As many of you know I have been quietly hoarding parts in various sheds and cupboards for the last few months, much to Handbrakes dismay. Well with the Glorious weather I couldn't have had better luck (other than Handbrake's back going which reduced my coffee supply)!
Lets hope it all works OK! *(puts his giant bag of zip ties down!)
I went about removing the front bumper and taking some basic measurements, hard to do as the HDI kit instructions are for a previous version of the kit and don't represent the kit supplied fully.. so mounting points where different.
Big thanks to CJ who popped by and helped finish chopping the bumper Iron and working out where the 7 different pipes went!
The core is lightly dusted black with some manifold paint! should cope with heat/chips OK I hope.
I used a bit of silicon pipe for some elaborate beading..
After sizing the bumper up I came to the conclusion that the core was sitting too low and took a stab at moving and re-trimming the bumper Iron,
Looked a bit neater and pipes all seemed to fit a bit more snugly...measure 5 times Dave!!!)..
Next day...
First things first, I needed to mount the oil cooler. Using a Mocal mounting kit, I chopped it down and sprayed black, using existing holes kindly supplied by Subaru normally used for cable tie holes for fog light leads and air-bag sensor wires, added some silicon hose chopped down for vibration damping. Thank you Karting Steve for the inspiration for the fitment location.
Ok time to trim the bumper! This was a bit scary, although I set about doing it with an angle grinder to start with I switched to a Dremel in the end for a neater cut in the tight spaces.. I think I must have sized this up about 15 times, and spent ALOT of time changing Dremel blades! I also had to make a small adjustment to the intercooler core position when I started running out of bumper to cut!! once the position was set I trimmed and re-drilled the mounting brackets for the lower zunsport grill (this is a stealth install after all!)
Starting to look decent!
Sunday dawned and only had a few jobs left to do.. Sorting the cold air feed for the intake and making sure everything was clipped and trimmed back in place where it should be.
I managed to get hold of a large rubber snorkel that just so happens to be the exact same size as the intake on the STI front fog cover!! this cant be known to anyone otherwise the price would have been 5 times what I paid for it!
Paired with a 80mm flexible pipe and some zip ties the job was done,.. and it is a nice snug fit!.. You can't really see it in this photo but it is literally right up against the back of the duct on the cover.
On the other side I carefully removed the 2 circlips and centre clip to remove the plastic piece and fitted some aluminium grill mesh in its place to protect the oil cooler.
I also cut up a plastic lid from an old tool box and made a makeshift duct for the oil cooler, I will have another stab at this if it needs more cooling/better channelling after I have seen what the temps are like, needless to say its a bit temporary!
After putting it all back together again I had time left to clean off all the little bits of metal sitting all over my car!
I think its turned out fairly well! The main thing is that I have kept my promise to Wanda and not altered the external appearance so she is happy!
and the stealth look is complete!.
open the hood!!
Its booked in for some fettling with FB Tuning on Thursday. The oil cooler lines and thermostatic plate (thanks Greg!), 650cc Injectors + Perrin intake pipe and a re-map!
Cant wait!.. more to follow.