2016+ Civic Intercooler – What’s in the Works @27WON Pt.2

Back in October, we jumped into Honda’s OE intercooler system so we could understand the system’s strengths and weaknesses. You can check out Design Part 1 Blog here. Today, we want to share some of our design approach and goals for the 27WON Performance FMIC for the 2016+ Honda Civic.

Below is a CAD rendering of the 27WON FMIC System and next to that is the 2018 OEM SI intercooler system; drastic differences are visible in this CAD rendering. As you can see, we are targeting a complete intercooler and piping system.

Computer Aid Drafting Rendering of the 27WON Performance FMIC

Actual OE FMIC System from a 2018 SI FC1

The industry has taken two paths when providing an upgraded intercooler system for the 10th Gen Platform.

1)     A modular design that allows you to change the intercooler or piping separately
2)     A complete and integrated system that changes the intercooler and piping together

We opted for the 2nd path and for good reason. If we maintain the OE connection points between the intercooler and piping, then we would have a big restriction from the very small 1.65” inner diameter openings of the OE system. That was not acceptable to us.

The intercooler and piping are not really separate systems when it comes to performance.

They should work together seamlessly to provide optimal performance. Long story short, we choose a complete system because it will provide the community with the highest performing FMIC system. It’s also important to note that we are not designing this FMIC with only the current performance level of the community in mind. We are considering where we see this platform growing in the coming years.

Our goal is to design a FMIC that is balanced for the stock turbo and works great for the big turbo with FBO and additional fueling.

You may be wondering about the size differences you are seeing in the above images.

Computer Aid Drafting Rendering of the 27WON Performance Cold Pipe

Actual OE cold pipe 2018 SI FC1

We’ve taken a creative approach to the design of our piping to have a kit that works well for stockish up to big turbo builds.

The 27WON Cold Pipe you see above is 3” piping and yes, it fits.

Don’t worry we are not crazy, there is logic and physics behind this design. Without going into too much detail right now we’ll share a bit more: the volume of air directly in front of the throttle body inlet can make a significant difference in the throttle response (aka boost lag). Perhaps 3” is just too large for the little L15B7 1.5L, that’s fine. We will be testing both 2.5” and 3” cold pipes with our plethora of AEM data acquisition equipment to find the right balance of performance and response.

We’ll close this update with the most important part of the 27WON FMIC: the heat exchanger or as most call it the “intercooler core”.

Shown here is a cutaway sneak peek of the design we have been working on. You’ll notice the “airfoil” inside the hot (left) side endtank. We have gone through dozens of design flow simulations to develop a endtank that effectively distributes the incoming airflow across the entire intercooler core evenly. This, in turn, will result in a lower pressure drop across the core and greater thermal efficiency. This aspect of the intercooler was so design intensive that we plan to provide you guys and gals with a blog solely focused on this work soon.

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I Dare You to REDEFINE the Aftermarket.

-Barett