Intercooler Upgrade

The first thing to do is to remove the passenger front wheel and remove the wheel arch lining. Don't forget to place chocks behind the rear wheels and support the front of the car on a sturdy stand for safety. Here you can see the grill in the wheel arch lining which provides the exit path for air flowing through the intercooler.

I removed only enough clips and screws to allow me to tuck the lining out of the way, on the other side of the wheel hub. Here you can see the original intercooler still in place. If you look closely, you can see that the intercooler mounts on brackets from this side, meaning that the existing piping will remain in the exact same position even though the S15 intercooler is thicker. You may also have noted that the stock recirculation valve (blow-off valve) has been removed previously (the hose is plugged with my patented plug - a lid off a bleach bottle!).

You will then need to undo the piping in the engine bay that attaches to the the intercooler piping where it goes through the chassis/body work (I found it easier to completely remove the "hot pipe" so that I could get at the front pipe clamps).

Initially, I attempted to remove the intercooler from the car by removing the four bolts that attached the intercooler proper to the brackets, but this didn't allow enough room to actually remove the unit. I then realised that I should have left the brackets attached to the intercooler and removed the bolts attaching the brackets to the bodywork. Once this is done, the intercooler and cooling duct comes out easily in one piece.

Here is the entire stock unit out of the car and roughly at installation angle. From this angle you may see where one problem may lie - the extra thickness of the intercooler will cause the cooling duct to sit lower than ideal for the intake in the lower bumper. I considered simply leaving the duct off, but I think that doing this would reduce the effectiveness - possibly to a level that is even lower than the original intercooler with the duct in place.