the next step was to temporarily put the bumper back on and in place to see if the intercooler was in the correct position. To save hassle i screwed the m8 bolts into the top of the intercooler and tied a piece of string to each side, which went up through the back of the bumper bar and tied them around something in the engine bay...this way the intercooler was like a puppet and i could re position it by pulling the strings to make each side higher or lower. this saved a lot of time as i did not need to keep re taking the intercooler off and on to get the cooler in the correct position
After playing around with the height of the intercooler i decided that i would need to turn the cooler upside down so that the inlet and outlet were at the top rather than at the bottom. the reason i had to do this was to make the end tanks at the centre of the grilles on my r32 bumper. If I kept it the way up in the picture I would of lost 30% of the surface shown and i would of had to cut the bumper bar up to make it fit behind, and move the rad back.
so after debating which way to do it i decided to turn it upside down, this way the cooler is quite low to the ground but the inlet/outlet are at the right height which means when finished you will be able to see the nice shiny pipes throught the sides of the bumper. also i did not need to move the rad or start cutting at the bumper bar!
here is a pic of me making sure the cooler is perfectly horizontal and making sure that the end tanks are at the right height for the grille cut outs.
to mount the intercooler to the bumper bar i used some L shaped door hinges from a DIY shop that cost me best part of £2.80 inc VAT what a bargain, so i bought three of them incase one went wrong. I then bought 6 m8 bolts whih fitted into the intercooler mounting points (baring in mind you cant have them to long or it wont be tight) so i bought small 2 small m8 bolts and some washers incase i needed to pack it out a bit to allow it to tighten up properly against the clamp.
the next stage was marking out the points at which the L shaped hinges would need to bolt onto the bumper bar i did this by lining them up and drawling a guide line.
once i had the correct position i un did the bumper bar from the car and started to cut the inner lip of to allow the hinge to sit flush against the bar...
the final stage was bending the L shaped hinge in the right place to meet up with the intercooler meaning it will sit in the same place as the strings but bolted on! (not hung) here is a pi of the hinges bolted onto the intercooler in the correct place....
to make sure the interooler was pushed back against the rad as best as it could be, I bent the hinge that went onto the bumper bar upwards meaning as you bolted it down it would naturally cause the intercooler to have pressure leaning back. finally i put two bolts either side to make sure it did not move from side to side once in place.
(you can see a full guide to the fmic at
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/t/217225.aspx)
