I fitted my Airtec Stage 2 intercooler from the group buy I secured today along with Doogie from here who very kindly offered to let me use his place so we could do them both and have a spare pair of hands each. Doogie actually started his the night before with his mate and had made good headway already by the time I arrived this morning which actually was kinda fortunate for me as he'd already run into the few snags which made it easier 2nd time around.
100% a job for two people, one person could not do this on their own, you really need to extra hands to support bits and what not.
Mine went fairly smoothly, headlight plugs were a mare, getting the bolts/holes to line up on the new cooler on the left hand side was fiddly and required a little trimming to the lower radiator mounting bracket. Some of the holes dont look like they will line up but they do if you are methodical and only screw stuff in a bit at a time then move on to another corner.
Make sure you keep all fittings together in groups in bags or in a multi section tray, there's so many. One things that's not included with the kit is two M10 x 100 bolts, they are really useful, you replace one of the chassis leg bolts at each side with one of these first then remove the other 6, as they're so long it allows you to move all the rads out while supporting them and makes it much easier to disconnect stuff.
Getting the old IC out and new one in is tight, be careful not to bend the AC rad pipes.
We were on a tight schedule as i had to get back to Glasgow to pick up my wee boy from Nursery so not many pics im afraid but a couple here to give you an idea of the amount that needs removed, this was the point where I was kinda like omg what have i done to my car lol
We took maybe 2 hours to finish the second half of Doogies then mine took 3 hours total, not too bad, if I was doing it again 3 hours should see the job through with two people.
My drive home was rush hour so no chance to give it a blast but this evening I also fitted my Loba HPFP and ive had the car out for a good run tonight, baring in mind I'm only shark stage 1 with intake, cooler and now HPFP but honestly, it's like a different car I'm quite gobsmacked, the increase in mid-range torque is 100% noticible compared to before fitting them both and it pulls earlier, harder, longer and smoother than before fitting, no doubt about it. Feels to me if I had to guess like 30-40 ft/lb more torque over the modest 290 ft/lb I run a few weeks back, cant wait to get them mapped in now.
Unfortunately I cant tell if that's the cooler, the HPFP or both, I suspect the latter, would have been nice to RR it after just fitting the cooler but didnt make sense to throw another £70 at a dyno session just to see, sorry guys.
Big thanks again to Doogie, cracking lad and very decent of him to have me over, oh and his car's an absoloute weapon lol