Fixing intercooler lines with J2Fab mod

MalcolmV8

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Hey Guys,

Thought I'd share how I changed up my J2Fab mod on the front of the engine. I'm sure you've all seen how the IC lines point up by the valve cover and you loop over. Just my personal preference, not a fan of that.

The stock J2Fab manifold on the left next to OEM stock.

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I cut the barbs off and cut up some pieces of mandrel bent tubing I got that match the ID/OD

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Using a square as a jig for reference I mocked up what I needed. It took quite a few trial fits on the motor with all the other parts attached around it to figure out proper placement and clearances.

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This is what it looked like

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Here's how it fits on the motor

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It looked great but stood out so I painted it to blend in.

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Hides in there quite nicely

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See how you can barely even see it and the IC hoses will tuck down nicely and out of site.

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Some idea for anyone looking for a different way to run the hoses or even tuck under the stock cross over.
 

01yellercobra

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That looks really tight in there. But looks good. Did you ever consider going with AN fittings?
 

MalcolmV8

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That looks really tight in there. But looks good. Did you ever consider going with AN fittings?

I did but as you say it's really tight. Plus I didn't want anymore connections and fittings to leak than needed.

I also considered deleting the cross over and just sort of bending the hoses down but then I'd have to find somewhere else to put these sensors. Hidden under the stock coolant crossover that you can't see. Don't mind mess, it wasn't painted here yet.

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I may switch it up in the future again but for now this works and achieves what I wanted.
 

04torchred

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You just can't pull the blower any longer without draining all your coolant and removing the coolant cross over pipe correct?

Its really clean looking though.
 

01yellercobra

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looks awesome! seeing how you changed about 1/3 of the full product, cant see how its worth $600. to me its just a very expensive piece

To be honest I've wondered what the cost would be to do things yourself. Opening the intercooler can be done by any machine shop really. I guess the issue would be the manifold and tubes. But then looking at what Malcolm did maybe working with a shop to make your own manifold might be worth the investment.
 

MalcolmV8

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You just can't pull the blower any longer without draining all your coolant and removing the coolant cross over pipe correct?

Its really clean looking though.

Correct. That is one downside. However the coolant cross over is the highest point in the cooling system so very minimal draining if any would be needed. You could just pull the cross over and let that little spill down and that's it. In the future I may switch too a coolant cross over delete which will fix that issue but for now this is what I was wanting.

looks awesome! seeing how you changed about 1/3 of the full product, cant see how its worth $600. to me its just a very expensive piece

It is very expensive but he's the only guy who does it and it does work. When I look at logs on cars I'm tuning I can tell right away when someone has this mod along with a good tank and lines etc. So I bit the bullet.

To be honest I've wondered what the cost would be to do things yourself. Opening the intercooler can be done by any machine shop really. I guess the issue would be the manifold and tubes. But then looking at what Malcolm did maybe working with a shop to make your own manifold might be worth the investment.

If you worked in a machine shop or had access to cool machining tools you could easily replicate it. I don't so I had to just modify what's been made to fit my needs.
 

termibryqn

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how much is invested total ? all you need is bigger pump, trunk mounted intercooler, and j2 mod correct ?


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keith89

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Great job! it looks like it came that way from the factory. Been thinking about doing something similar with my cobra engineering inercooler adapter. Just trying to clean up the engine bay a bit more. I may use AN fittings to match the cooling system.

50623423_10103120444735775_4776695397764562944_n.jpg
 
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MalcolmV8

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how much is invested total ? all you need is bigger pump, trunk mounted intercooler, and j2 mod correct ?

I never add up parts on my car or I'd cry and sell it lol. But yes it does get expensive. The J2Fab mod is $600 although I can help a little on that pricing but there's very small margins there. I can understand why though, I mean the guy does have too take the time to machine your stock intercooler out. He has to purchase blocks of billet aluminum (not cheap, I've priced this stuff out) to then CNC machine you a new manifold piece and the tubes that go on the inside. Then grab some mandrel bend tubing and barbs and cut and mock it all up and TIG weld it all together. That's all labor intense and his time and parts. Custom hand made one off parts are always going to be expensive.

Yes a trunk mount tank and a powerful pump. I went with the Stewart EMP as it's the most powerful I could find. That was a pricy sucker at $450 or $480 or what ever it was but dang it blasts the fluid like a firehose which is what I was wanting. Another popular option is the DC150 which is much cheaper, it just moves less fluid.

You'll also need 1" lines to carry the large flow. Some use 3/4" hose because it bends easier and is more resistant to kinking but I went with the full 1" to get maximum possible flow.

Something else to consider is the heat exchanger. You really should get a monster in there to dissipate all that heat. So the trunk mount gives you capacity and the pump of course the volume and flow to get you through a pull but that heat has to go somewhere. You need a heat exchanger to match the system.

I went with the GT500 AFCO unit. You can either cut up the factory crash bar or just install an aftermarket crash bar.
Sticking with the 1" theme I cut off the tiny inlet/outlets on the cooler and welded in 1" barbs. I also made sure they were center in the tanks (as much as clearance allowed) to get maximum flow.

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See how small the inlet/outlets were prior and their location

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Sorry can't find a current pic, here's a really old one prior to painting the bar or doing much of anything but gives you an idea of placement.

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And of course it has dual 10" SPAL fans for maximum cooling.

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whitedevil95

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Oh you haven't seen? Here's a couple random guys I just stole their pics quick.

View attachment 1556560

View attachment 1556561
Haha that SB car is me! I have Malcolm's set up duplicated almost exactly. It seems to work great so far(no drag strip time yet) but on t he Dyno we did 3 pulls back to back to back and my logs only showed my IAT2 going up by 2 degrees total. Pretty good im interested to see how it will fair with a full quarter mile run. I do plan to do a crossover delete soon so i can run the lines to the IC block most cleanly.
 

04torchred

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I would really like to improve my factory intercooler setup, but damn. $600 for the intercooler upgrade, $480 for the pump, $400 for a rear tank. That's $1500 before you buy lines, fittings, clamps, etc.

You did it the correct way though, I would do it the same Malcolm. Be curious to see your findings.
 

01yellercobra

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I was given a spare intercooler manifold. I've thought about using it as a guinea pig for some custom lines.
 

termibryqn

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ive read ur post and followed it about the gt500 h/e swap very good idea imo


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