4g61t.org

After reading as many posts as I could search, it seems to me there is no mods required to add an intercooler save for the plumbing. Is this correct? I picked up a Saab 900 intercooler, that is nice and compact, and will fit on the non-rad half just nicely.

Will the intercooler make a difference in power, or just make sure the air is cooler, less detonation risk, etc...?

An intercooler will lower the temperature of the air entering your motor......there is both a performance and safety reason to have one. A turbo will push some hot air after it's been boosting, just having a turbo generates much heat in the engine bay....so the point of using an intercooler is to reduce the charged air temperature to as close to ambient (outside) temperature or better.

By the way....it's experiment to perfection when it comes to aftermarket intercoolers and getting them mounted. I don't believe anyone sells Colt/Mirage specific intercoolers.

Make sure that you include a blow-off valve on your piping.

Well not totally correct. You will have to build your own piping and probably make modifications to your intake pipe. I'm not sure if the C10's come with a BOV from the factory, but if they don't you will want to add one. Having an intercooler will increase airflow, and that will require more fuel. If you don't have an upgraded fuel pump it would be a good idea to do that too, because you will be able to run a bit more boost with the addition of an intercooler.

no they dont have a BOV on C10's
and you dont need one because of the size of turbo
but if you do add one make sure it resurculates back into the intake pipe
for the turbo after the mass airflow sensor

if you get an HKS SSQV or similar blow off, you don't have to recirculate but you will get crappy gas mileage if you don't recirc. the hks ssqv has some sort of smart valve that closes when you're coming to idle so the car doesn't stall. you WILL need a BOV for the c10 because if you don't you run the risk of blowing your couplers off. if you don't release the back pressure from the shutting of the throttle plate, the press. will find another way out, usually the weakest point which is your couplers. Atleast that's what happened to me all the time.

14 psi with an intercooler and NO BOV is my setup
there are RB26's running about 18psi with a gt30r with no BOV. and there road racing so

there is a reason mitsu didnt put one on the car in the first place

i drove my mirage for 10 years with a blow off valve blowing out side, with no side effect but recirculating the air will hellp spool the turbo

It's not that it helps spool the turbo, it's just how the car was MEANT to be from the factory. When you vent to the atmosphere you're letting out air that's already been metered, so the car will run pig rich for that split second that the air is escaping. It's like you're letting yourself have a huge boost leak for that small period of time just so you can have a cool sounding BOV. The car drives so much better when you have it circulating back in.

im running 14 psi with a mx6/probe front mount. with a apexi BOV and a hacked air box. runs fine. sometimes after a hard pull, it might back fire a little, but thats typical of ANY MAF/VAF equipped car with a bov

You should also be a little cautious when using factory intercoolers. Most of them on "economy" turbo cars (volvos, saabs, audi ETC.) don't flow all that well as opposed to "performance" turbo cars (Evos). Will a smaller intercooler you won't see as much as a pressure drop than a huge one but you may see some restriction.

Your manifold pressure may read 14psi, but your turbo is going to have to shove 16psi and work harder for that 14 that your manifold "sees" <--Over simplified example, DON'T QUOTE ME.

That being said, the stock 1G IC are far from the best, and an upgraded unit would definitely help depending on what you're using the vehicle for. (Road, Track, Drag, Autocross)

I have a wastegate on the car that works just fine, are we using "wastegate" and "blow-off valve" interchangeably? The wastegate (maybe it is because I work for CAT) runs a hardline pipe up to the intake, and you can hear the exhale when you jump off the gas pedal, so I know the wastegate works fine.

If I do need a Blow off valve in addition to the stock wastegate, where would one mount it? Close to the TB or to the Turbo? And how do you wire the BOV so that it knows when to open? Sounds like a pain to me... Judging by the amount of people here with intercoolers (aftercoolers) and NOT using a BOV, I might just take my chances.

If it is not -40 this weekend and I can get some time, i will drop the thing in, post some pics, that sort of thing...

the factory probe/mx6 intercooler was supposedly tested to flow better then the conquest one.

i can say this, going from my 1g dsm side mount, to my probe/mx6 one, was a VAST improvement. of course with the probe/mx6 one, i also was able to lose over 2 foot of piping that i had to run with the DSM side mount. in all truth, i never was even slightly impressed with the dsm side mount though. IMO it wasnt worth the work to install it. considering how much easier to install and larger the mx6 one is.

my probe/mx6 intercooler doesnt have even a full foot of intercooler piping. its so tits how nice it fits, and was EXTREMELY easy to install.


here's a few pic's of mine.







you can see, when i redid my intercooler set up, i also got rid of the rubber boot from the MAF to the turbo, and did it in mandrel bent hard pipe's also. It could have been done alot nicer, but i did this entire project not spending a SINGLE CENT. lol. everything was parts i had sitting around the garage with no use. even the slimline fan, and dual stage boost controller were left over from my turbo mower that never needed either.

I saw a MX6/Probe intercooler at the pick n pull, but it looks like a major payne to remove, and the SAAB one looks incredibly similar, and I already have it! The SAAB one also came with a hard pipe elbow that will line everything up well for me. I guess you just take the stock pipe that runs from the turbo the throttle body and hack it in half, and then join the bottom half to the IC and the other half to the outlet of the IC.

you have to pull the bumper cover off on the mx6/probe to get at them, but still only takes about 15 minutes to do. best part about the probe/mx6 one is there is no fab work at all. drill two holes int he brackets it already has, and screw it on. really really easy. i did have to hack the inlet and outlet a little cause they went into the engine bay more then i wanted. you can see i have very short piping ran, which makes a massive difference.

and you are correct on installing the intercooler. keep in mind you want to run as short pipe as possible. and if you on a stock turbo, dont go with some massive 2.5 inch piping, cause its gonna hurt it, alot more then help it.

here's some pictures of my 1st gen DSM intercooler.













Note that it sits in the spot where my A/C condenser used to sit. I didn't have to take off the bumper or anything. The only problem I ran into was rain going directly into the engine bay but I eventually make a block off plate for the right part of the front grill. Also, I ran an HKS SSQV that sat on the pipe right before the throttle body (after i took these pictures). You just run the vacuum line for it to one of your vacuum tubes on the back of your intake manifold.

Of course you hear people running 30psi on their supra's with no BOV, etc etc. Like I said before, the main reason I ran a BOV was because I kept popping off the coupler to the turbo. All the pressure that comes back toward the turbo when your throttle closes has to go some where. That was the weakest point for my set up because you only have a little bit of surface area to work with for the turbo outlet.

Additionally, am I wrong in saying that wastegate and bov are NOT interchangeable? A wastegate, if I'm not mistake bleeds off excess pressure to protect the turbo from boosting too much. A Blow-off valve relieves pressure that's headed back toward your turbo. The woosh sound you are hearing is compressor surge, not your wastegate acting like a BOV. Compressor surge is bad friends.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.