Here's another update. I'll first start by saying that anyone in the Edmonton area looking for a great shop wouldn't be making a mistake by going to AFI Performance. (EDIT: STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!)They lent me their fender roller for free and from what I've seen they do top notch work and have quite a bit of space to work with. Anything I can't do myself or can't have my usual shop do(they charge me 60 bucks an hour) I'll be having AFI Performance do(EDIT: STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!).
I rolled the rear fenders and it worked beautifully as I have no hint of tire rub even when bottoming out. The paint chipped just a little on the first try but I partially blame that on the chipping that had already occurred thanks to the rubbing of the tire.
An update on the water cooled Street Brawler turbo kit from KO Racing is...well...it still hasn't shipped. Kris contacted me promptly after I e-mailed him asking what the status was on the whole thing and he stated that his turbo supplier was having delays and hopefully he will be shipping me the kit within 7-10 business days. I really would love to get this thing installed.
After reading a post by "sims" regarding his recent purchase of a Bay Area TMIC I got curious. "Simba" gave the intercooler a good review so I went and ordered one up(without telling my wife...muah ha ha). I received the intercooler 3 days ago(my wife found out and I got a spanking) and have mixed feelings about it. I'll start off with the good things first. The build quality looked quite nice, the welds were good, the end tanks were nice and polished and the inlet and outlet pipes had a nice raised ring/rib around the edge to help the hose get a better grip when installed. Now the only bad thing I can say about this intercooler was not a result of the fabrication process...but rather that of either USPS or Canada Post because my intake pipe had a nice dent on the underside of the opening. It wasn't a round opening any more...and I was too ashamed of it to take a picture to post on here.
Now to offset any negativity about what I'm going to write next I'll say something nice: The performance gain from switching to this intercooler over the stock intercooler at factory boost settings was noticeable. It's not a HUGE leap, but I can tell it pulls a bit harder despite a smidge more turbo lag.
Now for the bad. The position of the outlet pipe on the intercooler should have been moved over further to the left so that the entire intercooler core could be exposed to the hood air scoop...and because the whole thing doesn't line up as is. This causes the intercooler to sit on an angle and it's quite noticeable. I HOPE that the SB46 turbo kit fits different than the stock turbo so that the intercooler will line up nicer...but I'm not holding my breath. After tearing up my old rubber hose fittings with the oversized intake/outlet pipes for the intercooler I finally broke down and purchased some proper fittings and clamps that were sized right. After it was all clamped in there nicely I realized that I was going to have clearance issues with the hood closing properly. It touched the SSQV and the passenger side of the intercooler near the front of the car. I had to remove the rubber air guide from the underside of the hood as the metal support/fastener for this rubber air guide was rubbing on the intercooler.
I assumed all was good and closed the hood a few times without drama and proceeded to go for a small rip. I wasn't sure how much the engine would move inside the bay under acceleration so I kept it under a light load and didn't do anything crazy. I parked the car and popped the hood to find one of the screws that hold part of the scoop trim in place had gouged a bit into the end-tank...and the SSQV was rubbing on the insulation on the underside of the hood.
Because of the odd angle the intercooler sits at to align somewhat with the turbo and the throttle body inlet it stresses the hosing more than I would like, but I clamped them down good so hopefully I don't have any issues in the future.
A majority of core is exposed to the scoop airflow, but a small portion is not. Overall I'd say I'm happy with the BayArea TMIC and considering the price it's a fairly good deal with the exceptions of the fitment issues. Here's a link to "sims" thread and the modifications he had to do with his intercooler to get it to fit properly.
viewtopic.php?t=27827
At this time I don't plan on doing any further modifications to the intercooler as I want to see how it fits up with the SB46 turbo(not really expecting any difference). Eventually I will probably address the fitment issues when I start to sort out all the cosmetic stuff I'd like to get done to the car.