Do I need a fmic?

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Hi guys, I have a Fabia Vrs 1.9tdi ASZ 130hp. I want put in an ARL turbo, headbolts and remap to 180hp. From what i have read that would be very safe, and I could keep the stock clutch. Do I really need a FMIC for that power? I would like to trash it sometimes on the freeway, and have fun while overtaking, nothing extreme... Will I be heat soaked with the small oem smic? Could heatsoak in general be the problem at higher constant speeds? Thanks!

Maybe something like this, plus that arch mode, if it's worth something?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TUNING-INTERCOOLER-KWE-Skoda-Fabia-1-9TDI-SMIC-Intercooler/162952459788
 
Last edited:

Rrusse11

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Jan 23, 2014
Location
PA Deutsch Country
TDI
2002 Golf, 5spd; 05 Jeep CRD
Iwcham,

My understanding is that it takes about 8 secs of full boost to heat
soak the stock intercooler. Racing?, sure, go with an upgraded unit.
For a daily driver, hardly worth it IMO. My bet is if you did it,
you'd hardly notice the difference.

Spend the money on a boost & EGT gauge. That'll help you monitor
what's going on with the turbo. I recently upgraded my intake manifold to a PD150,
made a big difference to how much air and fuel flows through the engine.
 

Curious Chris

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jun 11, 2001
Location
Pineview GA
TDI
Jetta Wagon 2003 RIP Rockford IL
Iwcham,

My understanding is that it takes about 8 secs of full boost to heat
soak the stock intercooler. Racing?, sure, go with an upgraded unit.
For a daily driver, hardly worth it IMO. My bet is if you did it,
you'd hardly notice the difference.

Spend the money on a boost & EGT gauge. That'll help you monitor
what's going on with the turbo. I recently upgraded my intake manifold to a PD150,
made a big difference to how much air and fuel flows through the engine.
X2 on the FMIC. If you dyno the engine you will get higher hp as the stock intercooler cannot reject heat fast enough. And then if you really like to scream along at full throttle you will want a big FMIC. I had one on my dearly departed 150hp 2002 Golf.
 

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Thanks for the replies guys. So opinions are devided so far :) Seat Sport fmic from DarkSide is pretty expensive, people doing 250hp use it so I was hoping i could do without it at 180hp... My other problem is that I have oem Xenons on my Vrs, so I would have to ditch the washers for a fmic, then cut off a bumper mount, and do some superficial inside bumper plastic trimming.... As far as 180hp on a stock clutch.... don't tell me it wont cut it....I have read that the stock clutch is designed to take up to 180hp or 400nm torque, of course provided you dont floor it at below 2000rpm? If it will indeed be on the very limit, I'll do a simple remap to 160hp and call it a day.....
 

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
What power did you have yourbuddy?

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Iwcham

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Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Very good to hear. Thanks! I dont think that smic would fit my Fabia though..

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Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Nice. So I might get the uprated smic as well for 180 or remap to 170 at stock smic and do the arch mod...

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Yourbuddysatin

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Oct 28, 2016
Location
Pennsylvania
TDI
2013 Jetta tdi
I have a lower pipe that’s 2.5” stainless instead of the one darkside suppied with their kit. The side mount kit is best bang for your buck from them. If you only have a small turbo there is no use for a larger front mount. That’s a lot of area to fill with boost. Can create lag.
 

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
There is no Darkside kit for my car, only this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TUNING-INTERCOOLER-KWE-Skoda-Fabia-1-9TDI-SMIC-Intercooler/162952459788
They say it fits but oem hoses need to be modified.... It is questionable if it is better than the oem stuff and how much better... If I knew it was noticaly better and would make a difference, I would buy it...
It is still a lot less expensive than the Darkside fmic kit... I have one more problem with fitting a fmic... I would have to ditch the oem xenon washers, since the pipes get in the way, and cut off a major bumper mounting point, do some plastic trimming on the bumper as well...

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Yourbuddysatin

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Oct 28, 2016
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Pennsylvania
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2013 Jetta tdi
Really? I thought they would sorry. Factory intercooler probably is plastic and aluminum. That one you posted looks to be all aluminum which will wick heat faster.
 

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Ok, ty. It must be noticably better than stock then and will dissipate heat better.... The oem looks like this... I havent thought about posssible lag with a large fmic at 180hp...


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Nevada_TDI

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Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Location
Reno, sort of...
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2001 Jetta TDI
Exactly. The stock turbo is designed to provide "x" pounds of air per minute at "x" PSI. When a FMIC is added with all the extra tubing and the extra volume of the FMIC itself, there is usually a crisis waiting to happen. When you purchase an air compressor you buy one that will provide the required amount of PSI and CFM to run whatever tools/etc you have. You wouldn't buy a pancake compressor to run air tools off of, because it would not hold pressure, nor (usually) would you buy a commercial compressor to run one air tool.
Pretty much the same analogy as a small turbo and a giant FMIC.
 

Fix_Until_Broke

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 8, 2004
Location
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA
TDI
03 Jetta, 03 TT TDI
To the OP - I wouldn't bother with an FMIC. 99.9% of the time it's of zero benefit over the factory SMIC, but with significant added cost, complexity, weight, etc. Is that 0.1% of the time worth all the above?

Looking at real data - what some of the above mention is true - the factory SMIC will heat soak after a bit in a 100% throttle run through the gears, but in normal, even aggressive daily driving, it won't make much difference in actual intake air temps.

My factory SMIC would run ~10F over ambient temperatures in 99.9% of the driving I did. Even pulling a trailer with sustained 10psi boost it would run right in there. When I would start pulling a long hill or a 100% throttle run where boost is 20-30 psi, then yes, IAT's would get 30-50F over ambient.

Will an FMIC improve the above, yes - My FMIC runs between 3-10F over ambient pretty much all the time, but at significant time and cost to install. I wanted one because of my twin turbo setup and aspirations for much higher boost levels, but for your 180HP goals, my opinion is that it is not necessary by any stretch.

The whole discussion over increased volume causing increased lag - while this is true in concept, the magnitude is so small that I guarantee it's imperceptible. Let's say that you added 10 liters (doubled) to the intake tract volume for a total of 20 liters, on an engine that is consuming 900 liters a minute at idle (900 rev/min on 2 liters, but only 1 intake stroke per 2 RPM), you've added 1% to the "lag" in the system due to volume at idle. At 1800 RPM and zero boost you've added 0.5% - add in a couple pounds of boost at that RPM and the % drops even more, no to mention the increase in air density from a FMIC (albeit small at the above described conditions).
 

Iwcham

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
TDI
golf,2003, grey-metalic
Tnx a lot.guys. Really helpful. I ordered an uprated SMIC at a reasonable price from a German manufacturer just to give it some peace of mind...

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