Forge Motorsport Intercooler – Volkswagen Golf R

FMINT24 is a performance intercooler for the 2021 onwards MQB platform 2.0 DNF code EA888 EVO4 engines. Produced, designed, and tested, at our headquarters in Gloucester UK. Throughout the development process we have strived to improve the efficiency and performance of the EA888 GEN4 engine. Our project brief was to develop an intercooler that utilised all of the available space in the original position of the OEM intercooler, and to ensure the inlet air temperature is reduced, without any negative effects on the boost pressure or engine and transmission cooling.

In the MQB chassis the intercooler housing is particularly restricted and confined to a small amount of space, due to it not only housing the intercooler, but also the radiator and air conditioning condenser. The front panel in theory is a sandwich pack that houses the auxiliary cooling components. This means in order to increase the size of the intercooler without paying detriment to the performance of the surrounding items, and with also having very little extra space available, that it can be very difficult to execute the perfect blend of a high flow intercooler within such a close proximity. With an increase in inlet and outlet sizes, we then turned our attention to the design of our silicone hoses. With flow in mind, we have created a step within the hose so where the hose meets the hot and cold side of the inlet and outlet junctions the transition is seamless, this helps to lesson any disturbance to the airflow and prevent unwanted turbulence. To further aid with flow, the inlet and outlets have been increased to 76mm from the OEM size of 63mm which equates to a 45% increase in surface area.
The consideration of space and our clever design has led us to produce several intercooler cores with different fin configurations and internal capacities. Depending on the core design, testing results led us to choose a bar and plate design with over 83% more volume than the OEM intercooler, and with a frontal area increase of 10%.

peak power was increased from stock by 11bhp and 20nm of torque at 5500RPM with the Forge Motorsport performance intercooler installed.

The best news is that there are significant torque gains throughout the rev range, meaning that the car power will pick up quicker and pull the whole way through to redline, including an impressive gain in BHP from 5000 RPM TO 6500 RPM. Gains on vehicles with re calibrated software and further hardware performance parts can be expected to be a lot higher due to the substantial drop in IATS when FMINT24 is installed.

During our extensive testing, we let the car heat soak on the dyno until the radiator fans tripped on and off (which gives an inlet temperature of around 40°C). We then did a dyno pull from this point which gives a more consistent result and reflects real-world driving conditions more accurately. You can easily see the Forge intercooler cools much quicker and delivers a much greater drop in temperature compared to OEM. The Forge Motorsport intercooler is a perfect performance enhancing product that fits directly to the OEM mounting points, making for an easy install, in a relatively short period of time. No cutting of any components is needed, making the installation reversible if the vehicle needs to be returned to stock at any time in the future. The core and end tanks are finished in our black textured anti corrosion coating that also aids with its thermal properties and keeps the product looking that bit stealthier or OEM+.