SMIC on Ebay - What do you guys think...
To be honest I don't know if either of those IC's are made anymore. The greddy SMIC pops up for sale used every now and then, and the ARC is very rare. The greddy has a larger core anyway.
After seeing Howard Colemans disection I would never get one of these.
Just stick to the basics.
CCII, ASP Med., Greddy SMIC all do a great job.
Ohh and I forgot to say to the guy reading 86c IAT's god help you. When I see 50c I start to freak out.
Just stick to the basics.
CCII, ASP Med., Greddy SMIC all do a great job.
Ohh and I forgot to say to the guy reading 86c IAT's god help you. When I see 50c I start to freak out.
Where was one disected? I did a search and could not find it. Other than having an older fin design its not a bad intercooler. I will have to do testing a 20 and 5 MPH to have efficiencies at the same points as the others from the FD
http://www.fd3s.net/intercoolers.html
Based on my WOT runs the intercooler does a good job 86% efficent max, of course its going to be different with a different duct design than mine though. I did spend a good amount of time in its design and sealing to the IC.
http://www.fd3s.net/intercoolers.html
Based on my WOT runs the intercooler does a good job 86% efficent max, of course its going to be different with a different duct design than mine though. I did spend a good amount of time in its design and sealing to the IC.
Darkside FD
Joined: Jan 2004
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From: AZ
Says the guy from Canada!
Man, if I am seeing 50C I am thanking God for a cool day or the ability to cruise uninhibited on the freeway. Hell our ambient is almost 50C...ambients this summer have consistently been around 45C, we broke the record for 110+ degree F days in a summer with 30 so far...and we might get one more on Sunday
With the W/A and no intercooler my car was seeing 46C on a 43C day... Thank the good Lord for water/methanol injection!
Man, if I am seeing 50C I am thanking God for a cool day or the ability to cruise uninhibited on the freeway. Hell our ambient is almost 50C...ambients this summer have consistently been around 45C, we broke the record for 110+ degree F days in a summer with 30 so far...and we might get one more on Sunday
With the W/A and no intercooler my car was seeing 46C on a 43C day... Thank the good Lord for water/methanol injection!
i use the xspower intercooler and it has been giving me okay temperatures. i get around 86c driving around going up to 90c when its really hot. its an okay intercooler and will do the job but there is better. im probably just going to stick with this setup until i can get a v-mount of some sort.
Nothing against XS Power, but seriously hundreds? lol
Rotary Enthusiast
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From: 15143
fritts, I'm almost certain that those numbers came straight from Spearco's testing. The MPH points are actual airflow speeds through the core and won't correlate to vehicle speed for your installed testing.
I guess I am somewhat amazed that Sparco would actually do the test. The closest I can come would be to compare to someone else with another IC then that has both inlet and outlet temperatures. Just with the drops I'm seeing though I have no doubt the XSPower IC is a whole lot better than stock and would perform similarly to the ASP/M2/Pettit.
Joined: Aug 2005
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From: Greenwood/Hartsville, SC.
The only thing he "proved" was that it was an "older" bar and plate design. I believe he also came up with shoddy welding that caused leaks and debris inside the IC from manufacturing. To this day, I've never seen anyone say, "My SMIC had debris inside it." I've also never heard anyone complain about their IC leaking, however I'm sure only a few have actually leak tested them. I think he was most upset by the fact that the XSPower kits were only a few inches smaller than his Medium sized setup, yet was ~$1200 cheaper. Granted his IC's were great, the fin design IS better, but not for an extra grand or so, IMHO at least.
could someone post the link to howards thread on xs power. I searched for howard xs, but couldnt find anything. everyone keep chiming in, this is a good discussion. I would love to see some comparisons of IAT's between the more expensize intercoolers.
White is tight
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 1,208
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From: Tucson, AZ
Lots of info here.
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...highlight=smic
The long and short of it.
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...highlight=smic
The long and short of it.
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
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
Last edited by fdeeznutz; Sep 7, 2007 at 04:16 PM.
Rotary Enthusiast
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From: 15143
Reread the page. Spearco provided their in-house test results for the various ICs' cores, which were all made by Spearco. IOW, the ICs were not tested as installed packages with end-tank & piping losses.
tech insight
this thread is lacking some technical analysis so let me point some thing out...
No one is really talking about the end tank construction. The XS end tanks are made up of crappy plates welded together, making a 90 degree turns at both inlet/outlet. Temperature drop is one thing, but having a large pressure drop kills the purpose of boosting in the first place! A well design end tank smooths out the corners to minimize pressure drop. It costs a hell of a more to cast those bad boys tho...not simply welding plates together. On that subject, the ASP smic is a shitty piece for $1000.
Another point is, like any performance mod, the quality of the products becomes much more important when pushing higher HP numbers. I say $250 is well spend for street use, but it's a hell of a mistake if you run big turbos pushing 400 hp. Things are relative, people, a $2G turbo with a $250 IC makes very little sense.
back to research...
No one is really talking about the end tank construction. The XS end tanks are made up of crappy plates welded together, making a 90 degree turns at both inlet/outlet. Temperature drop is one thing, but having a large pressure drop kills the purpose of boosting in the first place! A well design end tank smooths out the corners to minimize pressure drop. It costs a hell of a more to cast those bad boys tho...not simply welding plates together. On that subject, the ASP smic is a shitty piece for $1000.
Another point is, like any performance mod, the quality of the products becomes much more important when pushing higher HP numbers. I say $250 is well spend for street use, but it's a hell of a mistake if you run big turbos pushing 400 hp. Things are relative, people, a $2G turbo with a $250 IC makes very little sense.
back to research...
Problem is there are no smooth endtank SMIC's available except the small (greddy). So unless you move to a front mount (more piping, lag, pressure loses, engine cooling) you have just one other option and that is a VMIC. Still if you look at those there are most have 90 degree inlets. HKS does a good job but I'm sure that IC would cost an arm and a leg. I have been running more than 400 at the engine with this IC without issue and datalogs that show the temperature drop is nice. I have not setup a way to do pressure drop but it should be around the same as other out there based on endtank design and fin design.
There are 2 versions of XS Power SMIC sale on ebay, both exactly same dimensions except one has 2.5" inlet/outlet other has 2.75" inlet/outlet. Does anyone know why that is? Old version, new version or for some other reason?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...Q5fAccessories
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...Q5fAccessories
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...Q5fAccessories
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...Q5fAccessories
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