Well, the time has come for a bit more performance oriented upgrades. I know I'll be tracking the car next year (already feels like I've been off track for so long), and I knew that the OEM charge pipe was a point of failure, so decided to go with the FTP charge pipe. Figured I'd toss in an Active Autowerke Front Mount Intercooler at the same time, since the oem one would have to come out for installation anyways.
My thoughts:
1) The process itself on paper shouldn't be very hard. No weird tools are necessary (literally just a flathead, 8mm/15mm sockets, and some torx bits), and taking everything out wasnt a difficult task.
2) Doing this job on jack stands was an absolute pain in the ***. The main hard part is getting the new AA FMIC back in and screwed in. Not only is it hard to perfectly align the two tabs side to side to slide it up, but the AA intercooler weight a good 15 lbs or so more than the OEM unit (feels like 50lbs LOL). it's very hard to push up and get everything aligned properly on both charge pipes, while also pushing back on the plastic pieces around the intercooler. Overall, would have been much easier even with just a second pair of helping hands.
3) Driving impressions: exactly the same. LOL, this was to be expected tho, as I am on stock tune and the weather these days (at the time of writing in mid-November) isn't exactly hot outside. Hoping this will reduce the heat soak in summer months, especially on track, and no charge pipes breaking!
>It definitely does look sick tho
