Okay, so I finally just now glanced at those instructions for posting photos here. I've already admitted that I'm an analogue guy in a digital world. I'm not going to work through those instructions any time soon; the brain just shut down about 2 lines into reading it. Before I continue here, I'll mention again that I'm happy to email the photos to anyone who asks. Just send me your email address (my email is
gonesailing123@hotmail.com) and I'll email the photos to you.
Anyway, the reason I'm only now writing this is because it's only in the past week that I finally found and pulled the intercooler components out of a serious pile of odd parts so that I could take photos of them. Yes, I've had better things to do. That's why I was ready to just talk with you over the phone to describe the system to you. Here are a few things: I cannot take credit for the setup, but it did work in my car before I replaced the engine.
It was an alternative to having a real, full-sized, air-cooled one because it required no cutting into steel anywhere to run 2" diameter silicone hose and aluminum piping to feed the turbo-charged air to flow in and out of the intercooler, and it did not require a huge amount of space. The components do not have brand names on them. I'll describe them (although if you saw my photos, most of this would become quite clear and obvious and simple).
Essentially, there are 4 components that I'll describe with my own language (that is, I don't know what they're actually called, but you'll get the idea): first is the heat exchanger. It looks like a half flattened football made with aluminum (instead of pigs skin); calling it a flattened football also describes it's rough size. It has two large openings to connect a "HOT air-in" hose that comes directly from your turbo outlet, and to connect a "COOLED air-out" hose to your engine's air intake. To make room for this setup, you should remove the big black plastic factory air filter box and replace the air filter assembly with a much smaller, much more efficient H&R or other performance air filter available at most Autozone or other cheap parts stores.
Back to the football... this "football" can be easily mounted/laid on top of your passenger-side wheel well on a slight angle or else laid horizontally and mounted in such a way that it is pointing into and almost touching the front right corner of the engine compartment directly behind the passenger headlights. I fabricated a mount that is perfect for cradling the football on top of it; again, a picture is worth a thousand words. On this "football" are also two much smaller metal fittings for attaching water hoses; their purpose is to create a closed loop of water or antifreeze getting constantly pumped to/from the small RADIATOR (Component #2).
This radiator (about 1/4 the size of your regular radiator) gets mounted directly in front of your a/c condenser and your regular radiator, directly behind the front grill where there is a huge empty space you might not know about unless you pull off the plastic cowling that covers the top of that space. Simple rubber hoses (maybe 1" or 5/8" diameter?? ...I can't recall the exact size) connect the football, the little radiator, and the LITTLE 12-VOLT WATER PUMP (Component #3) to make that closed loop of constantly pumping water. The water pump is nothing fancy; it's about the size of a 16-ounce can of soda. It's easy to wire and can be mounted anywhere, including in that big open space behind your front grill, or in the cavernous space you'll be creating when you remove that cumbersome factory black plastic air filter case/assembly.
Component #4 would be whatever silicone hoses and aluminum piping you'll need for connecting the turbo with the football and the football with the engine air intake.
NOW I have a much more new diesel engine in my E28, and I installed an air-cooled intercooler directly under the front bumper and behind the cowling there. Mounting THAT one DID require some cutting of metal and lots more work, but it's working nicely. I've been tempted to re-install the smaller, water-cooled intercooler system in series with the other intercooler. The idea would be that first the turbocharged air would be cooled down by the smaller, water-cooled intercooler, immediately after which the turbocharged but now cooler air would then flow through the second, larger intercooler on its way to the air intake. Since I have the parts, I might yet do that. But for now, I've got tons of other projects to do on that car first. And no one I've asked seems to have any clue if installing dual/tandem intercoolers might have any noticeably positive effect on overall performance. Also, if I have both intercoolers installed in series, I'm adding to my powerplant at least half a dozen new things to possibly fail or break. And few things are more annoying than a well-hidden and hard-to-access silicone intercooler hose coupling coming undone/blasting open while you're cruising down the highway (at the posted speed limit, of course).