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GReddy Front Mounted Intercooler (V-Spec)
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Looking back, I am surprised at how easy the intercooler was to install. I had heard nightmares
about the clips under the headlights, and things like that but the installation went very smoothly.
It took me about 1.5 hours to get everything off of the car and begin installing the front mount
and then another hour to get the front mount and everything back on the car - except the bumper cover.
I spent another hour or so trimming the bumper cover and could have easily spent another hour or two.
It can be pretty tricky, and is definitely something to be patient and slow about. I started cutting
a bit too hastily and ended up taking away too much material at the top. You do not need to cut an
even amount off - the FMIC will require more material removed at the bottom than at the top.
With that being said, on with the installation!
First, jack the car up nice and high. Get it as high as you can. I jacked up the car, put it on small
jack stands, and then put the jack on top of a block of wood and jacked it up even higher. I have a
second set of larger jack stands for that purpose.
Once the car is in the air you can begin removing the bumper cover. Start on the passenger side.
First, you need to remove three plastic body plugs and 1 bolt on the inside of the wheel well.
With that stuff removed, you can peel back the plastic wheel well liner. There are two bolts up inside there that need to be
removed. I found it easiest to get on my back and use a lot of extensions to reach them. While you are in there, remove the
bulb from the turn signal repeater. Turn the bulb counter-clockwise about one half turn and then it pulls out.
Repeat the above steps on the other side of the car. The driver side will be a bit tougher, as there is a lot of junk in
the way of the 2 bolts and turn signal light. Once you have all of these bolts removed, the bumper cover should sag a bit.
Next, remove the 5 bolts at the top of the bumper cover.
Now remove the 4 bolts on the other side of the bumper bracket.
The last bolt for this bracket can be reached by going up through the front air dam. It is at the bottom of the bracket.
The pic on the left shows the bolt just behind the black bumper. The picture on the right shows the bolt with the
bumper removed to give you a better idea of where it is located.
With those bolts removed, pull the metal bracket out. If you pull back gently on the bumper it will slide right out.
Now remove the bolts, if you have any left, on the underside of the bumper. On my car, they had all been pulled out
when my car scraped on curbs and such. Only one was left. I believe there are supposed to be 5. Just remove them all.
Next, remove the 4 body plugs from inside of the main air dam. They hold the bumper cover to the actual bumper.
There are now only body clips holding the bumper onto the car. And all 4 of them are underneath the headlights. I was
not able to find a way to remove these clips gently. The bottom line is, they arent necessary. You can get the bumper
cover back onto the car, straight, without them. I choose to use a large flat head screw driver to pry them out. Slide the
flat tip of the screw driver under the rim of the plug, and then twist. Also, you can put something soft on the edge of the
bumper cover (as seen below) and then pry at them. Be careful not to chip your paint!
I found it easiest to get at the outer plugs by prying at them from the sides of the car, and the inner clips you can get at
by going behind the bumper where we removed the metal bracket a few steps ago.
The picture on the left was taken with the camera in between the headlights, behind the bumper cover, pointing to the
driver's side of the car. The picture on the right, was taken from the passenger's side of the car pointing in towards
the center of the car.
Now slide the bumper cover off and set it aside.
At this point you need to remove the stock side mounted intercooler. Start by pulling the ducting off of the front of it. The
ducting connects to the side mount with 3 body plugs. From left to right below, one plug is inside the ducting on the driver's
side, one is below the ducting, and one is above the ducting. The final picture shows all 3 body plugs from a distance.
Now remove the stock intercooler. Start by removing the hose clamps from the lower intercooler pipe. As you may notice, my
lower intercooler pipe has 4 clamps on it. Better safe then sorry! Remove the upper clamp as well. Below, the picture on the
left is the lower intercooler pipe, the picture on the right is the upper intercooler pipe. Leave the hose in place, just loosen
the clamps so that the intercooler can slide out.
Remove the 3 bolts that hold the stock intercooler in place. One bolt is above the intercooler, one behind it, and one on the
otherside of the frame, towards the driver's side of the car.
