My original idea for mounting the front mounted intercooler was to bolt the bottom of it directly to the front apron panel. After fitting the engine, putting the intercooler in place and trying to get my hands/tools behind the front apron panel to screw the bolts into the bottom of the intercooler, I realised how hard it was going to be a in such a tight space.
To make the mounting and removal easier, I've changed the my mind so that the intercooler will now be the same configuration as the radiator - in which two pins on the base of the intercooler are inserted into rubber mounts and bolts are used only at the top.
The intercooler was fabricated with pairs of threaded pieces welded on the top and bottom for M6 bolts. Now that I wasn't using bolts on the bottom, I made a pair of small pins on the lathe. Made from stainless steel, each short pin is simply an M6 thread on one end to screw into the intercooler nut and a plain 6mm straight rod on the other end to insert into a grommet located in the front apron panel.
The use of grommets for the bottom mount raised the height of the intercooler by approx 5mm which meant that I had to remake the bracket between the top of the intercooler to the slam panel.
To make the mounting and removal easier, I've changed the my mind so that the intercooler will now be the same configuration as the radiator - in which two pins on the base of the intercooler are inserted into rubber mounts and bolts are used only at the top.
The intercooler was fabricated with pairs of threaded pieces welded on the top and bottom for M6 bolts. Now that I wasn't using bolts on the bottom, I made a pair of small pins on the lathe. Made from stainless steel, each short pin is simply an M6 thread on one end to screw into the intercooler nut and a plain 6mm straight rod on the other end to insert into a grommet located in the front apron panel.
The use of grommets for the bottom mount raised the height of the intercooler by approx 5mm which meant that I had to remake the bracket between the top of the intercooler to the slam panel.
After the intercooler was fitted, I fixed the issue that I had since the intercooler was first mounted. The turbo outlet pipe was very close to the back of the intercooler (approx 5mm). There was always a potential issue with the heat from the turbo outlet pipe being radiated to the intercooler core and the outlet pipe will be ceramic coated at a later time to mitigate against this, but this problem was the potential for the outlet pipe to foul against the intercooler core if the engine rocked forward under heavy braking.
This photo shows the turbo outlet pipe touching some cardboard (temporarily taped in place to protect the core). The pipe is approx 5mm away from the core here.
I cut the outlet pipe off it's flange, trimmed approx 10mm off the pipe and welded it back together. Once refitted the pipe is now approx 12mm away from the intercooler core. The silicon joiners and other pipework were not affected by this minor change.
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