Fitting Guide for LCR: Toyosport Large FMIC & Mocal Oil Cooler

Hi guys

Been quite a few posts on the Leon forum recently about the large Toyosport FMIC.

Its been used on some 8L S3's to great effect (check out audi-sport.net) most notably on Welly's car - Bill and quite a few others refer to it as the "Wellycooler"

I already have a FMIC on my car, a tiny Toyosport FMIC with even tinier piping (56mm) - it was something I did a few years ago without actually thinking why I was doing it!!

Since I am now going hybrid, in order to get the best out of my car, I needed a better FMIC setup.

Welly got some outstanding figures on his car when it was running a K04 hybrid (338bhp) so I make no secret of the fact I wanted to copy his spec as much as possible

So I bought the cooler from Toyosport (collected it direct from them as they are based close to me in Brum).

Its a huge cooler, and very thick too. After a few measurements it became clear that a few "modifications" are needed for it to fit the LCR.

Before I go on, I should explain I have gone for 76mm piping. The reason for this is firstly this is what Welly did on his car, and secondly I will be running a SEM inlet manifold with 76mm TB.

To clarify, it will be 76mm piping reducing to the standard (60/63? mm) piping to the charge pipe silicone, and 76mm piping all the way to the throttle body. This means having to get a new location for the MAP sensor, more on that later...

Mounting FMIC to front panel

To start off, the FMIC needs to be mounted. I found the only way to do this was to cut the cross member supports on the front panel.

I then made up some funky shaped brackets from some very thick angled bar my uncle had lying around at his garage for the top two mounting points.

The bottom brackets were simply two straight bars from the front panel to the lower mounting points.

Not the best pic but this is what it looks like:



Now I found the bumper bar does need some very slight trimming. Stupidly I have not taken a picture of this. But basically I cut one inch off each side of the 'box section' that protrudes from the rear of the bar (you will notice when you looks at your own).

Depending on how you mount your FMIC, you may not need to do this. From what I can remember I don't think I had to do this, it just stopped the cooler from touching the bar a bit.

Here is another pic of the cooler mounted up, with the trimmed bar fitted:



Pipework

Now as mentioned earlier, I have gone for 76mm pipework, most people will got for 63mm, but the same principles still apply.

On the driverside the pipework goes:

1) 76mm 45Deg Aluminum Bend
2) 76mm 90Deg Aluminum Bend
3) 76mm reducing to 63mm 90Deg Silicone Hose into a:
4) 63mm Aluminum straight connector

Which joins my silicone hose to the standard charge pipe

Pics:









I would assume the pipework dimensions would be the same for 63mm to0.

I had to cut the pipework to size, as with all custom FMIC's there is a degree of trial and error, just cut a little at a time and try to visualize how it all comes together, its pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Moving onto the driverside the pipework goes:

1) 76mm 45Deg Aluminum Bend
2) 76mm 90Deg Aluminum Bend
3) 76mm 45Deg Aluminum Bend
4) 76mm Aluminum straight pipe

Which joins my SEM with 76mm TB

Pics:





Now this side on my car is pretty custom, if you are retaining the standard pipework from the MAP pipe to the TB, then 3) would be a 90 degree silicone/alu bend (depends on how you approach it).

My own approach with this install was to use as much Aluminum as possible, keeping use of Silicone down to a minimum.

I initially wanted to get all the pipes welded up, but quickly decided it was not a good idea, you need a bit of flex in your pipework, and it would take forever to get the pipes cut properly for them to be welded!

As many people have experienced with FMIC pipework, once you cut the bead off the pipe, there is a good chance the hoses will pop off under boost. On a custom install its very common since the pipes have to be cut, which means you lose the original bead on the end of the pipe.

Luckily I know someone local to me who can bead pipes, and does Alloy welding, which came in handy for my install!

Now moving onto the oil cooler.

I have to confess I went a bit OTT and bought a 16 Row Mocal oil cooler, which is a little taller than the 13 Row (which is meant to be more than adequate for our cars).

As a result I had a little problem when mounting it to my car. The plan was to have it above the FMIC, only thing was the cooler is far too big once you add on the pipe fittings, its impossible to mount it straight above (well based on where I had my FMIC).

So I had to be creative, and bodged it a bit!

The only way I could get the oil cooler to fit was to make up some custom brackets for the top mounting points, and have the cooler sit at an angle, like this:





As you can see from the pictures I had to grind off the top lip of the bumper bar where the cooler sits.

To mount the bottom of the cooler I had to get creative again and cut a slit in the cooler brackets each side and angled them down. When finally fitted these will be secured to the bumper bar by some self tapping nuts. The top brackets hold the cooler well enough, but it should be mounted from the bottom too.

Now some pics of the finished product, oil cooler and FMIC all bolted together:





As you may have noticed I have ditched my old MAP pipe. I had a MAP boss welded onto the end of my 45Deg aluminum bend, along with a WMI bung on the straight pipe





The MAP sensor boss came from Awesome Gti:

http://www.awesome-gti.co.uk/product.php?xProd=40596

The WMI bung came from Bill

All the welding was done by the same person who beaded all my pipes. Very good at what he does, sadly not many of these people around these days so glad I know him!

Now comes the interesting part, getting the bumper back on!

Now please note, because I am running such big pipework, I found that a lot of cutting was needed. Now if you are going for 63mm pipework, then I am sure you won't need to cut as much.

What I am saying is BE CAREFUL! Keep mounting the bumper and cut off small amounts each time.

I ended up cutting massive amounts from the bumper around the left and right grille areas. As can be seen from this pic:



The pipework you can see in that picture is for my old FMIC (which is why it looks so small!).

I should also mention that I had to grind away some of the upper grille to get the oil cooler to fit. In fact I will also need to cut the front of the upper brackets each side to get the bumper to fit perfectly.

Unfortunately no pics of this, but its common sense really, keep cutting till it all fits!

And when its all done, it should look like this:













So there you have it - you can get the large Toyosport FMIC with extra large pipework and a stupidly big Oil Cooler to fit a LCR and still keep the standard look

No chance of getting the foglights back on though!

Its taken me a while to get it all done, making the brackets, cutting the front panel, bumper bar, cutting pipes. Getting them beaded, welded etc. Not to mention the battery had to go in the boot too.

But I am happy with the results, still a few rough edges to sort out, but 95% there.

Comments appreciated

kinder said:

Good write up will come in handy for many people my self included for when I get round to do this I know exactly what bends and pipes I need

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Thanks Will put together a 'shopping list' later this evening listing where I got everything from and how much it cost.

Phillc said:

Nice to see you managed to squeeze the 16 row in, as you say the 13 is a lot easier, mines been on for over 12 months now with no problems.. here's a pic of my install.

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I was trying to copy your install of the cooler Phil, but it just would'nt work as the 16 row is too big, also my FMIC was mounted just a shade too high.

Is your FMIC the same large Toyo version like mine (600 x 300 x 76)?

cupra-barn said:

Great work here. Put my mind at rest for Saturday fitting of my cooler now

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Cheers Barn, mine took more than a day to do, but i decided to do it nice and slow

ReDBull said:

Thanks for taking the time IH to do this. It very helpful. How is your car driving know?
This is hopefully a job for latter in the summer and I've already bought a 13 row oil cooler. You've made it sound easier than I'm sure it is!

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Thanks, stupid thing is i'm not running this cooler at the moment, as I haven't permanently fitted my SEM manifold yet. Since the manifold has to be fitted to run the pipework I have made, it all had to come off

I will be fitting it all in one go whenever i get round to swapping in my rebuilt engine and hybrid turbo, maybe in a few more weeks / months