$95 Ebay Intercooler

[Peter-Griffin]

Well I don't want to rain on anyone because I to have a money problem and also like to save where I can on putting my car together too. There are some things from china that are crap like the BOV's you see for $30 and cheap turbo headers and some fiberglass body parts. But the intercoolers from that place are top of the line to a point. Dan, the guy that owns Intense Motorsports in AZ sale the same cores to his customers. He's the shop thats has Built Saad Saad's supra and tons of other 1000hp + supras for years. Like he has even said most parts now a days are mass produced in China and other asian countries because the cost is so low. and no one would be able to tell the differance if was to compare. Now he is a license dealer for many JDM companies and that is the only reason why he would not say what parts are and are not the same. Now Cris I think AMS is a good shop but in your add for your connecting rod, you say they are made over seas. Then balanced and sonic tested here. What Country are they from? Because here in my hometown we have about 4 machineshops that can shotpeened and balance assemblies for cheap. So if your rods are not made here by some of the best companies in auto racing why talk down about China parts. I know your shop tunes a great deal of cars like EVO's and Ivans 240sx KA-Monster and to me thats the s**t but if you IC is strait with no leaks and damage then it should work fine. Again you both have a great point all in all just know what you're buying and stay away from these BOV's, LOL...

[9sec240]

Nobody is saying the IC is no good, bad, a POS, or anything else... What people are saying is that you need to be CAUTIOUS about purchases of super cheap ebay style performance parts. Its quite often you see these parts not performing up to par or performing at all.. Turbos that have a failure rate of 80%... WGs that wont control boost and fall apart... BOVs that leak... ICs that fall apart, leak and split welds....

Edub keeps stating that this IC is sturdy but has no proof to back that up.. no pressure test, no thermal cycling, no pressure cycling, etc... I think its not proper to state that its sturdy just by looking at it...

Pressure test the IC to 25 psi... Get it on a car.... Check the pressure drop.. check the inlet v outlet temps... use it for a while and then let us know how good it is...

[Edub1]

Edub1, if you read closely, noone is knocking your I/C in particular. Noone is praising it either. Many are just saying it's simply a coin toss in terms of what you get.

Exactely why I started the thread; to let people know that this particular one is a good unit.

BTW, the dimentions of the unit are the same as the Greddy and the fins inside are real nice. Not sure what Greddy fins look like but these look real neat and even. I would not trust a knock off with too many moving parts or parts requiring great precision, but 2 intercoolers made with the same geometry and fin design are absolutely going to perform the same. It's kind of like taking an expensive name brand wing and a knock off made from the exact same mold and saying that they will behave differently even know they are exactely the same in shape and material. Physics don't change according to name brand.

The thing is, there is a lot of stuff on the market that is simply snake oil. Would you put a Tornado on your car? Or those "cold air" intakes that sit on top of the radiator and soak up engine heat 100X faster than the stock plastic pipe does and is superfluous to boot. This is a pipe that should be insulated from engine heat, Yet there are dozens of guys here that would advocate buying a $250 name brand "cold air" intake and insist that it's far superior to the knock off. Fact is they all suck.

There are things I would only buy name brand; a turbo, waste gate, a nitrous system, fuel injectors, etc. But blindly insisting that everthing needs to be big money and offering anecdotal "proof" is simply spreading bad info and getting people to throw good money away.

I'll be up and running soon - I'm expecting good results from this intercooler. We'll see what happens.

[Edub1]

I'll have it tested soon but a good weld is a good weld - thick material is thick material. You don't think a good weld in a piece of aluminum is obvious?

How about a cheep one with thin as hell material and clumpy spoty welds, would you say you can't tell from that either?

[Peter-Griffin]

Cris I couldn't agree with you more about the testing and trial of the equipment. But I know for a fact that the company that is selling those IC's get them from the same place Intense Motorsports buys theres from. Because I've asked. Also I know of the only WG's that has worked fine that is a china knockoff, and its the tial 38mm version. There are guys running them on there wrx's and sti's and all they are doing is changing the spring thats 6psi with a real tial 15psi spring and they are working fine. one guy has used his for 2yrs now with no probs. Edub1 hope to see your tests soon so all of us can hold hands and sing song of nissans LOL. Oh one more thing where are those connecting rods made again? J/K because it don't matter as long as they work right!

[Chezedik]

Apparently the price went down on them since I bought mine, because mine was almost 200 (after shipping).

[Not_a_sr]

chinese cores normally dont have turbulators in them, at least the first few i used didnt have them, or had very very few of them.

i personally prefer use something that was engineered rather then knocked off. money is a issue, but i spent money on a nice core.

Chris, those evo8 intercoolers are they FC cores? looks very similar ive been running one on my car for a while now they are great cores. pricey but nice

[Jookmasta]

didnt want to start a new thread but how was fitment on this intercooler?

[Edub1]

Great and I got my car running and it works like a charm.

[SeanC]

mine is still working great. can't wait to crank up the boost and see if this baby will hold 20-25 psi!

[Tech12]

wow, this thread is fantastic! cheers to you guys for not breaking down to insults and name calling =) I <3 nico

[WDRacing]

They are all scared of "The MAN"

[jmhalder]

edub, why you gotta start another thread of useless debate... there IS a difference between a $100 ebay IC and its REAL $$$ counterpart... that being said, i am personally running a JDMsport (ebay) FMIC, and the IC itself seems solid. thats all i have to go on, nothing more, im running a T25 at 7psi, so pressure drop probably wouldnt be noticable anyways, and its MOST LIKELY gonna cool better than a stock SMIC... not to mention it was dirt cheap... i spend $$$ on parts when its nessicary, but everyones setup is different, and i didnt feel it was nessicary at the time, if i was aiming for bigger numbers, or was running a larger turbo @ a higher pressure, id DEFINATELY buy a better IC...

edub, i know its a solid unit, it probably wont fall apart or anything, but you gotta understand, its not tried and tested

chris, you guys make some of the nicest IC's available, and its tested, and awesome...

lame debate, but ill sit back and watch anyways

[Edub1]

Well I guess I stand corrected. Or maybe not.

I'm glad you are pleased with your Ebay intercooler. But...never mind.

[TanManS14]

http://www.ka-t.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19934 He made pretty good numbers over his old boostdesgins core. Given it was a smaller core, but the intercooler isnt restricting flow...
Modified by TanManS14 at 7:23 AM 1/12/2007