Gains? 2 1/2 to 3 inch intercooler piping

[Mike70gtx]

I have a cas v2 front mount intercooler. I has 2 1/2 inch piping. It looks like it is 3" into the intercooler. I am in middle of turbo upgrade. Should I go with a 3 inch outlet turbo and go to 3 inch tubing? How hard and how much to get someone to bend some using my old as a pattern. Would it be worth the money and would it help performance?

 

[Steve]

I bought a PTE front mount with no pipes for my WE4 a while back and I made the pipes from 2.5" tubing the first time. I later damaged one of the pipes and made some new pipes from 3" tubing mainly just for the looks of the larger pipe and it made no difference at all in performance on my 10.70 car. As a matter of fact my car ran exactly the same(10.70's) with a 15 row stretch stock location intercooler, PTE front mount with 2.5" pipes, and with the PTE FM with 3" pipes. I could tell that the FM seemed to work better on back to back runs due to it being out of the engine bay and in the cooler air but with cool down time between runs at the track they all ran the same.

 

[ghall]

I switched my cas v2 from 2 1/2-3" mainly because i swapped to a turbo with a 3' outlet--just seemed like the smart thing to do.
I bought a 3" pipe kit off ebay that had a great selection of straight and bent piping along with couplers and clamps for less than $100.
Wasn't hard at all to fab the piping up(selection of stuff in the kit made it easy)-then i had a buddy do the welds---polished the aluminum and bam--done.


Geoff

 

[Mike Licht]

years ago we tested this for Tony about 3 hp on a mid 10 car on the dyno so not much
Mike

 

[Mike70gtx]

Thanks alot guys. I think I'm staying with my turbo for now so I will probably just stay 2 1/2 since my turbo is that size. Good information. I thought it might increase the hp a little more.