When to upgrade intercooler / piping

[mountain lion]

Curious as to when it's beneficial or necessary to upgrade the SMIC and piping on bew PD...Is the stock config more than enough with a VNT-17 w/ 2.5'' downpipe/no cat + RC2? Or is swapping the stock IC/piping really only once you go with a 17/22 or more with bigger injectors, etc?

Not looking at long WOT runs, mostly highway with occasional hard driving. The only kits I've seen for the PD are from darkside dev, and they seem very reasonably priced. Is there any benefit at all to upgrading even with the basic vnt17 mods up top?

Thanks

 

[LNXGUY]

It's always nice to have a bigger SMIC to reduce heat soak.. Also the best reason to upgrade is to get rid of the crappy clip connectors.

 

[mountain lion]

Yea, I guess the stock one gets soaked pretty quick even with the 17? Any other options for us PD owners or are the darkside development kits the go to source? Was kinda surprised to see no options stateside from the big vendors.

 

[Geobmx4life]

I have a DARKSIDE SMIC and couldn't be happier with it...made a big difference!

 

[Ghastly]

I had a 2004 BEW with a VNT17 & 2.5" downpipe. Then I installed a tacotaco SMIC with full 2" IC piping. The turbo spooled a little quicker, but the improvement wasn't as dramatic as adding the DP. The big improvement came at the top end. Previously, even with the 2.5" DP, power delivery fell flat on it's face at about 4100 RPM. Power drop-off was really abrupt. Now, with 2" IC piping, it revs freely and still makes OK power up to 4600 RPM. That extra 500 RPM is handy when you need to come up to speed fast, without wasting time changing gears.

 

[pkhoury]

Not sure if anyone still looks at this thread, as I started a new one, but what size pipe do y'all need for the EGR delete? Darkside has a 51mm or 57mm pipe option, but I have no clue what size I need (fixmyvw EGR delete). Otherwise, I have roughly the same setup - VNT17, Stage 4 tune with a 2.5" straight pipe. An LSD is also tempting in the future.
http://www.darksidedevelopments.co....i-pd130-asz-and-us-spec-bew-pd100-engine.html

 

[PGM jetta]

Not sure if anyone still looks at this thread, as I started a new one, but what size pipe do y'all need for the EGR delete? Darkside has a 51mm or 57mm pipe option, but I have no clue what size I need (fixmyvw EGR delete). Otherwise, I have roughly the same setup - VNT17, Stage 4 tune with a 2.5" straight pipe. An LSD is also tempting in the future.
http://www.darksidedevelopments.co....i-pd130-asz-and-us-spec-bew-pd100-engine.html

Your EGR is on the side of the intake manifold above the valve cover. I would suggest leaving your anti-shudder valve in place. Just slip the original hose over the new pipe

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Rrusse11]

"An LSD is also tempting in the future" pkhourly

As someone who has done it, with ~ 2k on the car now, do it!
Transforms the way the car drives and handles, if you're a commuter,
don't bother; but if you like to drive, you'll never look back.

Cheers,
R*2

 

[3L3M3NT]

Not sure if anyone still looks at this thread, as I started a new one, but what size pipe do y'all need for the EGR delete? Darkside has a 51mm or 57mm pipe option, but I have no clue what size I need (fixmyvw EGR delete). Otherwise, I have roughly the same setup - VNT17, Stage 4 tune with a 2.5" straight pipe. An LSD is also tempting in the future.
http://www.darksidedevelopments.co....i-pd130-asz-and-us-spec-bew-pd100-engine.html

My vote would be to go with the 51mm/2" piping as that is pretty close to stock size. 57mm/2.5" is to large of piping for current setup and would add a tiny bit of lag to the car, since the turbo has to fill a larger volume.

