3.3TT Mishimoto's Stinger GT Intercooler Kit R&D Thread

[xot1]

How is that compared to the Wagner?

Wagner core is 14.1Kg, so exactly the same.

 

[Hawk853]

After driving around the past couple days my IATs are definitely up during “in and around town” driving compared to what they’ve been. It builds way faster in traffic now than pre-Mishi aftercooler.

I’ve been watching IATs very closely after installing @Rakker ’s snorkels and then the added benefit after I cut out the outboard cells in the non ‘smart cruise control’ GT grill, fully exposing the snorkels to the outside air. I had this mod in the back of my mind the whole time wondering if I’d see even lower temps.

I’m going to order a sheet of this heat reflective tape, pull the charge pipe and give the lower portion behind the radiator a wrap. I doubt it was by accident Kia added all that tar-like insulation to the OE charge pipe.

 

[STINGER]

Weekend project is here.

 

[Mr. Tech]

After driving around the past couple days my IATs are definitely up during “in and around town” driving compared to what they’ve been. It builds way faster in traffic now than pre-Mishi aftercooler.

I’ve been watching IATs very closely after installing @Rakker ’s snorkels and then the added benefit after I cut out the outboard cells in the non ‘smart cruise control’ GT grill, fully exposing the snorkels to the outside air. I had this mod in the back of my mind the whole time wondering if I’d see even lower temps.

I’m going to order a sheet of this heat reflective tape, pull the charge pipe and give the lower portion behind the radiator a wrap. I doubt it was by accident Kia added all that tar-like insulation to the OE charge pipe. View attachment 51280

Wow, didn't expect to see temps rise.

By "in and around town," are you talking about stoplight to stoplight type traffic, under 30MPH? I live more in the country so "in and around town" around here is still 35 to 45MPH haha.

Do you have any specific measurements? I know that my stock intercooler keeps my IATs at least 20 degrees over ambient when driving about 35 mph on back roads. I'm curious how much of a delta there is in your temps in similar conditions.

 

[Hawk853]

Wow, didn't expect to see temps rise.

By "in and around town," are you talking about stoplight to stoplight type traffic, under 30MPH? I live more in the country so "in and around town" around here is still 35 to 45MPH haha.

Do you have any specific measurements? I know that my stock intercooler keeps my IATs at least 20 degrees over ambient when driving about 35 mph on back roads. I'm curious how much of a delta there is in your temps in similar conditions.

Town, county roads and highway driving. I haven’t gone on a long highway solid state drive yet. So transitioning between 20 and 80 mph on regularly traveled routes where I’m now accustomed to seeing certain behavior.
Once I finished modifying my grill with the snorkels I was seeing between 13 and 18 on the regular. It would creep up in the low to mid 20s at a light and then quickly come back down, especially under acceleration.
Now it heats up quickly and into the 30s and beyond at a light. I’m seeing between 19 and 23ish now. It doesn’t fall quite as rapidly once I start moving again. Has to be that pipe, it’s right in the line of fire from all 4 of the car’s heat exchangers and radiant heat off the timing cover.

This is all observation, I have no empirical data to share of course. It’s not a profound increase, but a trend I wasn’t counting on. I did have a conversation about Cerakoting all the pipes, but vanity won out unanimously as we didn’t think there would be much of an impact. I’m confident the insulative tape will solve this issue.

Might reset the ECU baseline as well.

 

[xot1]

After driving around the past couple days my IATs are definitely up during “in and around town” driving compared to what they’ve been. It builds way faster in traffic now than pre-Mishi aftercooler.

I’ve been watching IATs very closely after installing @Rakker ’s snorkels and then the added benefit after I cut out the outboard cells in the non ‘smart cruise control’ GT grill, fully exposing the snorkels to the outside air. I had this mod in the back of my mind the whole time wondering if I’d see even lower temps.

I’m going to order a sheet of this heat reflective tape, pull the charge pipe and give the lower portion behind the radiator a wrap. I doubt it was by accident Kia added all that tar-like insulation to the OE charge pipe. View attachment 51280

I really enjoy reading your write ups about this FMIC and your install looks really nice. I just wanted to say.

Will you also wrap the hot pipe?

 

[Mr. Tech]

Town, county roads and highway driving. I haven’t gone on a long highway solid state drive yet. So transitioning between 20 and 80 mph on regularly traveled routes where I’m now accustomed to seeing certain behavior.
Once I finished modifying my grill with the snorkels I was seeing between 13 and 18 on the regular. It would creep up in the low to mid 20s at a light and then quickly come back down, especially under acceleration.
Now it heats up quickly and into the 30s and beyond at a light. I’m seeing between 19 and 23ish now. It doesn’t fall quite as rapidly once I start moving again. Has to be that pipe, it’s right in the line of fire from all 4 of the car’s heat exchangers and radiant heat off the timing cover.

This is all observation, I have no empirical data to share of course. It’s not a profound increase, but a trend I wasn’t counting on. I did have a conversation about Cerakoting all the pipes, but vanity won out unanimously as we didn’t think there would be much of an impact. I’m confident the insulative tape will solve this issue.

Might reset the ECU baseline as well.

Dang, that's literally the opposite of what I was hoping for. Hopefully the tape works to bring your temps back down. Have you seen any benefit to the Mishi intercooler? Based on your comments on it so far, it seems like it's a substantial decrease in performance for normal driving with occasional pulls.

Looking at Mishi's test results in consecutive pulls, the IATs didn't heat up nearly as much as the stock intercooler. However, I'm not drag racing my car back to back. I'm doing occasional hard pulls from stop lights and getting on the highway. If the my IATs when cruising are giong to be higher 10+ degrees higher than stock, then I would assume I'd get worse performance in my use-case.

I'm really hoping I'm mssing something.

Has anyone else gotten this installed and looked at their IATs before and after?

Edit: Re-reading some older posts, I see that Tim saw a substantial decrease in IATs on his car when doing some big pulls. Not sure what's up with the discrepancy here. I'm definitely interested to hear what other people are getting for results.

 

[Hawk853]

I really enjoy reading your write ups about this FMIC and your install looks really nice. I just wanted to say.

Will you also wrap the hot pipe?

Thank you!

Um, well, my question is, how hot is the compressor outlet air? Is it better for the hot air to conduct into the pipe surface, or is radiant engine heat and hot air from the radiators adding to the compressed air temp?

Most of Mishimoto’s air temp graphs show around 140 to 270 degrees. Might be best to leave that pipe alone.

 

[usafonz]

Thank you!

Um, well, my question is, how hot is the compressor outlet air? Is it better for the hot air to conduct into the pipe surface, or is radiant engine heat and hot air from the radiators adding to the compressed air temp?

Most of Mishimoto’s air temp graphs show around 140 to 270 degrees. Might be best to leave that pipe alone.

'Interesting. The only issue I see with wrapping the pipe is that it might take longer for the pipe to cool back down when driving. Will look forward to your results.

 

[STINGER]

Couldn’t help but to start disassembling the front bumper and completely forgot about my crash beam being completely different than you guys. Taking it to the shop to have them trim the extras out.

 

[Ohiocruiser]

I dont have mishimoto's intercooler kit on my stinger, but from previous experience with those aluminum pipes, i saw petty noticeable increase in IAT's. Factory pipes are insulated with some kind of rubberized material. And mishimoto's are just bare aluminum. I also tried using that heat foil with zero effect. And for that reasons i am definitely keeping my stock intercooler pipes.

 

[Spaceme17]

Maybe coating the pipes with a rubberized coating like FlexSeal would help.

 

[Mr. Tech]

I dont have mishimoto's intercooler kit on my stinger, but from previous experience with those aluminum pipes, i saw petty noticeable increase in IAT's. Factory pipes are insulated with some kind of rubberized material. And mishimoto's are just bare aluminum. I also tried using that heat foil with zero effect. And for that reasons i am definitely keeping my stock intercooler pipes.

Can you use the stock IC pipes on the Mishi kit? I thought the entirety of the Mishi kit used larger pipes that didn't match the OEM pipes. Or are you saying you reverted back to stock pipes on an IC kit from another company?

Does anyone have any data that suggests that this Mishi kit is NOT detrimental outside of drag racing? Seems that even in drag racing, your low end is going to suffer due to considerably higher IATs, then you'll get better top end due to the faster cooling.

I'm gonna hold off on installing mine. If the verdict ends up being that this is only beneficial in a track or drag race setting, and detrimental for daily driving, I'll be posting a brand new one for sale here... or possibly trying to get a refund... unless there's something we can coat the pipes in to bring IATs down to at least stock levels.

 

[Hawk853]

I dont have mishimoto's intercooler kit on my stinger, but from previous experience with those aluminum pipes, i saw petty noticeable increase in IAT's. Factory pipes are insulated with some kind of rubberized material. And mishimoto's are just bare aluminum. I also tried using that heat foil with zero effect. And for that reasons i am definitely keeping my stock intercooler pipes.

Some of the heat wraps out there are phony.

 

[niko]

Can we poweredcoat or paint it with heat resistant paint? Would u guys think that would help out

 

[17th_Letter]

Can you use the stock IC pipes on the Mishi kit? I thought the entirety of the Mishi kit used larger pipes that didn't match the OEM pipes. Or are you saying you reverted back to stock pipes on an IC kit from another company?

Does anyone have any data that suggests that this Mishi kit is NOT detrimental outside of drag racing? Seems that even in drag racing, your low end is going to suffer due to considerably higher IATs, then you'll get better top end due to the faster cooling.

