but.. will the open intake work as good as the intake box would??

 

a big mouth front bumper would allow a lot more cooling to the rad if you go FMIC.

 

Stock mount works better if all you do is road race, but in the real world it heat soaks like charcoal in a bbq grill. The only reason front mount hurts on the road coarse is blocking air to the radiator. That being said, I am running a greddy 2 row front mount in my single turbo car. I drag race, road race, and street drive it with no overheating problems. I also have custom bringing air under the intercooler to the radiator and a sheild sealing off the top.

 

i believe you can only have an open intake if you are a single turbo kinda guy. i might be wrong but i have never seen a stock twin turbo setup with an open intake.

 

I have stock twins. If I do upgrade it will probably be the M2's... Would a FMIC be good with them? What ways are there to not block air going to the radiator? thanks.

 

As stated smic are for road racing and auto-x, fmic are for short hard drives unless you can figure out a way to get more air to the radiator. Both are 100x better than stock and work great for daily driving the car, long trips, or hauling butt down a nice back road. You won't get the heat soak with the fmic and will get a better blast of air since its in the mouth of the bumper, and it looks good too. You will have issues with your ac with a fmic since the condensor will be moved horrizontal. No problem there though, just run another fan and hook it to the condensor, works great for me. Also you can move your condensor down leaving a gap between it and the bottom of the fmic to allow a duct for air to reach the radiator. Probably one of the best mods you can do to help out with cooling water temps. You can also get really creative and shield off gaps around the radiator forming a boxed in unit around the radiator which will also lower temps. So what i'm getting at is water temp issues aren't that big a deal when going with a fmic. I just wouldn't recomend it if you plan on road racing.

 

there are plenty of open intakes for the stock twins. I had the Blitz ones and the A'PEX ones. they worked well! I have the A'PEX f/m intercooler too. looks sooooo sweet but installing is the hell!

 

Before I went single and had the apexi fmic with their intake setup for stock turbos, it was really nice. And when you go single you eliminate a couple pipes and add any necessary pipes to connect into the intercooler and your all set.