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as the title says i was wondering if my GSX sidemount intercooler would deal with my soon to be 250+whp d17. currently i am rocking the SMIC and its doing fine. i am building the engine pretty soon and would like to keep the SMIC to maintain the sleeper status of my car instead of the FMIC screaming HI, I'M TURBO! so what you guys think? bigger SMIC or just front mount it?

i will be attempting to do all the work myself, making the charge pipes etc and i was wondering if anyone had any pointers on how to make custom charge piping an easier job.

 
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27 views no help? i need some opinions turbo gurus! bummppp

 
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ehhhhhhhh It depends how much airflow its got going to it. Im not saying it cant handle it, but a little peashooter 14b or 16g isnt gonna be flowing the kind of air you're going to try to push through it i'd imagine. You'd be better off getting a front mount and painting the IC with black radiator paint. You cant really tell unless you're right up on it. Do a clean job cutting the grill out (if you have to) and you should get away with it.

 
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or even get it anodized in black

 
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sweet. so your basically sayin it depends on how much air the smic will get and what turbo im running? i will be running a t3 .48 ar w/ stage 2 wheel rebuilt with garret internals. and the smic resides under my passenger headlight, and i cut out a hole in the lower grill where the fog lights would go to increase the airflow to the smic. is that good enough or no?

 
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Maybe, try it. The only one who has done anything like this, as far as I know, is boilermaker. If he is unsure, you'll have to find out the old fashion way, hehe. I would go with a fmic if you want to do it once and be sure you are good, you'll probably be putting one in eventually anyways.

 
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i'd think a FMIC would be much easier to install.

 
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not gonna do it... you're looking at a 3" hole trying to feed air to a give or take 12x9 IC. Not enough airflow. I tried the SMIC thing, it sorta worked, but in all honesty, just go front mount... it works a hell of a lot better, and can still be done rather sneaky....

 
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alright. i will upgrade to front mount. any pointers on a DIYer like me to make this job less a PITA than it seems like? are there like flexible metal pipes i can use for charge piping? that would be sex. or would soft piping suffice? such as radiator hose material. i can get those hoses anyway i like for cheap but can they hold boost? but everyone will prob laugh at me. i just wont pop the hood. lol

 
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Reinforced silicone. It doesnt look ghetto, but its flexible to the point that you'll need to fasten it down to stuff along the way. You join it with metal couplers (its the exact reverse of normal charge piping), weld some bungs or arms, etc... to use the metal couplers as mounting points as well.

you're honestly better off just having someone weld you charge pipes.... silicone is about 6x the price. you cant do it ghetto and get it to work, I wouldnt even try.