Its been late October that Iseriously put myself into an "intercooler upgrade research" and the truth is that this forum was my "biggest advisor". This is because there are so many people using so many different IC products that I could certainly compare and decide what is best for my car.
The problem was that everyone in this forum claims that his intercooler is the best around...so I could only check and compare specs and technical analysis (whenever existed).
I concluded to HELIX as I believe this is the best product around for the given price conditions. Even though I was determined to go on Helix the long production time as well the fact its a US product (which means custom taxes & high shipping costs) was a serious drawback for me.
So searching for an alternative solution I found out that Forge was releasing their 335i/135i Intercooler by mid-November. Everyone knows Forge and how serious they are when developing a product. Their intercoolers are famous (possobly the best) amongst the GroupVag car-owners. So without a second thought I decided to move into this direction
As seen on the pics , the product quality is amazing. This intercooler could be also sold into a jewlery shop. The welds were pretty well-made.
The OEM IC looks like a piece of garbage beside Forge Intercooler IRL
The Installation is not difficult but its not a plug n' play procedure either.
No trimming required for both 135i/335i but as you need to replace the OEM mounting collars with the Forge silicon hoses , it certainly makes the installation more time-consuming.
I didn't drive the car immediately after installation as I needed to leave it to the dealership for another 2-3 days for some other upgrades.But I had a quick run (after proper warm-up) to check if everything was right.
Despite the biggest IC size there is "zero" lag/hesitation. I was very happy about this as I initialy thought that a bigger intercooler would had this sideffect. The second thing I noticed is that the boost gauge has been hoovering to the same levels as before the installation (maybe -0.2~-0.3).
(Using Procede V3, Stage 2,Catless Dps,Hartge exhaust,etc etc etc etc)
The car felt more "spirited" on high revs...but then again...I was not sure.
When I got my car back I charged my laptop's battery and got out to check temp differences between pre-Forge runs Vs post-Forge runs.
-Pre-Forge (OEM FMIC):
Date:
2nd-Nov-09
Abient Temp:
9 deg Celcius/ 48deg F
Conditions: The second from a total of 6 pulls 3rd-4rth-5th gear to 139mph
-With Forge Intercooler:
Date:
4th-Dec-09
Abient Temp:
12 deg Celcius/ 55deg F
Conditions : 2nd pull out of 4 total pulls of 4th-5th-6th to 157mph
Unfortunately the logs are taken in Celcius (for the AIT) but translating these numbers into "F" it has been revieled that under similar circumstances (the conditions of the 2nd graph were less favorable than the first one by all means) the Forge intercooler managed to reduce the temps from 131degF (55degC) to 103deg F (40degC).
Watching on the rest of the logs (not showing here) I noticed than on further pulls with the OEM FMIC, the temps were kept increasing (5th pull reached 145.5degF) while the Forge IC at the same rate never exceeded the 100-105degF. I've noticed that at some points the temp difference was close to 22degC (48degF)!!!
Unfortunately (again) I was using different gears on every pull and as it would be unfair to compare completely different runs, I found that the 2nd run from each different graph (the one you see the above) was the most close one and fair one to communicate you here.
Please also note that the Forge IC runs, has been made with a little bit increased ,in pressure, maps (stage3).
I hope that you will find this post informative. If any questions , let me know.