Will Small Dent in my Intercooler..?

[Bryson]

Hey guys,

I just got my Monster Hybrid Intercooler in last Monday and I must say I'm quite impressed... the only beef I have with it is that there is a small dent in the lower left section.. its in the fins, not the end tank.. I know it'd be a lot easier to explain if I had a pic.. I'll work on that.. but my question is.. would a small little dent in the bottom corner influence the PSI drop? The selling point to this intercooler is the .2 PSI drop at 15PSI.. if this dent is going to mess that up I'm going to have to send it back.

I'll see if I can't find my digital camera and take a pic later today.

[wga240]

If a few fins are dented in, that shouldn't really matter. You can probably straighten them back out with some pliers. However if the part the air goes through (turbocharged air, not ambient air) is dented then it could affect performance.

[Bryson]

K, thanks for the reply.. I'll be able to explain it better once i take the pic.. some of the fns are dented yes.. but the frame of the intercooler itself has a small bend, which is what bent the fins... I'll try ot get that pic up soon

[Bryson]

Here is the first pic.. its real small because the image can't be larger than 300x300 so so small.. but anyways here it is...

[Bryson]

And here is a much better pic of the dent.. the original pics are 1600x1200 so the dent is real hard to see after I sized these down...

[Bryson]

here it is.. it didn't appear iun the last post.

[Bryson]

so you guys think thats a big enough of a deal to hassle with sending it back to Hong Kong??? I could care less if it has a wee little dent.. I just want the performance I paid for.

[wga240]

so you guys think thats a big enough of a deal to hassle with sending it back to Hong Kong??? I could care less if it has a wee little dent.. I just want the performance I paid for.

Well it looks like the dent is just on the bottom row of fins, so it shouldn't impact the performance by any amount you'd ever be able to tell. As long as the bottom row the turbocharged air flows through is intact, which it appears to be, I wouldn't go through the trouble of sending it back.

You may want to find some way to pressurize it with air a bit to make sure the bottom row is in fact intact and doesn't have a leak in it anywhere.

[Bryson]

ya I'll have to try to find something to test it /w can you recommend something?

[PROJECTRB240SX]

TAKE IT TOO A RADIATOR SHOP AND HAVE THEM STRAIGHTEN IT.

[Bryson]

good idea I'll call around.

[PROJECTRB240SX]

IF YOU WERE HERE I COULD PROBABLY HAVE GOTTEN IT DONE FOR LIKE $30-$45.

[Jamison]

that little dent is fine. its not worth the 40 bucks to get it fixed. i have seen intercoolers with a whole bottom row crushed from bottoming out and people run them with no problem. not to mention that part of the intercooler will probably be behind part of the front bumper.

[Bryson]

Thanks Jamison.. I agree the dent looks too insignificant to bother with.. I am gonna see if I can hook up something around the house that blows air then plug both ends just to make sure no air is leaking out through the dent that I can feel... looking at the intercooler I see no way in hell the air doesn't just fly out I mean I see no piping inside for the air to flow through hell it looks like a cheese grater to me.. how this works I have no idea

[wga240]

Look inside your endtanks and you'll see how it works. If you look inside you'll notice the parts that look like thick bars from outside are actually hollow and have fins from the inside. This is the part the air flows through. Also the part with fins outside looks like thick bars from inside. That's how it works, basically. It's just a number of bars stacked on top of each other, each one alternating between flowing ambient air through the outside of the cooler and flowing turbocharged air through the inside. Each bar is a sealed unit except on the ends where it comes into the endtanks, so the air can't just leak out.

Kinda hard to describe but look at the outside and then look in the endtanks enough and it should make sense

[Bryson]

ahh ok cool... gotcha I'm gonna go look at it.

[Bryson]

Oh hell yea... so far the word is that the dent won't influence it. I agree... it is REALLY small.... I emailed the guy who sold it to me earlier /w a pic of the dent.. as a result he is going to send me one of their oil catch cans free!! how pimp is that! Nice *** oil catch can all for the price of a small almost unnoticeable dent.