Fitting Guide - MK5 Astra H VXR, Toyosport FMIC (front mount intercooler)

Things you will need in addition to a tool kit...

A drill (this intercooler kit requires the drilling of 4 holes - 1 in each of the intercooler ears, and 2 in the panel behind the bumper)

Grinder or borer (very small parts of the back of the bumper may need rubbing down, to fit over the protruding intercooler mounting nuts)

A slim-line aircon fan (if your car has aircon)the old fan wont fit after the intercooler is fitted.

A universal washer bottle (only needed if you cant alter the original washer bottle (more on this later)

1 - Jack up the front of the car

2 - Disconnect and remove battery

3 - Remove front bumper

4 - Remove windscreen washer bottle

At this point its a good idea to place the intercooler infront of the car so you can get the idea of where the pipes will route. Then start removing the components to get the pipes through.

5 - Drain cooling system and aircon.

6 - Remove radiator/aircon/standard intercooler units (as one)

7 - With all of that removed, start building up the pipes for intercooler on passenger side of car. From the top of the engine, down to the front of the car. Do not connect the bottom hose to the intercooler yet though.

8 - After routing the passenger side hoses, start on the drivers side, working from the intercooler backwards, towards the turbo outlet. Do not connect the bottom hose to the intercooler yet though.

9 - You will find at this stage that the horn is in the way, so you will need to turn the bracket round to move it out of the way

10 - After routing the hoses it's now time to drill the holes to mount the intercooler to the front bumper panel.

To mark the drilling points, connect the pipes to the intercooler, then hold the mounting backet behind the bumper panel, with the taper side facing down. Line up the intercooler ears and the mounting bracket, by eye mark with a marker pen where to drill.

11 - After drilling, build the bracket and long bolts up, placing the intercooler ears behind the brackets.

Now the intercooler is mounted, you can start putting back the components you removed one by one, tightening the intercooler jubliee rings and it's hoses as you go, to get the best fit with the other components.

12 - Refitting aircon
If you have aircon, the original intercooler is sandwiched between the main radiator and the aircon radiator and fan. As you will be removing the old intercooler from the sandwich, because it's not needed anymore, the aircon radiator now has nothing to bolt to. So Toyosport have provided some handy brackets to ensure the aircon radiator can be mounted again.

13 - Aircon - slimline fan.

As you can see there is not much space for the aircon fan once the intercooler is mounted. A lot of people don't use their aircon so it's not a problem. But if you do intend to continue using it, there is a slimline fan you can get. Though they aren't sold officially by anyone anymore, so they're quite rare!

14 - Refitting the front bumper
You will find that some of the extra plastic on the back of the bumper may cause it to not sit flush now. To rectify this I simply ground some plastic off the back of the bumper where it was rubbing.

Windscreen Washer Bottle

Now we come to the problem of the windscreen washer bottle. When you come to put this back in you will realise it doesn't fit like it should, on account of the intercooler hose taking a tiny bit of it's space. There are 2 options here 1- Make it fit, 2- Do away with it and fit a universal washer bottle elsewhere.
I opted for the 'make it fit' option.

To do this you will need a heat source (I used a gas hob) to heat up the plastic bottle in order to soften the plastic and flatten the bulging parts on the neck which is stopping it from fitting.

Warnings - you will need the plastic to be very hot before you can squash it in to shape. Don't touch it with your bare hands after you have heated it. I put on an oven mit to squash it. Also, it is possible to heat it too much and melt a hole in the bottle neck - don't do that.

This is the end of my fitting guide for the Toyosport Intercooler for the Vauxhall Astra VXR. I hope it was helpful to you. I'm very happy with my Toyosport intercooler on my stage 2 VXR. I now have average IAT'S of 21 degrees - it does the job.