I'm posting my results on this topic because I'm sure others have done hours worth of searching just like I did with no cut and dry results. I went from a procharger 3 core vertical core race intercooler that is the upgrade with the d1sc kit mounted horizontally, to a horizontal core procharger front mount. The front mount is 27x12x4.5 with 3 inch inlet/outlet. It's the front mount for ls1 fbody cars. I lost 2-3 kpa versus the vertical core but the temperature drop was huge! With the vertical core I was getting 40-50 degree rise in iats. With the horizontal core the most I have seen is 23 degrees. I'm not sure how much of that drop can be credited to mounting it up front, but my grille is still intact with the intercooler only exposed to the fog light openings on my camaro. I'll gladly give 3 kpa for that temperature drop! I'm only boosting 8 psi now so I'm sure the temperature difference would be even greater at higher boost levels

 

Very interesting information. Do you have pictures of how close it sits behind the bumper/grill? I have mounted mine up front right after the grill, but I am skeptical due to the relatively small surface area of the total core visible through the grill openings. I may potentially consider cutting the grill/bumper or re positioning if I start seeing high IAT's mine is a 31X12X4 Unit BTW.

 

Whats the size of the vertical core ones?

 

It sits right behind the bumper just like the one in your pic. Dimensions of the vertical core are 27x12.5x3.

 

Thermo and fluids say the vertical (large cross section, short length) is a better design, but depending on your compressor and the two intercoolers you may have stumbled on a better matched combo (well a more "restrictive" hence better exchanger if your compressor can make up the pressure drop without adding more heat than the added capacity of the new exchanger is removing)

Up the boost so you have the same outlet pressure as before and you'll know if you actually made an improvement.

 

I've already ordered a new pulley to get boost into the 12-13 psi range. I don't run meth yet so that would've been out of the question with pump gas as my iats in a quarter mile pass were getting up over 170* with the vertical core. My d1sc is spinning 50000 rpm to get 8 psi so it's making some heat. I'm pretty sure having the old intercooler mounted horizontally is part of the temperature reduction. I don't think it was getting much airflow and acted like a heat sink more than anything.

 

Nice intercooler install. Looks like I wasn't the first to think of a flowtie grill for a third gen.

 

Just finished the pulley swap. Looked through my old logs and with the vertical core I was getting a 49 degree increase in iats at 8 psi. Now I'm getting 24 degrees with the horizontal core at 10 psi. Definitely a major improvement!

 

awesome!

 

GREAT!

 

They say 1% power for every 10 deg cooler lol

 

I have seen one member on here completely remove the center section of the "mouth" on the Camaro grill. He was great with body work because it looked factory. You could then see the entire intercooler. I was thinking of copying this idea, or perhaps, like stated above, do some sort of flow-tie grill.

What I was thinking was take the standard grill, cut just about the entire center section out minus the mounting holes/tabs. Fit some sort of black mesh in its place. Of course cut out everything in the way behind the hole to the intercooler. Then cut out the red bowtie and glue it in place on the mesh. This way from across the street it would look fairly normal, but up close you can see what I had done.

projects...

 

That was my idea too.

 

oops, double post.