Audi S3 Front Mount Intercooler

[DaveS3 2016]

To throw my thoughts in - I searched and searched for ways to mount my intercooler with silicone pipes (and retain fogs) and it's just not worth it. It's too hard and wouldn't look as good anyway.

I googled fabricators in my area and bought hard pipes. I bunged the guy £20 to weld the hard pipes on once I had measured up and it was ideal (although I won't mention the fact I measured it wrong the first time and had to go back ) Then painted it black.

The silicone pipes higher up in the bay were a doddle as there's buckets of room up there.

Dave


This wasn't the finished article btw !!!....

 

[mark_S3]

Custom Fabricated Toyosport Cooler. 76mm exits cut off and 63mm pipework fabricated to suit bumper, toe eye point, fogs and grilles (tbh you will notice I haven't retained fogs as Ive never personally liked them, but can assure you they can be refitted).

This custom work took a good few hours to mock up before any fabricating was done.



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[Stuart B]

good effort at rising the intercooler enough to avoid the fog grills ! did you also cut into the plastic around the radiators and have to mount the bumber out a bit from its normal locating lugs or set the radiator back / remove the oil cooler?

I have avoided the fogs but will need to trim the fog grills or just sell them and leave the pipes out. the bumper physically cannot get close enough to locate correctly unless you trim away some of the strength from the bumper and considering it is only held on properly on one side and by a single nut and bolt on the other I cant trim any more off.

 

[mark_S3]

good effort at rising the intercooler enough to avoid the fog grills ! did you also cut into the plastic around the radiators and have to mount the bumber out a bit from its normal locating lugs or set the radiator back / remove the oil cooler?

I have avoided the fogs but will need to trim the fog grills or just sell them and leave the pipes out. the bumper physically cannot get close enough to locate correctly unless you trim away some of the strength from the bumper and considering it is only held on properly on one side and by a single nut and bolt on the other I cant trim any more off.

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Only thing I had to trim was a few mm's of the back of the slats on the fog grilles so they fitted perfect. Bumper fits as it should.

The cooler was mounted so it accommodated all fixed items.

As you can see its the largest sized Toyosport Cooler as well (600x300x100 IIRC).

From start to finish it took 8 hours with a good few hours on mock up.

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[Stuart B]

so you did trim the grills - I was considering this too as I think I can fit the grills back on if they are trimmed, but they are like £50 each second hand and I didn't want to break them trying the trim them, did you use a dremel or similar? I only need to trim the bottom slates I can see why a hard pipe welded would.

it looks important to mount the intercooler raised as mine was lined up with the bottom of the other radiators.

 

[mark_S3]

so you did trim the grills - I was considering this too as I think I can fit the grills back on if they are trimmed, but they are like £50 each second hand and I didn't want to break them trying the trim them, did you use a dremel or similar? I only need to trim the bottom slates I can see why a hard pipe welded would.

it looks important to mount the intercooler raised as mine was lined up with the bottom of the other radiators.

I definitely wouldn't be paying £50 each for a grille in 2nd hand market. Feel like I've been robbed.

There only £42 each including VAT from Audi new. So shouldn't be paying no more than £20 for a 2nd hand.

To trim I used blade of a angle grinder and shaved a few mm's off.

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[Stuart B]

it goes to show its always worth checking for new - as there are no used ones on ebay (under Audi s3 8l fog grilles- hence why scrappies think its okay charging so much when they put them up for sale.

actually I checked and they are new ones for 45 on ebay - assuming they are the same as A3 8L I will look to trim I also had to take a leg off the fog light brackets

 

[mark_S3]

it goes to show its always worth checking for new - as there are no used ones on ebay (under Audi s3 8l fog grilles- hence why scrappies think its okay charging so much when they put them up for sale.

actually I checked and they are new ones for 45 on ebay - assuming they are the same as A3 8L I will look to trim I also had to take a leg off the fog light brackets

A3 grilles are different buddy....

