No, please... before you say, "STFU no0b," hear me out...

Now we all know that SSAC is crap. Their turbos suck, their manifolds suck... hell, their intercoolers probably suck too, even though we haven't heard otherwise, right?

OK, so a few days ago, a friend showed me a link to an SSAC auction for one of their intercoolers, asking me what I thought... Well, I took a look, and it didn't look that bad. The welds looked comparable to the welds on my Spearco. The end tanks suggested even distribution of air to all the rows, and a smooth collection of the air coming out of the rows. The rows themselves looked pretty big, and after a rough calculation based on # of rows vs. advertised height and thickness, I determined the cross sectional area to be about 257 sq. in. or so. Not bad, so it must have a low pressure drop and enough volume to slow the air down enough to effectively cool it. And the price wasn't bad... $197, shipped.

So anyway... here's the auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...33632



So today, I'm rooting around the FI classifieds, and I spy someone selling a Precision intercooler... that... looks... just... like... the... SSAC IC... Holy crap.

So I pull up the Wired Speedlab site and look at the Precision intercoolers, and lo and behold, it's the same damn thing... same end tanks, same size, same number of rows, same core construction... But it's $310 before shipping.
http://www.wiredspeed.com/item...q=&Tp=



So what's the deal here? Did I stumble upon a great find, or is the SSAC IC crap? Please don't say it is unless you've owned it and had it break on you.


Modified by Loco Honkey at 1:29 PM 2/17/2005

 

I haven't heard anything about their coolers but, I have a really hard time saying anything positive at all about SSAC given my and others experinces.

For a good quality intercooler PM Hondaddict here on H-T, Reid sells very nice coolers for a very reasonable price.

 

Oh, no doubt... I agree with you that it's hard to believe that the IC isn't junk, but I mean... it's an intercooler... it's not like it's a turbo or a manifold. It has to hold maybe 15 PSI worth of pressure, and that's it. I'm not defending it, but goddamn, if the welds don't look as good as the Precision intercooler, which just happens to be the same damn thing. If I was building a medium HP car, I'd take a chance on it.

I'm all set on intercoolers. I have a 30X10X3 Spearco hanging off the front of my AllTrac, but thanks for the info.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Loco Honkey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm all set on intercoolers. I have a 30X10X3 Spearco hanging off the front of my AllTrac, but thanks for the info. </TD></TR></TABLE>


[drooling]MMMMMMMmmmmmmm AllTrac[/drooling]

Nice

I find it hard to believe that precision would use anything from SSAC, but who knows...do you have any pics that you could post???

 

It's hard to distinguish. Intercooler performance has to do with what the internals are made of. Alot of times people see the shine, the size, the nice welds, and they mistake it for a good PERFORMING intercooler. And it doesn't help that the oversea's ones are looking better and better from the outside.

My vote would be to not send SSAC money, no matter what they are selling. I'd hate to think that my money would go to feeding thier faces.

 

you stumbled accross another SSAC copy..

every product they copy, looks just like the real thing.

please buy this and let us know what problems you have.

thanks

platinum.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by platinum00 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
please buy this and let us know what problems you have.

thanks

platinum.</TD></TR></TABLE>


LOL that is funny

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 96-EJ6 B18C &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">[drooling]MMMMMMMmmmmmmm AllTrac[/drooling]

Nice </TD></TR></TABLE>

Before the paint:







Sneak peek at the rollers:

 

I think the thing to do would be to pressure test one... if they have good welds they should hold pressure.

I'd buy one and test it out if I needed an intercooler at the moment.

If the end tank design is the same as precision, the core is the same, and the welds hold pressure, I don't see why it wouldn't perform exactly the same as precision... correct me if I'm wrong...

 

maybe they get them from the same distributor. hell, the old xs-engineering intercooler was just simply a custom size griffin core that cost $250 more.

 

SSAC isnt' the only one selling cheap IC's on ebay. It's flooded with 8-9 pages of cheap coolers. I just picked up a Bar/plate 24X12X3 (core size) for $230 shipped. My friend payed $400 for a tube fine intercooler about a year and half ago. These coolers are coming from China just like the manifolds. Time will tell how these items will hold up and perform.

 

I am also curious to see someone test this thing out. Like others have said...it's an intercooler. I mean, I guess the welds could crack on the endtanks, but other than that I couldn't forsee any other major problems. For $197 shipped, it's almost worth buying and testing. Maybe I'll get one for my setup and be the HT guinea pig...

 

i doubt ssac uses garrett cores like precision does...garrett has some of the best cores in the business...

eitherway the SSAC will prolly work for 90% of the cars on here..

 

i like my spearco fmic, but if i didnt have it i would go with precisioin not ssac. i have their manifold and it sux. so why try anything else from them?

 

i love honda-tech....

the manis suck... sure

the turbos suck...sure

the wastegates rock

the bov's are good, as good as a tial..but, yeah that's not saying a lot

the intercooler look identical to a precsion...so, why does it have to suck? only half their products do..and those are their OLD products. all of their new stuff rocks

 

Precision all the way.


Ricky


Modified by WIRED RICKY at 11:47 AM 2/18/2005

 

FYI, pwr does not use a Garrett core. Its very possible that SS is using a garrett core and selling as their own? But I doubt it because its very possible that SS made their own high quality Made in China intercooler core to look like a garrett.

 

so...big name hype...or completey hated, untested product? is that what you're saying?

i say spend half the money...get the SSAC...try it out, if for some unkown reason it doesn't do like ti should (HIGHY doubtful ANYONE will run into problems with them, ever)...then you pawn it off on a local ricer for $25 more than you paid for it...and go buy something else. i see it as a win/win

 

its a damn intercooler there are plenty of people running around with cheap intercoolers like j.r 6s and 8s whocares who the names buy. But note this if the price is much cheaper then you know somewhere it is lacking ? if you are not going for 500+ hp because if you were you wouldnt be buying a small cheap intercooler and would have money to spend on a nice greddy speraco ect. so if its in your budgit go for it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Precision has a warranty, ssauto your fked</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not really. I made the mistake of buying a "Stone Mountain Racing" turbo once. It broke, SSAC refunded the price with no questions asked. Their customer service is not bad, and they are not out to screw people.

The guy could sell super-expensive, super-quality stuff. But then he wouldn't make any money because people don't shop on Ebay for Garrett intercoolers that cost $900. (The vast majority of people who buy them don't need an intercooler that flows 800 CFM anyway, maybe 1/3 that much)

And amazingly, he has managed to improve his quality without jacking up prices. The new mandrel-bent manifolds, for example, are leaps and bounds better than the old welded-el manifolds SSAC sold early on.

 

true true

i guess it's just hard to break a honda-tech bandwagon...like hating SSAC

 

I think we should do a dyno run with each intercooler to see how much more effiecent the Precision is. Somone who sells precision should do it to prove it. It wouldn't be hard to swap out an IC between a few dyno runs. Start off with a low boost run and then work your way up. I am pretty sure at some point the precision will still be able to cool the charge and the cheap one won't. I would like to see when that is.

 

Lol. Noone who wanted to sell a Precision IC would do that, because the probable fact is that the generic would perform just as well.

 

haha, soooo true

 

Found another bar/plate on Ebay. Comes from Hong Kong, so I am going to go out on a limb and say the SSAC intercooler is probably the same core:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...33742

Look at the price of that thing. You could buy it, cut off the end tanks, cut the core in half and make 2 intercoolers out of it for $75 each.

What I am trying to show is the core section: