Thats the most Ghetto G-force meter i have ever seen!
Engine cover looks good mate, very tidy!
A pretty simple answer, not saying the ITG is a bad choice but I want to be happy with my car and I wasn't with the ITG.
If the Forge didn't work as well as it does I was already committed to sacrificing power and going back to the stock intake to improve drivability, thats how much I wasn't getting on with the ITG.
Some of us are not looking to post the quickest 0-60 times or quarter miles, I want it to be a good fast road car that in turn doesn't piss me off when I want to just cruise to work or the shops.
I now have an ITG available, of which I open to realistic offers.
FORGE TWINTAKE
The reason I made this post, to report on my latest intake findings.
Intakes usually utilise a single air feed from either the stock location just above the radiator or from the nearside wheel arch. Where the Forge Twintake differs is obviously apparent as it utilises two enclosed air-boxes taking air feeds from twin locations hence its name.
I believe the idea Forge are using is not so much to increase overall air volume, as far too much air volume passing the MAF (air-flow meter) at speed can actually contribute to cause misfires and poor performance. But overall I feel the goal is to sustain a level of air volume while keeping the all important air temperatures to a minimum.
The temperature of the airflow is an important function of an intake kit when you think about it, because when turbo engines gulp in lumps of cooler denser air they tend to perform that much better. The colder air provides a denser charge resulting in more power and more torque.
By using two air-boxes in this way Forge's aim is to ensure the car has a plentiful supply of cool/ambient air from both locations and another benefit of running two air feeds is reducing any restriction to the airflow into the turbo, but the point at which the twin feeds become a single feed probably swirls the air flow up enough that it passes the MAF at a manageable rate so avoiding the issue I mentioned above.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect at first, the concept of two air-boxes seems an odd one to grasp but having driven the car quite a bit now I have been surprised by how well the Twintake performs and I believe it works very efficiently.
I will attempt to explain why I think this way.
I didn't just want to fit this kit go for a drive and give my feedback, I wanted to live with it for a little while hence why I left it for a couple of weeks before writing this report.
I've now had the opportunity to test it in varying temperatures with weather of late varying from being cold to quite pleasantly warm not to mention volcanic dust I also road tested it under different driving conditions such as my daily commute to work, trips on the motorway plus A/B road blasts into the peak district for a bit of fun.
The on-road performance is exceptionally good, one of my gripes with the ITG was the poor low-speed balance it offered as I mentioned earlier. The Twintake doesn't suffer from this at all, it has manages successfully to keep air pressure sustained so the turbo remains easy to spool up. The benefit being when in slow traffic the car doesn't feel so gutless and is quicker on the uptake.
Its also quieter during normal cruising conditions with little to no turbo warbling when your on and off the throttle.
Outright performance isn't forgotten either, when I got the car out onto the motorways and my favourite roads up into the peak district it really didn't disappoint when on the boil. The power comes in rapidly and the turbo spools both smoothly and quickly with no surging, uptake of revs from the engine as you travel up the gears is quick and effortless too with very little lag.
The induction roar expressed from the Forge both inside the cabin and outside at this point is no less impressive when compared to an ITG, the engine slurps up huge lungfuls of air and the turbo will both squark and whistle in a smile inducing manner.
I have a theory which you may or may not agree with but it makes sense to me. I believe that the Twintake works more conventionally than it would first appear, the primary upper airbox is fitted to the stock air feed location above the radiator and is provided a direct flow of air into the intake via the air scoop that Forge supply, at slower speeds this is directly effective.
When the cars speed increases, the overall air flow at the front of the car is being forced both over the bonnet and also beneath the car. This leads in turn to create a low air pressure effect centred on the primary air intake point, the upper front grille.
As speed increases the airflow towards the the car will flow more directly from beneath it, up through the wheel arch and/or directly via the front nearside foglight enclosure into the secondary positioned air scoop so sustaining a regular flow of cool air into the secondary airbox.
Forge have seemingly taken steps to design their kit in such a way that the air flow to the air boxes is both purposely directed and more importantly sustained at all times to provide the all important cold air to increase power and torque across the rev band.
While this provides great performance the dual action of the air flow also makes the driving experience easier to live with at the times when you don't have your right foot buried to the carpet. My fuel economy has greatly improved too with the car getting at least an extra 50 miles compared to what it was getting with the ITG based on similar road usage and a full tank of fuel.
I can't say at the moment what increase in power the kit provides as I've not had it dynoed with the Forge kit fitted, but judging by the on-road performance I expect no less of a result compared to other intakes. So I would be confident of saying upto 20hp increase on a Stg2+ car such as mine.
This is also a tidy looking intake kit, and while you fully expect it to be a complicated setup. Its a well thought out and executed idea and fits very well on the most part.
The only gripe while fitting the kit was positioning a nut and bolt that wasn't provided in the kit which is required to hold the second air scoop in place onto the wing. Forge have utilised a hole that is already there in the Cupra's nearside wing to hold the air scoop into position. There is very little space to get your hand down around it especially if you have the factory xenons like I do.
The drawbacks being that to replace an indicator or sidelight bulb in the cluster means removal of this tricky secondary air scoop. Its not a massive problem to be fair and the scoop is probably located in the best position it could be.
In addition it would also be possible to fit some ducting from the fog light enclosure up into the scoop, though you have to be mindful of water ingress up into the filters in extremely wet conditions.
The carbon covered air-boxes each contain cotton based cone filters, they look the business when you lift the bonnet, finished off with striking chrome style Forge stickers. The metal pipework is powder coated black and the excellent Forge silicone hoses are also black.
When fitting full intakes to the Cupra you lose the engine cover because it contains the stock air box too and won't go back on when an intake is positioned. It can look a bit ugly under there sans engine cover and the splash of carbon provided by the twintake kit successfully pimps up an otherwise ugly looking space.
This kit was designed for the Leon Cupra too, with Forge selling bespoke kits for each of the main protagonists sharing this platform, ie Golf Ed30 and S3.
Its a pricey kit, coming in at almost £380inc VAT RRP and it might put some off in comparison to the competition but its a well thought out solution and aesthetically the other intakes pale in comparison to it. Performance is superb and I most importantly to me at least, I appear to have found an intake kit I can happily live with day to day.
As always these are just my views and you may or may not agree, but this is why we have choice and what works for you might not work for me.
Thanks for the awesome in depth review one question was the blue tubing included with your twinktake or did you but it separately if so where from?
Why would it be including in the twintake???
its not even attached to the twintake
Somebody has got out of the wrong side this morning.
A pretty simple answer, not saying the ITG is a bad choice but I want to be happy with my car and I wasn't with the ITG.
If the Forge didn't work as well as it does I was already committed to sacrificing power and going back to the stock intake to improve drivability, thats how much I wasn't getting on with the ITG.
Some of us are not looking to post the quickest 0-60 times or quarter miles, I want it to be a good fast road car that in turn doesn't piss me off when I want to just cruise to work or the shops.
I now have an ITG available, of which I open to realistic offers.