The front part of the airguide seals the gap between the rebar and the car frame and rear part seals the small gap that you are looking at.

Look at the pics in this thread to get an idea of what it looks like and what it does:

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ght=spec+rebar

That is the '99 spec airguide, but it is exactly the same as the USDM piece except that the '99 spec piece lacks the bottom part which has no relevance to our topic of discussion anyway.

fixed the belt. I can't believe I missed that. thanx guys. I removed the front half of the stock duct and I am brainstorming how I am going to get the most air to intercooler and keep everything functional (air passages). anyone care to tell me what they think I should do. I am also trying to figure out what is the best material to use for the duct, it would be nice to be able to use fiberglass, I am good with that stuff as far as molding. What do you guys think?

I really love the ASP intercooler duct that 7racer has in that thread. It looks exactly like what I want for mine. Has anybody recreated this duct, or where can I look at it more as far as design?

"I really love the ASP intercooler duct that 7racer has in that thread. It looks exactly like what I want for mine. Has anybody recreated this duct, or where can I look at it more as far as design?"

What exactly are you asking here?

Why can't you put a strut tower bar in?

Could you take some close up pictures of the inside of the core through the input tubes. I'm curious if this thing has inner fins etc. I'm paying more than double just for my core assembly at wholesale distributor pricing.

Actually, I'm curious about this too. I was very skeptical at first, but now that there are a couple people reporting fairly cool intake temps I don't know what to think.

Sounds good for a rough test.

As far as I know all you need to do is compare boost levels before and after the IC. If I am misunderstanding the concept of pressure drop, someone please correct me. Obviously testing it this way wont be accurate to the .1 psi, but it should give us a good idea of how well this core performs.

You may want to verify that both gauges are reading the same before the test. If your old gauge reads 1 psi higher than the Defi it could throw the readings off.

here you go. I am just wondering what shape the ASP duct is and what is it made out of?

design and size looks good
i dont even know someone who has it though....

Kevin, I don't know what your intercooler looks like but if this is a piece of shit, they fooled me. this thing is solid and looks to be of very good quality, but like I said I have had limited exposure to different grades of intercoolers. so I could be wrong, pressure drop tests are going to tell the tale.

I am still waiting on my defi gauge for the pressure drop test. I figured pressure drop was the amount of pressure difference before and after the IC core. The test may not be perfect but the test should be accurate enough to determine how good the core is. Of course I will have both gauges run to the same line for a pre-test comparisson to see if they match up or if my old one is off by a little bit. I will then thake that into consideration when I run the real test. I will do my best to get this on video and post it up.


For now, my butt-dyno says that my boost is quicker to spool up as compared to my last IC. It was a SMIC as well so its not like I went from a FMIC to a SMIC and noticed less turbo lag.

Sorry this is taking so long guys, I am waiting on the gauge to get back in stock and then shipped to me.

As far as duct material, fiberglass works great for me.

I would love to be able to use fiberglass for the duct, I just thought it would get too hot and the resin would become soft. I hope I am wrong. this intercooler is one duct away from being one of the best buys I have had, pressure drop test would be nice to confirm that. so exactly how would you go about doing a pressure drop test? also the reason I had to eliminate the strut bar for now, is there is not enough clearance for the x-over pipe between the air pump and strut bar. the ASP pipe would be awesome and polish it up. for now I will take the bar off, until I get a pipe to fit, I can't eliminate the air pump right now.

Thanks for the inside pics, can't ask for faster service than that. :) Seeing the inside explained to me why they're so cheap. These are old fashioned cores. The core is a really low density (small number of internal fins and no turbulators it seems) which explains why they're so cheap to make. They should actually have really good pressure drop numbers since there's very little in the way of internal fins to restrict anything. The down side is they'll also have pretty crappy thermal exchange with drastically less surface area and contact time internally compared to modern cores other vendors provide, not just mine. I would also still be concerned about internal fin material or debris from manufacturing coming into the motor with something made in China.

My medium uses a dense fin core and the large uses a less dense core that's made up for in size, in comparison this ebay one is far less dense than even my large if you want a guage.