Pay a visit to your local Audi Parts Department, TPS or use Parts Request on here....

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[Siondc]

I’m looking to fit a fmic on my S3, I’ve decided to go with a Toyosports black intercooler 550x225x64mm, with a universal 64mm pipe kit from Toyosports. Hopefully this would be good enough for stage1 and at under £150 can’t really complain. My understanding is that I will be replacing all the pipe work from hard pipe to throttle body. But I was looking the other day and noticed coming off my throttle body was a silicone pipe attached to a hard plastic pipe. On the hard plastic pipe there is, what looks like a temperature sensor. Is there an adapter I can buy to refit this into the new system or should I use the hard plastic pipe that’s there. My engines an amk. Would appreciate your thoughts on this or my overall fmic idea.

 

[Tj 0785]

Don't see why it wouldn't be good enough as a fmic isn't a must for stage 1

 

[Stuart B]

Hi, You don't have to go to the charge pipe you can join up to the first rubber hose behind the drivers headlight otherwise the pipes are awkward to fit behind the headlight. and you can connect to the plastic pipe rather than the throttle body - I think the sensor is a map sensor. there is an FMIC thread on here with lots of information (probably too much - it gets confusing to read what post relates to what FMIC solution)
Has the universal fitting kit got beaded hard pipes - otherwise like me you will find the hoses pop off (whilst you are driving) also you might find they are massive hard pipes and don't really fit, I ended up buying good quality individual 90 degree bends and short straight hard pipes with beads - other people have bought the correct 90 degree and 130 degree hard pipes plus a short hard pipe connector and short silicon connectors (consider the upside down fitment ? ) I have ended up with a box of useless silicon and hard pipes.

 

[mark_S3]

I’m looking to fit a fmic on my S3, I’ve decided to go with a Toyosports black intercooler 550x225x64mm, with a universal 64mm pipe kit from Toyosports. Hopefully this would be good enough for stage1 and at under £150 can’t really complain. My understanding is that I will be replacing all the pipe work from hard pipe to throttle body. But I was looking the other day and noticed coming off my throttle body was a silicone pipe attached to a hard plastic pipe. On the hard plastic pipe there is, what looks like a temperature sensor. Is there an adapter I can buy to refit this into the new system or should I use the hard plastic pipe that’s there. My engines an amk. Would appreciate your thoughts on this or my overall fmic idea.

The sensor you are referring to is the MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure)
Forge do a tube that replaces standard MAP Tube.
This comes with a flange that the sensor slots and bolts onto.
However some trimming to the battery tray is needed for it to fit.
I currently have one fitted. They do two sizes and I've using the longer one.

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[<tuffty/>]

On the hard plastic pipe there is, what looks like a temperature sensor. Is there an adapter I can buy to refit this into the new system or should I use the hard plastic pipe that’s there

Its the MAP sensor... there is no reason why you can't reuse this at the level of tune you plan but you can buy alloy tubes from Forge and no doubt various other places that have map sensor bosses in them... they just can be a bit awkward to feed past the battery...

<tuffty/>

 

[Siondc]

Cheers guys. I’ll route the pipe work from the existing rubber to the hard plastic pipe, also I’ll scrap the pipe kit as it doesn’t have beaded alloy pipes. As I can’t find a kit with beaded pipes, any definitive answers on what I need exactly, everyone seems to have different answers on the threads.

 

[Siondc]

Its the MAP sensor... there is no reason why you can't reuse this at the level of tune you plan but you can buy alloy tubes from Forge and no doubt various other places that have map sensor bosses in them... they just can be a bit awkward to feed past the battery...

<tuffty/>

At what sort of tuning level would you need to uprate this?