Be careful when you remove the stock intercooler. I was greeted with a bit of sludge coming out of the ic inlet. Below
is a picture of the inlet, then a picture taken into the intercooler inlet. The last picture is inside of the intercooler
outlet. I guess not THAT much oil has been pushed into the intercooler since it never made it all the way to the bottom.
I have had a catch can installed on the crank case breather hose for the last 20k miles or so.
The LAST thing you need to remove is the radiator ducting. There are quite a few body plugs holding it in place, AND
you need to remove the fog lights as well. On each fog light, one of the bolts is hard to get to. Remove the other
two bolts first. Then loosen the 3rd bolt with an open ended wrench. At this point you will be able to rotate the
fog light housing and get better access to the last bolt. Below charts out all of the bolts you need to remove.
With the foglight removed, you can see how it was holding the radiator ducting in place.
At this point, your car should look utterly raveged.
Start by putting the foglight assemblies back on. Reconnect the electrical connectors as well. Next, bolt the bumper
bracket back to the frame. Then install the brackets for the intercooler core as shown below.
Now bolt the core into place.
Next, start assembling the intercooler piping. Start with the long piece, it goes in front. One end is curved, this
goes on the passenger side as it will connect to another pipe, which in turn connects to the upper intercooler pipe.
Start by fitting them into the silicone hose connectors, but do not tighten the hose clamps until you have the pipes
arranged properly. The picture below shows these two pipes installed.
Now install the lower pipe. The lower pipe is a smaller diameter because it is designed to connect to the stock turbo.
Supposedly RRE sells a replacement pipe that is 2.25".
Once all of the pipes were in place, I slapped on every hose clamp I could find! 13 in all. Below are pics of the various
connections. This is probably over kill, but I do not want to deal with a pipe blowing off while driving.
Upper Pipes:
Lower Pipes:
At this point you should be installing the stock 5mph bumper. However, it would appear that quite a bit of cutting
would be necessary to get the bumper back in place. All of that cutting will weaken its structural integrity, leaving
you with a 2mph bumper. It is still better than nothing - but I did not want to spend the time on it. Maybe at some
point (either when I install the larger RRE lower pipe, or install a grill) I will take the time to install the bumper.
Now it is time to cut the bumper. This is probably the longest and hardest part of the process. I used a combination of
tools to trim my bumper. The worst out of the group was a set of tin snips. I was not able to get the cuts very straight
and had to do a lot of clean up afterwards. I was also tempted to take away more material at a time, and ended up cutting
out too much along the top. (Which you cant see, thankfully)
I would suggest putting the bumper back onto the car and seeing where it is touching the fmic, and trim from that area.
Make slow gradual changes until it fits back into place. I found that most of the material had to be removed from the
bottom, at the corners. Below is a picture of the trimmed bumper installed.
Start bolting the bumper back into place. Note that you are not reinstalling the big black bumper, the foam padding,
or the sheet of radiator ducting.
Bolt the top/center of the bumper cover to the bumper bracket first, this will help support the bumper. Next, put the
two bolts back in at each corner of the bumper cover. Remember to reconnect your turn signal repeaters on each side.
I forgot to do one. :P
Replace the 3 body plugs and 1 bolt in each wheel well, to reattach the wheel well lining to the bumper. This lining
does quite a bit to keep the bumper cover on straight. You might have to lift up at the bottom of the bumper cover
to get the holes to line up properly.
And you are done! Lower the car down and take it for a spin. I noticed that my boost dropped from 1.2 kg/cm2 to
1.1 kg/cm2 for a pressure drop of about 1.5psi. Also, the turbo took about 200rpms longer to spool. However, after
4,500RPMs in 3rd gear there was a big difference in how hard the car pulled. Below is a picture of the finished product.
Update 7/12/01:
Notice how the bottom of the bumper is sagging in the picture above? The fix is simple. Remove the metal trim piece
from the radiator ducting that was taken off of the car during the install. Reattach that piece inside of the bottom
of the bumper. This will help keep it straight! Below is a pic of the car after putting that metal piece back on.
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