legacycentral bbs

This may seem like a silly question but; when it rains and water gets into the hood scoop and goes onto the intercooler, provided you have one does it just pass right through to the other side or does some enter the throttle body. If so I'm assuming a little bit of water isnt bad for the engine? Any thoughts?

The intercooler is sealed. Otherwise, you'd constantly have a leak.

So no water will enter the intake.

Right; the intake tract needs to be sealed up anyway.

More water than usual will get all around the engine bay though. I don't know if any of us has had a problem we can attribute to that.

There is a wiring harness that runs along the back of the firewall the you typically push aside when installing an intercooler, and in principle it gets exposed to more water than it was meant to. And I remember boostjunkie had some problems of an electrical nature for a while that got worse in the rain. But that could have been anything.

rain on the intercooler is a good thing Better cooling characteristics.

Mark,

I taped that part of the harness in preparation for putting in my i/c.


Do most of you just remove that backing funnel piece from the hoodscoop?

Couldn't you just cut it so that air couldn't get into the empty space between the turbo chimney and the i/c?

Most of us remove that part, but, yes, you can make it work better if you cut it as you describe. I remember seeing at least one picture on this BBS of a scoop thusly modified.

The 93-96 WRX had the same chimney as us, and an intercooler, and its funnel thingie actually was designed as you describe -- it channeled air to the chimney and to the intercooler.

I think that's what I'll do once I get everything fabbed up.

vrg3 wrote:And I remember boostjunkie had some problems of an electrical nature for a while that got worse in the rain. But that could have been anything.

I thought that was because of the intercooler y pipe gasket or something?

He didn't have a y-pipe. He did have trouble with his intercooler hose blowing off, but that was orthogonal to his electrical gremlins.

Make sure not get wet the ignitor. Other then that, it should be no problem...

vrg3 wrote:orthogonal

Hey! Give 'em a quarter...!

I get a knock sensor code when it rains. I am gonna mod my old scoop thing though. And get a replacement when/if I go FMIC.

I did use to have electrical problems when it rained. You all have to remember that these cars are anywhere from 10-13 years young! Not to mention the turbos tend to generate a lot of heat, that lays waste to wires and harnesses over time. I would suggest trying to go through the harnesses and wires to look for any that might need some freshening up.

I still can't believe you said "snail-tracks" in your signature. Hilarious!