Darkside FMIC Install on North American MkIV

Fix_Until_Broke

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Aug 8, 2004
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Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
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03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
Has anyone installed the Darkside FMIC on a North American MkIV?

https://www.darksidedevelopments.co...tercooler-kit-fmic-for-1-9-tdi-ve-90-110.html

I've searched a lot but can't seem to find any threads detailing an installation.

I have the kit and have been working with Darkside to figure out why it does not seem to fit on my car (they've been good to work with), but figured that I'd reach out to the community here as well.

The pipes (both upper and lower) don't seem to fit quite right - close, but not quite and not close enough where a little grinding/clearanceing will make it fit.

I seem to remember reading that the US spec crash bar can be used with a little modification, however looking at it in detail and comparing it to the installation manual, there are a lot of differences and it would require a lot of modification. Has any one done this and would have a picture they could share of what was done to make it work?

Did any of the pipes give you trouble?

As I mentioned, Darkside has been good to work with so I'm not saying they have a bad product or anything. I'm just having some trouble figuring out how to make it all fit together.

Any help or previous experience that you can share would be greatly appreciated!.

Thanks!!
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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Location
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
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03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
Maybe I could do what TDIinTexas did for the crash bar? I wouldn't have to go as far, but the idea is the same.

You loose the lower mounting screws for the front bumper with this unless I can come up with a way to put it on the frame. It may not be a big deal though - See post 96





 

mrchill

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I put a larger charge air cooler than that on my car 8 years ago....it barely fit with the bumper skin installed. You should have no trouble fitting that one.
 

Yourbuddysatin

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2013 Jetta tdi
I know you stated this above already but I believe a euro or Canadian crash bar will work. I have seen tubular bars on eBay and such that make the room to install the IC with plenty of mounting room. Gotta make sure you mount it at the best place for cooling though or it’s kinda defeating the purpose. If you PM me I can email pics of my golf and what I have done with it to fit a front mount.
 

mrchill

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I modified the bumper bar so that it would fit and mount just behind it. Most of the cooler is outside the bar though.
 

mrchill

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MASS! home of THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPION RED SOX! x
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for a charge air cooler the size of the one in the video...there is no need to modify the bumper bar...however if it were 3 inches taller...then there would be a benefit. As it stands, the cooler is now partially obscured.
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
Yeah - the guys in that video were, um, well, inexperienced is the nicest thing I can come up with. And when they were done, the bumper still didn't fit right.

Anyway - has anyone in North America put one of the Darkside FMIC kits in a MkiV?
 

3L3M3NT

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Jun 16, 2008
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tjpeterson96

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Aug 1, 2014
Location
Winter Garden, FL
TDI
04 bew jetta
I have! I got the pd130 version for my BEW because they share the same turbo outlet and I'm planning to upgrade to a vnt17 anyways. Fits great, albeit pretty tight in a few places. I used the euro spec crash bar so not too much engineering needed
 
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tjpeterson96

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Location
Winter Garden, FL
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04 bew jetta
sure do! i was going to post my own "how-to" thread but it'd probably be easier to just post them all here.
drilled all the holes in the bumper and pried out the metal insert


gave it all a nice coat of rustoleum

mounted crash bar and mocked up intercooler to drill holes for mounting

cut out a spot for the intercooler outlet

intercooler peeking through the hollow crash bar after being mounted.

this is where things got tricky. upper tubing ran too close to the bumper to be able to tighten inner clamp to i had to remove the entire crash bar with the intercooler attached and use a smaller plumbing clamp. sorry no pic of this.

for the next elbow it was very tight also. i remember having to push it all the way up to the bend on the side coming from the intercooler and do lots of bending and twisting to make it meet the other side. ended up removing the headlight as this was the only was i could get room to grab it and the only place i could put the clamp where i could tighten it and the bolt wouldnt rub. the clamp is just barely over the lip behind the headlight. had to take clamp completely apart and reassemble around the silicone because it wouldn't slide into the right spot. i also stuck some rubber between the clamp and the washer tank because the back of it would still rub occationally. no issues now

 
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tjpeterson96

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Aug 1, 2014
Location
Winter Garden, FL
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04 bew jetta
next i removed the old intercooler bracket and install the turbo adapter


the turbo outlet silicone took some MAJOR trimming to make the pipe line up where i wanted it to be

and the lower intercooler pipe was the biggest PIA of the whole project. you can see in the picture the pipe is slightly cockeyed compared to where the silicone is. i had to first attach it to the pipe and then attach it to the intercooler to give it enough play to bend where it needed to go. i actually went with smaller clamps here to make it fit tighter because of the angle its in it kept popping off

you can also see in this pic that i had to trim the front clip itself to allow room for everything. i also had to trim the little "fins" off the back of the front clip so that it would sit properly on the euro crash bar because it lacks the indents that the u.s. spec has

and then it was time to put it back together!
and as i bonus here are some pic of how i had to modify my Evo skid plate brackets to fit with the intercooler pipes




 
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Fix_Until_Broke

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Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
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tjpeterson96 - those pictures were very helpful, thanks for posting!

I took a slightly different approach on my setup. I'm going to get this out of the way right at the beginning. I know I spent a lot of both money and time and could have/should have done it differently and saved both, but given where I'm at with everything else in life at the moment - I chose to do it this way to get it done and not waste more time/money on principle. Darkside makes a good quality product, however most of it didn't fit on my car. Maybe it's the factory skidplate mount, maybe it's the factory 5.5L washer fluid reservoir, maybe it's just my car? Therefore I chose to use their intercooler, one 90 degree elbow and two straight silicone couplers along with the euro front crash bar which I had to order separately. The rest I built myself. I will say that after building what I did, I'm surprised that anyone makes a kit for these cars. Maybe I'm too fussy, but it was very tedious to get everything to fit like shown. I'm happy with the install, but there is so little room to make anything just short of perfect fit - you can't be off 1/4". I've got over 20 hours in what is shown below.

