i recently got a decent deal on a larger intercooler, about 4 inch taller core than my previous one. problem is that it would hang like 3 inches below my bumper with factory bumper support.

now if it was a track car i wouldnt really care but 99% of the time the car is driven on the street so i decided to make my own support.

here's what it started as, leftover mild steel tubing from my cage


end mounting points were made out of a sheet of 3/16 steel, cut to fit and welded up with my lincoln mig welder




theres a pic of the inside of the ends. i put a small bead on the inside as you can see then welded the length of the outside. i also measured and drilled holes to utilize the factory mount points with the oem bolts.

now ideally i would have liked to put the tubing through the end plates and weld both sides but i didnt have a holesaw to drill the plates, so i beveled the crap out of it and cranked the amps up and went nice and slow.


there's a picture of it hanging up by the intercooler mounting tabs drying after some paint. fitment is pretty good for me being a hack when i do stuff like this.the intercooler is solidly mounted with the 2 tabs and the bottom sits just about flush with the bottom of the radiator support. im also a bit interested to see if i can get some lower coolant temps since this bar is smaller than the oem support i can get more airflow over my radiator. once i get it all done and mounted up ill have some final pics.

 

The bumper support is for a 5MPH bumper. It does nothing just ditch it. If you get into an accident with the car the same amoutn of damage will occur with or without the support if going at any speed. But on the other hand thats a nice little one you made

 

^exactly
and it isn't structural either..
anything over 5mph and it actually does more harm than good.

but something like you made makes an excellent intercooler support, a lot of people don't realize what kind of mountings an intercooler needs to not move.

one day a guy came in to the shop with two steel packing straps as a mount on his s13. you could poke the intercooler and it would just rock back and forth lol

 

figured it cant be too structural with 4 8x1.25 bolts holding it in but i wanted something there. a few years ago one of my former students was killed in a crash when he was in college. it wasnt ridiculously high speed or anything but he didnt have a support up front and the engine tipped sideways and the valvecover/intake manifold came into the firewall crushing him in his seat.....