Finally got my intercooler project wrapped up. I started last fall chasing down an oil leak which turned into a missing gasket when I assembled the seal retainer plate. As I was about to work on that under the vehicle I spotted a broken motor mount. That repair was much easier done with the engine out and after pulling the transmission, I was only a few hours of work away from getting the engine free to pull out. During that time period I came across some intercoolers on the intrawebz that were a possible fit that I had not come across in 10 years of searching. Actually I already has the radiators installed for a water to air setup and had purchased the intercooler, pump and plumbing. The intercooler was barely over $100 and I took a flier and ordered one to see if it would fit. Tackling this was much easier with the engine out so now was the window to make it work.
The intercooler is from a Cadillac ATS 2.0L and is a super tight squeeze between the frame rails. It leaves just enough clearance for the plumbing to clear the radiator. I had to grind down two mounting bosses to get it to tuck down far enough between the frame to keep it forward enough. Fitment required some careful trimming of the core support to fit the end tanks. The intercooler needs to push as far forward as possible to let the whole stack fit in. Retaining A/C was a must in Louisiana. The core is 16" tall by 21" wide by 1.25" thick. Unlike aftermarket intercoolers that are usually 2.5" - 3" thick, this thin one left me enough room to stack everything. If this works out there is an aftermarket full aluminum version with a 2" thick core.
The stack is built up as follows: The A/C condenser is a universal aftermarket one that I already had installed previously. I fabbed a bracket from aluminum to attach it to two mounting bosses at the front upper tanks. Note: the intercooler is upside down from its OEM orientation in the caddy. The lower part of the condenser is attached to the intercooler core with the little zip tie thingys that push through the cooling fins. A 9" pusher fan is mounted to the front of the condenser on the passenger side. Last summer the A/C would kick off and on when the temps got to the upper 90s and stopped in traffic, hopefully this eliminates some of that. Mounting "ears" are attached to the intercooler at the top and the ears set in brackets mounted to the side of the core support. For this project I bought a riv-nut tool and am finding it coming in very handy for some other areas. The intercooler is allowed to float and basically hang from the top supports and the lower supports only provide fore to aft sway movement retention.
Here is the intercooler in place
And a view from the engine bay side
The intercooler inlet and outlet are 2.25" HENN connectors. After futzing around with ebay and a cancelled order I just ordered the OEM hoses from Rock auto and cut them up to use the connector and a short stubby piece of the hose. Piping fits inside the hose and is held in place with tbolt clamps. Plumbing is sized to match at 2.25" since anything bigger would continue to be a tight fit and would have to be necked down at the intercooler anyway. With the intercooler/condenser stack in place the radiator slips right down into the outer receiver grommets and is secured with the clamp at the top of the core support. Plumbing is super straightforward with two 90deg bends on the inlet and outlet and a 2"x2.25" silicone elbow at the turbo and the manifold end. I cut up a pair of crimping pliers to make a diy tube beader and its all assembled with silicone couplers and tbolt clamps.
I ordered some color match paint to hit the areas of the core support that had been ground and cut on to prevent any future rust problems and decided that would be a nice touch for the plumbing so they all got a coat of that.
Here is a poser shot showing the size of the intercooler taking up the whole frontal area between the core support before I reinstalled the grill and bumber hardware.
I blew off an intercooler boot less than a minute into the first test drive due to a missing tightening a clamp and blew a second about 40 miles later but I think I have them all tight enough now. I have already increased fueling and still have barely gotten the EGTs over 1000. 1200 max is considered safe for continuous power so I still have room to add more power, but I want to log some miles in it first.