I was talking to one of the salesmen at my local subaru dealer and he said that the new 2005 legacy gt and outback xt have whats called a downflow intercooler vs the WRX's and STi's crossflow intercooler. he claims that the downflow design is like 20 or 30% more efficient then the current crossflow designs and that Subaru is even thinking about putting the new intercoolers in the STi and like. Is this true or was he feeding me a line?

 

Honestly 30% is a damn big boast for simple piping design if anything they are probably alot bigger then.

Crossflow piping style (notice how it flows side to side)


Downflow (notice the top to bottom design)

 

Subaru topmounts are already downflow designs. Basically you want the end tanks to be as long as possible and the distance the air travels through the intercooler to be short. I don't see where they are able to improve on the existing ICs.

 

from what i could see (the new legacies have a stupid dress up covering thing over the top of the engine and intercooler) when we popped the hood the intake came from the side and around to the top of the intercooler. the intercooler had vetical bars then dumped into the engine (refer to ghetto picture below). I maybe wrong in that the air may come in from the side and not the top but everything else is right. in a day or two I'll get somebody with the new legacy to post a picture of the engine bay without the cover thing on.

 

very ghetto indeed

 

hey quit ragging on my drawing. Even if it is ghetto (which it deffinitely is) it serves its purpose and gets the point across. besides StrykerSTi should be posting a pick of the engine and intercooler of his new GT soon and then you can look at the real thing instead of my ghetto drawing.

 

roflmao that picture is great

 

Salesmen are fricking morons.

 

Yup, did you know that corvettes are now FWD?! Amazing facts from your local Toyota dealership!

 

Well that is what the new LGT one does... Its got larger end tanks, with the turbo directly connecting to the intercooler rather than having the funky Y pipe, and a short distance across but with more fins. Its a much more efficient design IMHO.

 

So the Legacy IC is more efficient than the WRX IC. But not because it's downflow instead of crossflow. How much more efficient is it? Would it be enough to justify the expense of switching?

 

You cant switch, unless you use the LGT turbo as well.

 

Well i guess my dealer was right, maybe for the wrong reasons, but he was right. Maybe when I get one I'll have to do some airflow tests on it to see what benifits it has over the WRX one.

 

Well StrykerSTi posted some pics of the GT IC for me so you don't have to look at my ghetto drawing anymore. And now with that dress up piece taken off the engine I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on with the airflow.