I used 4) 2" OD, 2" CLR aluminum 90's from Woolf Aircraft along with 1) 1-3/4" silicone 90 ell from Silicone Intakes.

The turbo oil drain line had to "flip" - There is a clamp at the top of the picture that used to be on the other side of the hose (and the hose used to be straight up instead of "S" shaped). The clamp uses the same bolt hole in the block, but is now on the other side. The hose and the stainless tube going into the hose didn't want to move, but a little help from a 48" prybar changed its mind :). This allowed the turbo outlet to get close enough to the block so it would stop rubbing on the axle (finally!)


A better shot of the turbo outlet, now tucked in tight to the block. The 2nd clamp to the left is just there to keep the bolt boss on the block from wearing into the hose.


Once out of turbo and into the wheel well, I ran tight against the skirt then offset around the skidplate mount and continued up to the intercooler. The bends in the front part were made to correct/compensate for the forward aiming port on the intercooler itself and to follow the curve of the plastic bumper. It fits without any trimming, but it's really close.




Did I mention that it's really close!


These tack clamps make the job much easier to mock things up!


I had to get a bit more creative to get the upper clamps tight - A couple extra holes, then made them oval because I didn't drill them in the right place originally...


For the upper pipe, I cheated a little (ok, a lot) and just welded an elbow on the Darskide tube and connected to the plastic ALH upper pipe. I didn't believe that it was worth the time/effort to reinvent that wheel.


All things considered - it works like I expected (the TT has a large FMIC as well so this isn't my first experience with one in a TDI). Cruising down the road, IAT's are 5-10F above ambient at any legal speed - Just like the stock SMIC. When into the boost, it runs much cooler (50+F) and recovers quicker as well.

I have not had the opportunity to monitor EGT's, but guessing they're lower? Boost is up by ~7 psi to ~45 psi which was a bit strange. I didn't see any signs of leakage on the old setup.

Transient response (lag) does not seem to be any worse.

Another interesting observation, there used to be some visible smoke at ~18:1 AFR, and now it's notably cleaner. Maybe there was a leak somewhere that is now fixed and all the air that the MAF sees is making it into the engine so less smoke? You'd think AFR would drop though? Something to think about...

The only negative at this point (other than the time/$$ involved) is that the lower left corner of the intercooler seems to have rubbed a hole in my A/C condenser :( so that will be on the list of things to fix next time it's in the shop.
 

Digital Corpus

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Ontario, California
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'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Looks good.

Some of us have been apart or seen the debate about the larger volume of a FMIC contributing to turbo lag. I hope you don't mind the slightly off topic request of logged data to support or aid in disproving this from a practical stance.
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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Location
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
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03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
I'll be able to get some logged data after the FMIC install, but I don't think I have any pre FMIC data with the twins, or even the GTC1444 as a single.

re-verified the smoke reduction today to and from work - I've lost a solid 2 AFR points for sure. What used to be a dusting of smoke at 18:1 is now practically invisible - this used to occur at 20:1. Have to get down to 16-17:1 to get similar smoke levels.
 

[486]

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Mar 1, 2014
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MN
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02 golf ALH
Boost is up by ~7 psi to ~45 psi which was a bit strange. I didn't see any signs of leakage on the old setup.

...

Another interesting observation, there used to be some visible smoke at ~18:1 AFR, and now it's notably cleaner.
What was the old IC's pressure drop, and was your monitoring after the intercooler?
Easy to drop 10 psi across an intercooler.
If your wastegate reference was on the compressor housing and your MAP is in the plastic intake pipe, the results are kind of clear there.

The reduction in smoke for similar afr also points to more efficient breathing through less restriction. Easy to see any gains in volumetric efficiency that way.
 

Fix_Until_Broke

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 8, 2004
Location
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
TDI
03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
[486] - Thanks for your comments, those are all good points. I don't know what the dP was across the factory SMIC, but hadn't considered an increase in VE from that. I'd be surprised if it was 10 psi, but really don't know for sure. Boost gauge measurement is in the intake manifold, MAP is where the EGR valve used to be.

There are 2 wastegates in the system, however neither of them are active - it's straight compound all the way so no changes there.

There's a much more pronounced turbo whistle as well - which I kind of like :)
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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Joined
Aug 8, 2004
Location
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
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03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
Fix Until Broke said:
The only negative at this point (other than the time/$$ involved) is that the lower left corner of the intercooler seems to have rubbed a hole in my A/C condenser so that will be on the list of things to fix next time it's in the shop.
So, the euro crash bar, intercooler and condenser don't make a good combination without some additional modifications. The intercooler was pulled forward as far as it can go (touching the crash bar) and was just barely clearing the A/C condenser. Well, once the pipes were connected and things start flexing and such as the car drives over bumps, curves, etc they made contact.





I've TIG'd things like this before, but a new one was $56 so can't mess around with it too long for that kind of $. Next time I have the welder out I'll see if I can try to get it sealed up for a spare.

I gave the radiator a good cleaning while everything was apart - amazing how much stuff accumulates over 272k miles :)


To help make this issue not happen again, a few modifications needed to be made.

First, the crash bar was massaged with an air hammer both top and bottom so the intercooler could move forward about 1/4" (6mm) to give some clearance to the condenser.





It could use a little more for the end tanks, but it's already moved in the pictures. Next I added a couple brackets/braces off the bottom mounting studs in the intercooler so even if things do flex and move, it'll push on the radiator support (which pushes on the mounting brackets of the radiator and A/C condenser) so they'll keep their distance.



The horizontal parts were cut off after the picture was taken.
 
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