As mentioned you can more than likely keep your asv by slipping your current elbow that goes to the intake onto the Darkside IC piping. Or you could always upgrade to a PD150 intake a install a race pipe onto that for a free flowing intake.
Like so http://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/darkside-1-9-8v-tdi-pd130-pd150-egr-delete-race-pipe-57mm.html

Or with your stock intake manifold http://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/darkside-1-9-8v-tdi-ve-90-110-and-pd100-pd115-egr-delete-race-pipe-51mm.html

 

[Digital Corpus]

57 mm is much closer to 2.25" than it is 2.5"

 

[[486]]

Not looking at long WOT runs, mostly highway with occasional hard driving.

stock IC is plenty for what you describe
even the plastic pancake pipe is flowing more than your turbo
I'm still running the stock IC and plastic upper pipe on my junk, would be running the stock pancake pipe too but it doesn't have the easily adaptable connections like the 1.8 one does.

 

[ketchupshirt88]

nerdy math bits on what size piping is needed for what amount of airflow. this has been brought a hand full of times if you wanna read more

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=363037
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=358157
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=215453

basically says there's no need to go bigger than 2" piping unless you are moving more air than what a 17/22 can push


as for the intercooler, the biggest reason im ditching the SMIC for a small FMIC is that the seals keep blowing out on the side mounts... and good condition B4 intercoolers are not exactly easy to find like MK4+ stuff.

 

[martin33100]

nerdy math bits on what size piping is needed for what amount of airflow. this has been brought a hand full of times if you wanna read more
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=363037
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=358157
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=215453
basically says there's no need to go bigger than 2" piping unless you are moving more air than what a 17/22 can push
as for the intercooler, the biggest reason im ditching the SMIC for a small FMIC is that the seals keep blowing out on the side mounts... and good condition B4 intercoolers are not exactly easy to find like MK4+ stuff.

Slightly different vehicle but my VW T5 2.5 is running 287hp/625nm on standard OE 2" and 2.25" hoses.

 

[Owain@malonetuning]

Love this forum, so many detailed replies and maths.

You'll be fine with the stock intercooler, a lot of people run them. Have seen higher temps on some 17/22 beetles down south. I wouldn't bother with a front mount unless going with a big turbo because.

1. They can be a PITA to fit, or expensive.
2. Increase in turbo lag etc if pipe di or length increases
3. It's not an evo

I'd go for the upgraded side mount if anything, data log your intake temps on a hot day, down south you might find need for the larger side mount. Bigger nozzles will help with temps a tad since injection duration can be decreased.

 

[TDikook]

with a 17/22 and stock fmic, i reached 200*F+ AIT on a regular basis. any upgrade over stock will help. the climate makes a big difference too. being in the south, an upgrade is almost a necessity. in the north, not so much.

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

with a 17/22 and stock fmic, i reached 200*F+ AIT on a regular basis. any upgrade over stock will help. the climate makes a big difference too. being in the south, an upgrade is almost a necessity. in the north, not so much.

The counter to this is that I have never hit 200F IAT with my 17/22 and am still running a stock intercooler with a 40+ PSI compound turbo setup. 99% of the time it runs 10-20F over ambient. If I'm on hard acceleration through multiple gears at 25+ psi then it will get up to 60+F over ambient but that's it. Even pulling a trailer where you're at 15psi sustained boost it rarely exceeds 30-40F over ambient.

As TDikook says though, the climate makes a big difference - it gets HOT down south!

 

[\/\/0J0]

The counter to this is that I have never hit 200F IAT with my 17/22 and am still running a stock intercooler with a 40+ PSI compound turbo setup. 99% of the time it runs 10-20F over ambient. If I'm on hard acceleration through multiple gears at 25+ psi then it will get up to 60+F over ambient but that's it. Even pulling a trailer where you're at 15psi sustained boost it rarely exceeds 30-40F over ambient.

As TDikook says though, the climate makes a big difference - it gets HOT down south!

I can understand the compounds not heating the air too much because of their operating in the efficient region of their maps. The 17/22 I had, though, would get up around 200F, if not more. I went with the upgraded smic and it would still hit 170-190F, as much as 90° above ambient. Iirc, I was running a 28 psi tune so it may well have been outside of the most efficient range for that turbo.

Sent from my mobile look-at device

 

[Digital Corpus]

I can hit over 300 °F with my GTB1756 during summer, if we really want to go there... FUB's point still stands as climate matters a significant deal.