The intercooler on my FabiaVRS car has got a hole in it, am gona get round to replacing it soon, but is it safe to do a 450mile round trip with it like this?

I've only been driving it back and forth to work at the mo. Just wondering if driving this far will cos problems because of the inlet temps?

Cheers Allan

It sounds OK. Where is the hole? The worst thing that could happen is you're losing boost through the hole and it throws the car into limp mode due to a violation between requested and actual boost.

If the hole is not affecting the boost, i.e you've not punctured the actual turbocharged pipework, then I don't see the hole having any affect on inlet temps. If you removed the surround from around the driver's side foglight, it might vent it better. I think it will be fine anyway, unless you're losing boosted air.

the holes on the front, down the bottom right. the plastic trim that draws the air into it has rubbed against it for what looks like a VERY long time and punctured it.

its losing boost and sometimes overfuels with a bit of black reek but its not overly bad. I thought it would be ok but wanted other peoples opinions, espcially from those who know alot more than me!

I wouldnt drive it personally !

Something could get sucked through the hole and possibly nacker the engine !

Keep it off boost, use revs up to 2,000 then change + gentle acceleration - I don't see it getting any worse.

Got any duck tape you could put around it in that place? Temporary measure which should hold up to around half a bar I think.

Does anyone know what Bar/Psi pressure can peak within the intercooler pipework?

Stock pressure is 1.3 bar / about 19 to 20 PSI.

the hole is only small, so I'm personally not that worried about anything going into it.

what pressure will I be running with the hole there? and does running less pressure cause problems?

My VRS has done the same ! I need a new intercooler !

Having had japanese cars for the last 20 odd years I have to say that I have never come across this sort of design flaw on any of my previous motors.

It happens on Golfs too ....

I really love my VRS but stuff like this is not really acceptable IMO

Jonathan

Can anyone post a picture of the offending piece of plastic/area that is doing the damage?

mine did this last year, I thought I posted about it, may not have though. You need to cut the plastic back a bit to stop it re-occurring, hopefully you can make it out from this pic

To answer the original question, don't worry about it, I drove mine for months like that, I also did a lot of driving on a holed boost pipe too, nothing will get sucked into it since it's never under vacuum at that point

The pic is of the bottom of my cooler and you can see the plastic has been trimmed back as before it was long enough to be touching the core of the cooler

If the hole is small enough then just use a self-tapping screw in the hole with some epoxy under the head. Don't be tempted to drill it - the filings may get drawn into the engine.

I used a small rectangle of aluminium which i bonded over the hole using a metal epoxy similar to JB weld.

I did this so that none of the weld epoxy would fill the passageway and it would not compromise the functionality of the cooler.

So far its not leaked and seems to be a permanent repair as the epoxy has set like nails and is, oil, fuel proof and pressure resistant to 3600psi !

I no longer have the starnge whistling noise I was experiencing too which is comforting !

Jonathan

mine did this last year, I thought I posted about it, may not have though. You need to cut the plastic back a bit to stop it re-occurring, hopefully you can make it out from this pic

To answer the original question, don't worry about it, I drove mine for months like that, I also did a lot of driving on a holed boost pipe too, nothing will get sucked into it since it's never under vacuum at that point

The pic is of the bottom of my cooler and you can see the plastic has been trimmed back as before it was long enough to be touching the core of the cooler

Can you access this by removing the foglight trim?

I'd be weary of driving the car with a hole in the intercooler...

The ECU works on a request system.. If specified boost isnt achieved the ecu will leave the VNT vanes closed to try achieve the request meaning the turbo spins harder and faster because there's a hole...

Kev