Hey guys. i just bought my 2014 WRX hatch and realized that the scoop has nothing stopping debris from flying in and smoking my intercooler when i'm enjoying the beauty and speed of my wonderful new car... is this a legitimate concern? should i get a scoop insert? I live in Wisconsin right now where its cold and full of snow and salt, but i'm going to be moving to Arizona in the spring, where its sandy and rocky..
So let me know what everyone thinks.. and if an insert is the way to go, weather it for function or just for looks. i'd love your input.. also any good websites you would recommend that i use when purchasing such an item.
I know some use screens/etc to protect their IC and I don't judge them but it's definitely not something I would do. IMHO if I was that worried about how the fins look I would buy a different car. If I was that worried about performance being degraded by bent fins, I would buy a fin comb. Restricting air flow to the IC is just not worth it. If you really dig the look though then to each his own.
Also wth kinda rocks could do that?? Or how can they even get up to the hood scoop in everyday street driving?? That's impossible, dude I can't imagine what his front bumper must look like, no way road debris did that, I'm sorry
That's kinda what I'm saying. The way ALL the fins are bent in succession like that? It's like someone was in there pushing them down in some way. Salt won't do that.
The only way salt could do that is if you didn't wash the car from January to August, I could maybe see salt/debris sitting on it for months and causing something similair to that but not to that extreme, I could understand some clogging, but them ****s are straight up and down bent son
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about air flow. I drove around with one for years with no ill-effects. The air is not getting cut off because the holes are throughout the entire scoop on the grill. It would be different if one side was completely blocked or something or it was solid in the middle. The air will simply be more concentrated in smaller areas. I work for a wiper company (not going to say who), but we have environment chambers and air flow testers. A simple fog test will even show you any differences (extremely negligible in this case). Relax, protect your IC, and don't stress about it. If my heavy lead foot driving in 100 degree weather with 99% humidity doesn't cause any out of range heat issues for several years...I'm sure you're fine.
You have not addressed my previously posed question from your last comment...
JaySin said:
Not on a Dyno, but I did do some logs in various temperatures throughout the year. I couldn't find anything indicating cooling changes because this was also a concern of mine. My tuner looked over them and said 'good to go'.
What were you logging to test "cooling changes"? You would have to have pre- and post-I/C temperature sensors and do back-to-back (grill on / grill off) testing to see the effect of the cooling. Standard IAT will tell you nothing about the effect of a grill in the hood scoop, as that's measured at the MAF sensor, well before the TMIC is taken into account.
Again, the only scientific test is to have pre-/post-IC temperature probes, and do a back-to-back test with the grill on and the grill off. You would then be able to determine a delta value which determines intercooler efficiency, and could compare the data with and without the grill. Until you can provide that, your "experience", respectfully, is meaningless. Scientific data > individual opinion on this one.
Definitely wouldn't do that, I'm still paying for this car, and I dont have the cash to pay for this. I suspect heat soak might have had something to do with this as I was trapped in traffic and was revving motor in first gear to keep moving. This was in the snowstorm we had last month up here in D.C.
What does the rest of the car look like....are you running no hood scoop or something? Haha nothing about that makes any sense...why would heat soak cause that?
rest of the car is fine, the reason I say heat soak is because I was stuck for 2 hours with no f/i, I was idling for 2 hours and kept getting stuck with summer tires, and a lot of the time I was hitting redline trying to gain traction.
Was this the first time you really looked at your IC? It's more likely 2 years worth of debris bending your fins rather than 2 hours of being stuck in snow. Nonetheless, if money is of concern and replacing the IC is out of the question then take her out, clean her, and then straighten the fins.
Dude. GTFO. Way off topic. No it's not safe...that heat shield not only keeps heat away from intercooler but it always keeps away that killer debris and salt and snow.
I would never do anything to damage this thing, it's a $35k car and I'm still making payments on it, only thing I could thing of is heat from the motor making the fins soft and ice/salt hitting it at +50MPH bending/mashing them down.
If you were getting hit with that much salt and ice at 50+ mph to bend the fins on your IC like that, you would have cracked windshields, no paint left on the bumper, cracked headlights, dented hood, etc....