You don't even really need to test now, you'll get good pressure drop numbers and poor temp drops under sustained boost and throttle. A Folgers coffee can with nail holes in it will give good temps at highway cruising for all you strange people that keep reporting your temps at highway cruise. That would be a better test of your intake than the IC :)

For the person that asked something like, "I wonder if other people are getting cores from this same place?", I haven't seen anyone selling cores like that for almost 15 years, Spearco did in the very early 90's and that's the last time I recall seeing anything with an internal setup like that.

So long as there's never an issue with material inside coming out it's an overall good deal. It's hard to suggest anything better than stock isn't worth $250, which this definately is, but don't expect it to perform to the same levels as the other aftermarket IC's no matter what you come up with for a duct and tubing. It's just not physically possible with that construction to have the same thermal exchange with all else being equal.

Thanks again for posting those internal pics, it resolved a lot of confusion on how it could possibly be sold for so little. So in this case, as I said, you DO get what you pay for, but it's also worth the $250.

Kevin T. Wyum

thanx for the info Kevin, I understand what you are saying. I for one just wanted to upgrade from stock as cheap as possible right now, Later when I upgrade my turbos to the BNR's I will look at a different intercooler if necessary. Right now this looks good to me, especially with my setup, which is close to stock. I am going to craft a duct from fiberglass and taking from the original ducting design but to fit with this intercooler, if it comes out nice enough I might have some CF wrapped on there. Anyone have any advice with my duct plan, anything I should know before tackling this?

Good info, thanks Kevin

Thanks for the reply Kevin, Could you post pictures of your medium core and large core internal flow areas for comparison?
Thanks

yes please! educate us some more Kevin so we know what is good and what is just alright. I would love to see the difference, since the real difference is in the core. right?:bigthumb: :confused:

BTW, TwinTurbo_SE7EN. I PM'd you.:bigthumb:

The numbers I posted were not highway cruise numbers. I just got back from a few runs around town and various back roads. Before I started the car the water temp was 36C just to give you an idea of the ambient temp for this data. air temp was 37C when I started the car. Once the water temp reached 86C I pulled out of my driveway and got out onto the road. Got up to the speed limit at medium throttle. Drove around for another couple of miles to make sure everything was warm enough to get on it. :) at this point my air temp is at 38C. I then slowed to 4k rpm in 2nd and went WOT to redline then shift WOT to redline in third and a little bit of 4th. I checked my air temp and it was 42C. I cruised until I found the next stretch of straight road. with the same starting point I went WOT all the way to 6k rpm in 4th gear. for that pull my air temp started at 40C and ended at 45C. Then I got on the interstate. 2nd at 4k rpm to redline in 4th. temps went from 42C to 45C during that pull. The commander showed +1.02(~15 psi) bar until 7k then tapering off to +0.90(~13 psi) by redline.

These numbers are not highway cruise numbers. Im not sure what kind of results "namebrand" intercoolers get, but I am more than happy with this one. :)

Are these tests all on stock or near stock setups? I'm also getting a BNR set and would like to cut some of the costs if possible.

They'd get better results. If you started doing pulls back to back repeatedly without cool downs between each you'd see even more of a difference. I'm glad you're happy with the results, I'm sure they're a huge improvement over stock but there's a fair amount of room for improvement after seeing the inside of that thing. They're a great deal for $250 but don't go deluding yourself into thinking they're just as good as others.

Kevin T. Wyum

I have an older Large IC from my car here I could take pictures of the inside but no medium, sorry. I'll try to do that later unless someone else has some handy?

Here's a good read on intercooler design:

http://www.are.com.au/feat/techtalk/intecoolersMR.htm

holy shit, afterburn27 that is the most information I have ever seen. More than I wanted to know about intercoolers. That should be in the FAQ section on sticky. For real that would negate all this debate about types and quality, can read for yourself before buying, now that is consumer info.

Im not trying to say that this IC setup is better than any others. If I had 1500 to blow, I would have bought an ASP medium. I know that there is room for improvement. Believe me, I have a great deal of respect for the time and effort you put into your intercoolers. I actually happen to think that they are the best all around setup. :cool:

Everyone's happy :)

:) I am thanx Kevin. I also think you went about debating this whole thing in a very informative way and for that I thank you. I wish I also had 1200 for your setup in large style, maybe one day.

Not really including Japan into the lump.. in fact Japan is very much in a similar boat as the US, exporting manufacturing to China to reduce cost; even in capital intensive not labor intensive industries such as steel production. Enough said, and I agree that we need to kept our trade secrects ... secret from them as much as possible