because something just didn't look right.... WOW, nowhere even close....this inter-cooler sits so far up that the crash beam wont get anywhere close to the mount studs...
After taking a brake and removing everything from the car we decided to try mounting the inter-cooler to the crash beam and see where everything fits. So after cutting a small notch about an inch and a half wide in the bottom center of the beam and committing to keeping the inter-cooler, we drilled our first to holes and tried mounting it to the car.... Yea Right...Again nowhere even close.... It put the inter-cooler in such a place on the car that the pipes no longer lined up with the holes on either side of the radiator support. This also caused the crash beam to sit out to far to mount it to the car.
We then removed the inter-cooler from the beam and were able to set everything in a place so that we could step back and "See" what needed to be done. We had the crash beam bolted in and the inter cooler as close to being in that there was no way it would work. With the inter-cooler just set in place (a weird place at that) this is what we found. There was no way to mount this beast of an "Street Inter-cooler" without seriously modifying something. With it mounted to the crash beam, and assuming the pipes fit into the car correctly we would have had to cut off about 60% of the front bumper cover to make it fit not to mention that the inter-cooler hung down almost 2 inches below the bumper cover. With some of the speed bumps in his apartment complex there was no way that would have worked. If we had decided to remove the crash beam and install the inter-cooler in its place i believe it would have been alright however I don't believe we would have been able to mount the front bumper cover back on the car without making a custom mount for it. This would also make the car illegal to drive on the street, although if this inter-cooler mounted to both studs on either side of the car instead of just of just one i am sure it would make a fine crash beam by its self.
After debating selling this for a loss and picking up something else, we decided to give it one more chance and see if we could make it work. As of this moment I am waiting for my rotozip to migrate back to my house so that we can make some more modifications. Final install looks to be that we have the inter-cooler mounted to the car on the studs where the crash been goes and we will be modifying the crash beam to fit over the inter-cooler. While I don't believe this is the best thing in the world something is better that nothing. I will get more pictures today of the install. We did have to completely remove the overflow catch bracket and will have to mount something somewhere to take its place.
Overall. Install was a PITA no instructions and the lack of installed pictures for this inter cooler on the Internet made this very difficult. 1 out of 5 stars
Turbo "J pipe"
Very nice and looks to be very well constructed. The welds are every bit as good as what is done on the inter-cooler. The only issue I have with this piece is that you may want to pick up a stud for the install under the pipe. I used allen bolts for this and will need to cut down an allen wrench to tighten the bolt. With an allen barley clearing the pipe I am not sure that a regular bolt will so a stud might make it a little easier. otherwise very nice.
5 out of 5
Couple things to note about this install/review. First, we do have the following items removed from the car radiator, AC, and engine/transmission. This has made the install easier, with those installed I think we would have given up a long time ago. So far I think we have a total of about 9 hours trying to get this installed and we haven't finished yet. Second, this has been my first experience with a 1G DSM. I don't know if the eclipse crash beam are any different but if they are then that might help.
A couple of suggestions I will make to SBR is that the driver side pipe needs to be moved toward the center of the car by about a quarter of an inch as it is squishing the wiring harness on that side of the car and I an not sure i will be able to get the silicone elbow all the way on. I think it is safe to say that they should be able to knock off almost 2 inches from the height on the core and make the install a little easier, again I don't know if this will apply to the eclipses or newer 1G cars but I will defiantly let them know of our problems. Also one of the two lower tabs is off by about a quarter of an inch and the tab on the passenger side that mounts to the frame has already started to crack in the bend. I think the bend is a little to sharp for SS, and the tab in the center top on the inter-cooler can probably go as it is doing nothing. Also not a big deal but the pipe that runs between the inter-cooler and the TB is aluminum... not sure what that is all about but when SBR clams that all the piping is SS.....Whatever. For the price of nearing $800 I would think that you would see a couple of things, the J-pipe included in the kit and may be an option to have a sensor bung welded to the inter-cooler pipe for an IAT sensor to be mounted. with ECMlink v3 out and SD on the way/ready it would make things a little easier.
Over all this has a gorgeous look to it but i don't think I would do the install again unless this was on a race car or show car that doesn't require a crash beam. 2 out of 5 stars
Hope this helps someone with making a decision this experience has taught me that if you have a 91 talon street car, you might want to consider something else for an inter-cooler.
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