Performance SMIC

[Dane]

Whilst sitting in the waiting room @ Vagtech I was reading some performance vw magazine where Jon, the owner of Vagtech, had k04'd a mkIV gti. and instead of opting for a FMIC he installed two performance SMIC the reason being better airflow (through the front of the bumper and out through the wheel arch.

What are peoples thoughts on this?

Obviously the FMIC's on the higher performance s3's on the forum seem to work fine, is there any point in looking into it further if you get perfectly good performance from FMIC? perhaps it would be easier installation wise? Thinking out loud really.

 

[S3 Paul]

I wouldnt bother to be honest,
The golf has a side mount intercooler as standard and forge do an uprated side mount for this car...
BUT the costs will be high as an "off the shelf" kit would be costly, A good front mount kit can be put together for anything from £250 upto about £450 ( mine cost me around £280 after having the pipe work made)

 

[finesse]

Is it not the position of the smic that make it inefficient?

 

[S3 Paul]

I think its both to be honest.
surface area and the location

 

[superkarl]

i dont see a problem with the location, they have two huge scoops going to them. its the coolers themselves rather than placement.

 

[sportstractor]

If I were to upgrade I would rather better smic's, I dont believe there position is bad, The airflow seems quite good. FMICs arnt exactly discreet either

 

[Dane]

If I were to upgrade I would rather better smic's, I dont believe there position is bad, The airflow seems quite good. FMICs arnt exactly discreet either

Im starting to think about getting an IC of some sort, I thought that fitting could be a bit easier if you could get performance SMIC. i.e not having to modify the crash bar, being, perhaps, able to run bigger piping without loosing the fogs. The arguement for airflow that the magazine used is that the SMIC has a better flow of air as it can flow in through the bumper and out the wheel arch easier (they say) than an FMIC behind which is the radiator etc.

I dont imagine it will be particularly cost effective, but it was an idea to bounce around to see what people thought

 

[Imteyaz]

I recently purchased and fitted a Eurojet SMIC to my A3 1.8T from a group buy set up on UKMKIV's (£220 delivered form USA). Whilst I don't drive my car 'like I stole it', I do have the occassional blast with it. With the new SMIC, it takes more abuse before it heatsoaks, unfortunately I have no previous or post VCDS logs to prove anything except a 'seat of my pants analysis', which is proof enough (for me).

Positives:

• Easy to fit, very little trimming of the cold air duct is required as the SMIC is wider than OE, otherwise it's a straight forward like for like fit. No other brackets / pipes etc required.
• 'Bar and plate' design - I haven't a clue about what that means but have been told it's a more efficient type of cooler, dunno what the OE cooler type is.
• Cheap(ish) - whilst you can get FMIC's from the likes of AH for similar money, there will always be a fair amount of work involved in getting it to fit right, for A3 owners we face a harder challenge due to the positioning of the inlet being on the left hand side as opposed to the 'in one end, out the other' design on the S3's. There are work arounds and people have made them fit but it's not as easy as fitting an upgraded SMIC.

Negatives:

• It's never gonna be as good as an FMIC fullstop. Eventually it's gonna heatsoak, but if like me you don't push it hard everytime you drive it, it's more than adequate. If your looking at big turbo at some stage, save your pennies and get a FMIC instead.

Hope that helps,

 

[finesse]

interesting thread

 

[scoobyra]

I found this VWVortex.com - ****Boost Factory Side Mount intercooler********

 

[Dane]

I will ad, Im not sure if I made it clear, but the idea would be to replace both of the SMICs on my s3 with performance ones.

In trying to learn from Speedy Steve's and Welly's experiences when swapping to a hybrid turbo I would quite like to go with larger intercooler pipe work, but im not mad on loosing the fogs. Larger piping can be run without loosing fogs but it seems like a massive PITA, and if performance SMIC's could be installed with relatively little work fixings wise, with larger piping (keeping the fogs) for less than the Forge one Id be pretty interested (assuming they performed well).

 

[scoobyra]

I'm not sure if they do RH/LH versions as it looks like you need to log in to there site

 

[Imteyaz]

I don't think Eurojet make them for the S3's, also, the A3's intercoolers have their MAP sensors mounted on the SMIC so even if you did get one to fit using the A3 variety, you would still need to block the port off.

 

[s3dave]

Or do what i did and keep the 2 smic,s and add a slender fmic with no modification to the crash bar and keep the fogs...
63mm pipework

 

[S3Steve]

HPA Motorsports in the states do a pair of performance side mount intercoolers for the tt/r32 which would fit the S3, but they dont come cheap.

HPA Motorsports Inc. - Competition Side Mount Intercoolers