I'm gonna hold off on installing mine. If the verdict ends up being that this is only beneficial in a track or drag race setting, and detrimental for daily driving, I'll be posting a brand new one for sale here... or possibly trying to get a refund... unless there's something we can coat the pipes in to bring IATs down to at least stock levels.

ok so i have to ask cause i have been running this through my head all morning. What do you mean as detrimental. IATs are going to vary on everything from ambient temp to season to location to even elevation. Static values may be higher but at what point are they detrimental? Is 5c detrimental considering that once air is pulled through the cooler you will see a -15c drop? i mean if your worried about IAT's in stop and go traffic then an upgrade is not the best mod.

 

[Houstinger1]

Could the increase in IAT be a result of an issue with the install or a manufacturing defect with that unit? I do not discount your experience of seeing high IAT's with a different intercooler, but I am curious what it is it about this one that causes it. I haven't seen anyone with other aftermarket FMIC's that come with new plumbing say they see increased IAT's (Wagner, JT, etc). Maybe because they weren't looking or their pipes are a different material or coated differently or is this an isolated incident?

 

[Hawk853]

ok so i have to ask cause i have been running this through my head all morning. What do you mean as detrimental. IATs are going to vary on everything from ambient temp to season to location to even elevation. Static values may be higher but at what point are they detrimental? Is 5c detrimental considering that once air is pulled through the cooler you will see a -15c drop? i mean if your worried about IAT's in stop and go traffic then an upgrade is not the best mod.

To piggy back on what you’re saying, my IATs were higher with just a “hot air intake” before ducking in some extra fresh air. Furthermore, all the intakes with so-called heat shields are still sucking in air from the engine bay. The hotter the IAT the more timing that’s going to be pulled, not the end of the world. Moral: if people are worried that they are increasing IATs a little they should reinstall the OEM air boxes, because nothing on the market is ducted to suck outside air only except what @Rakker is working on and another setup that’s no longer on the market.

I kind of regret making my post, lots of overreacting going on. My before and after temps aren’t catastrophic or anything nearing bad. I just want to get a few degrees back. Shouldn’t be a big problem. Understand that the more you modify things the more modifications those mods demand.
It’s the life I’ve chosen. My car is going to break more, scrape more, cost more, use more gas and make me smile more.

I don’t regret making this purchase. Just need to fine tune a few things and make it work for me and hopefully help a few of you out with more efficient installs.

 

[Mr. Tech]

ok so i have to ask cause i have been running this through my head all morning. What do you mean as detrimental. IATs are going to vary on everything from ambient temp to season to location to even elevation. Static values may be higher but at what point are they detrimental? Is 5c detrimental considering that once air is pulled through the cooler you will see a -15c drop? i mean if your worried about IAT's in stop and go traffic then an upgrade is not the best mod.

The lower your IAT, the more power you can make. I've seen a dramatic difference in performance when comparing a 30 degree (F) day pull to an 80 degree (F) day pull.

More specifically, I can run Map 2 on my JB4 all winter long and my ignition timing will look great. But when I did a pull on a 90 degree day with IATs up near 120+, the engine knocked and the timing followed the tell tale drops in my logs (I didn't hear the knock, I just noticed considerably less power and saw it in the logs).

I was hoping for IATs closer to ambient in the summer so I can avoid that issue.

So, when I say "detrimental" I'm referring to increased IATs in normal country road driving where I'm only doing 0 to 30, 40, or 60MPH pulls, not 30 to 130MPH haha.

It does seem like the intercooler is great for those long, drag race or highway pulls because you end up with a lower average IAT. I'm just hoping I don't end up with higher IATs for my personal use case (daily driver that I like to accelerate fast in).

You mentioned that once air is pulled in through the IC you'll see a -15C drop. If that's the case, awesome! But from what Hawk is saying, it seems like that's not the case. Perhaps I'm missing something.

 

[xot1]

Wagner or Mishi? Mishi or Wagner?!
Little comparison in images

To my surprise, Wagner is a little bit smaller (thinner) than their spec says and Mishimoto is a bit bigger (longer) than their spec says. In terms of core volume (end tanks non included), from my measures, Wagner is 2.57x larger than stock and Mishimoto is 1.97x larger than stock.



As we all know, Wagner uses a tube fin core and Mishi uses a bar & plate core. Took pictures of their fin density, inside and outside.



Also as mentionned in a previous post, Mishimoto is quite heavier than their spec says (probably an error!), and it weighs exactly the same as Wagner (no weight mentionned in their spec). Both are 19.5 lbs heavier than stock.



Disclaimer No claim on which one is better here! I'm just comparing the two from a pure observation standpoint since I got both at hand.☝