I installed one of these IC's about a year ago, and as advertised it required some modification, but it performs extremely well. However, the one I have is 65 mm thick and that has caused some problems. Being so thick it pushes the radiator extremely close to the engine, a few months after install one of the coolant hoses was cut by rubbing against a plastic fin on the stock air box. I replaced th ehose and trimmed the fins. When I installed it I did slide the assembly as far forward as possible but still...
I also noticed that if I ever wanted to drain the radiator, the lower right side is so close to the engine now it cannot be removed without moving the entire radiator/IC assembly
. Now after a year and over 15,000 miles of trouble free operation I just got another low coolant warning while out and about. After investigating I discovered one of the right side auxiliary radiator hoses has been cut by the alternator pulley
.
That hose can be repositioned had I known it would be an issue, it is not touching but is about 1 cm away, so I imagine with engine movement it has been intermittent making contact and...
The IC I have is 65 mm thick, I just happened to look on Ebay and noticed the current Magic IC for this car shows it is 50 mm thick. I am tempted to buy this new thinner version, this older one does fit, but just barely. Long term this tight fit can cause issues, not to mention if you ever have to service the cooling system, good luck.
So my feed back is if you have this thicker IC like mine, you might want to reposition that hose that runs past the alternator pulley. Also if you are looking to install one of these, do yourself a favor and get one of these 50 mm thick IC's, 65-70 mm is just to thick to work well in this application. It works but... I can only imagine folks that shelled out a lot more for that Wagner IC are in a the same boat, I believe that one is 70 mm thick.
I imagine this has been discussed already somewhere in the massive thread but figured I would add my two cents. Looking at this thing I cannot see any good way to improve clearance with this thick IC, not without some serious fabrication work, but if anyone come up with something please let me know. I am thinking I may just need to bite the bullet and swap it with one of these new thinner IC's. I highly doubt I will notice a difference in performance and coolant system leaks are not fun.