I noticed about a month ago that my new backdoor intercooler setup was going to fail sooner than later, as I noticed one of the couplers was starting to rub/cut into the hole I cut for it to enter the engine bay.

But I still drove, and beat the crap out of the car, and it seemingly made boost very fast (small turbo) and held 12psi all the way to redline.

I got my replacement couplers yesterday, so I took it all apart and realized that BOTH couplers had indeed cut through. Is this not a huge boost leak? Im very surprised I could make boost at all...



So I trimmed the holes bigger and also hot glued in some rubber edge protector for extra measure



Its pouring rain out so I cant do a real test drive after fixing it. but do you guys think I will have any noticeable improvement? Or are those holes minor? Car still pulled like crazy

 

Nice fix, pretty big hole on the right coupler

 

clamp may have covered the hole or the charge pipe must have been touching the edge of the intecooler which prevented air from escaping. Either way glad you seem to have it fixed.

 

In the grand scheme of things, does it matter?

 

Just kind of curious how I was even making boost with such decent sized holes

After a good test drive yesterday to, the car doesnt feel to much more responsive or quicker to make boost either

I just always thought even the smallest boost leak was a BIG deal

 

More than likely the airflow from the turbo was enough to still make boost, since airflow could overcome the bad couplers

 

I still made 3psi with a blown gasket manifold to turbo and the bolts back out.
but yea its would be a small leak. kinda like filling up a tire that has a leak. Its still going to fill up just going to leak out over time.

 

Yeah, exactly. The turbo was working a lot harder to produce the same pressure.

 

I made 272hp on 10psi on an ls and went 12.5 with a hole drilled in the top of my intercooler for 2 years and i never knew -_^