 

[Stuart B]

you will need to change the inside of the engine before you need to change that pipe. I did it wrong and first bought a universal kit which was nothing like what was needed, then I got an Focus ST kit which fit perfectly but was only rated at 1 bar - which was nonsense the silicon was cheap and burnt through and the pipes had no beads so the hoses popped off, and that's a nightmare taking the headlights out on the side of the road and reaching through grills trying to do the pipe up, always carrying spares I should have not tried to do it in a day.

the reason I personally chose to be mostly silicon rather than mostly hard pipe is you can get away with not quite having the correct pipes, by cutting the silicon or not quite being the precise angle, but its not the most efficient method. have a look at the FMIC thread unfortunately a lot of photos have gone now - what you have is commonly named a "welly cooler".

 

[<tuffty/>]

At what sort of tuning level would you need to uprate this?

Most people are still running them at hybrid turbo levels so 300-350 hp... you will probably need a bigger FMIC before you will need to change the OE MAP sensor tube out

<tuffty/>

 

[Siondc]

you will need to change the inside of the engine before you need to change that pipe. I did it wrong and first bought a universal kit which was nothing like what was needed, then I got an Focus ST kit which fit perfectly but was only rated at 1 bar - which was nonsense the silicon was cheap and burnt through and the pipes had no beads so the hoses popped off, and that's a nightmare taking the headlights out on the side of the road and reaching through grills trying to do the pipe up, always carrying spares I should have not tried to do it in a day.

the reason I personally chose to be mostly silicon rather than mostly hard pipe is you can get away with not quite having the correct pipes, by cutting the silicon or not quite being the precise angle, but its not the most efficient method. have a look at the FMIC thread unfortunately a lot of photos have gone now - what you have is commonly named a "welly cooler".

Haha that does not sound like my idea of a nice Sunday drive, I’d like avoid my pipes popping. how many bends did you use and were they all 90?

 

[Siondc]

Most people are still running them at hybrid turbo levels so 300-350 hp... you will probably need a bigger FMIC before you will need to change the OE MAP sensor tube out

<tuffty/>

Yea I definitely don’t have pockets that deep. Would be nice though. Thanks tuffty.

 

[Stuart B]

I did only use 90 degree bends but there are much neater solutions with less bends and connectors. for example from the drivers rubber hose you can use a 130 degree hard pipe instead of a short connector + 90 degree silicon plus a long hard pipe.

but with mine on drivers side to intercooler
short connector + 90 degree silicon + connector (about 6 inch) + 90 degree + short connector + 90 degree

from intercooler to hard plastic pipe
90 degree + short connector + 90 degree + connector (about 6 inch) + 90 degree (this doesn't fit smoothly)

this is why I wished I got an airtec because the single silicon pipes solution. if you look at hydro 3 picture in your original thread those are the pipes you need to really get I think it is a 45 from the intercooler then a straight pipe and 90 going up to rubber pipe with another connector up there I expect unless it is a sort of u shape with a twist? I struggled with visualising this without having them sort of laid out.

I will try and find one of the decent looking setups.

 

[Stuart B]

look at hydros3 image that is a 45 silicon, 90 hardpipe and a 90 silicon - but you need to get the correct 90 hardpipe but the passenger side would need to be slightly different if you are retaining the rubber hose and need quite a bit more if going to the charge pipe. of course hydros3 has said the setup may be for sale?


you can see that hydros3 replaced the hard plastic pipe and the rubber hose from the charge pipe too.

 

[Siondc]

I did only use 90 degree bends but there are much neater solutions with less bends and connectors. for example from the driv

this is why I wished I got an airtec because the single silicon pipes solution. if you look at hydro 3 picture in your original thread those are the pipes you need to really get I think it is a 45 from the intercooler then a straight pipe and 90 going up to rubber pipe with another connector up there I expect unless it is a sort of u shape with a twist? I struggled with visualising this without having them sort of laid out.

I will try and find one of the decent looking setups.

Cheers Stuart, really appreciate your help. It’s so frustrating trying to use old threads as a guide but there’s no photos.