Which intercooler

[craig_t]

Can anyone shed some light on intercoolers for me. I'm getting my car ready for stage 2 and iv been told to eliminate heat soak by uprating my intercooler, but I'm not sure what to go for. Iv been recommended that an S3 one is a good option.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as iv seen a few different intercoolers and not sure which will be the best.

[RedRobin]

.
Try a Search and you should come up with lots of info and discussion about this.

Broadly, your options are:

- S3 - oem VAG approach.

- THS - Very highly regarded. Better performance reported than the S3, but S3 is still good.

- APR - Highly regarded but very expensive.

- Forge Twintercooler - Front mounted and can be used in conjunction with any of the above (except possibly APR?) and also the stock intercooler.

[Janner_Sy]

take into account fitment costs as well.  The S3, THS, APR intercoolers are a bit more involved than the forge twintercooler, so labour will be more, potentially cancelling out any savings.

[craig_t]

can you have twintercooler with stock??

[Janner_Sy]

thats its main design.  However it will be usable with all the others with minor adaptions.


Most use it along side the stock cooler, others have paireds it with the S3 cooler for top results.  Think PDT has some good deals on iirc

[RedRobin]

can you have twintercooler with stock??

.... *cough*:

- Forge Twintercooler - Front mounted and can be used in conjunction with any of the above (except possibly APR?) and also the stock intercooler.

[robern2]

I have the standard intercooler and the twintercooler, it's an excellent combination on the ed30.

[GTIite]

Hello, be looking at getting an intercooler pretty soon and as Ive been reading it seems a cheaper option to get an S3 intercooler than the Forge Twintercooler which I was looking at. My car is not a ED30 would the S3 Intercooler still work?

Also any idea of the price of the S3 intercooler and where I could buy one at a good price?

Thanks Ash

[stealthwolf]

JKM have it for £330

[Top Cat]

Hello, be looking at getting an intercooler pretty soon and as Ive been reading it seems a cheaper option to get an S3 intercooler than the Forge Twintercooler which I was looking at. My car is not a ED30 would the S3 Intercooler still work?

Also any idea of the price of the S3 intercooler and where I could buy one at a good price?

Thanks Ash

The forge IC, by far, out performs the S3 cooler, and the S3 cooler is a lot harder( more time consuming ) to fit. If you are fitting yourself then the S3 cooler works out a good option, but if you pay a garage to fit it, then you might as well go for the forge as it's cheaper to fit, but more costly to buy.  That made sense when i started. 

[craig_t]

Yeah I get what you mean, it's looking like I'm gonna get a twintercooler now anyhow and keep my stock ic. Does anyone have this set up and able to comment on performance increase??

[Top Cat]

It doesn't give much of a performance increase on it's own, though the accelerator feels more crisp and free flowing, but what it allows is the timing to be advanced more which means more power, also you get less heat soak in the summer. If you are tuning a engine then this is a great add-on. 

[craig_t]

Yeah I'm getting bits together ready for stage 2 and this along with hi flow cat and down pipe and hpfp are part of my plans. Do you actually have a twintercooler ?

[Top Cat]

Yes pal, and a s3 one too. 

[craig_t]

Are you running stage 2??