Yup we’ve done a bunch. I went through the process which is very time consuming and it has to be done very precisely if you don’t want the bumper to look like crap when you’re done. I know Mark can handle it if he takes his time. He assembled engines and swapped his car etc. After he gets it done he’s stopping back for a quick retune and so I can show him my FP Green again…you know you want one Mark.
Anyone who says going to a front mount is a waste of time is missing the boat. 50 whp NOT lost is 50 whp gained. I’ll explain. Let’s say for the sake of a generous argument that on the stock turbo a front mount only makes a couple more hp more on a dyno than a top mount. Sure it’s not much and it will cause slightly slower throttle response and an extra 200 rpm or so of lag, but that’s not all it does. If you’re not cruising over 60 mph on the highway or on a dyno with high speed fans all day your top mount is heat soaking to some degree and you’re losing power.
On a warm day when your top mount (big or small) is heat soaked you have a huge loss of power. We ran a few cars on my dyno without fans directly on the ICs between runs as a demonstration of what heat soak does and losses were great as expected. On a 250 whp car we’re talking around 50 whp loss after sitting with the car off cooling down for 10 minutes without fans on the IC. Go in a store to get some milk, come out and you’ve got the same thing. Park your car at an autoX after a run and you better believe it’s going to be much worse between the hot pavement and the heat transfer from the turbo/exhaust. The heat shield isn’t going to help when the car is stopped and the whole engine bay is nearing 200 degrees. Swap to a front mount and you’re putting 50+ more hp to the wheels on your next run. I’d say that’s a huge gain.
I had the monster Hyperflow tmic on my WRX and yes it took more time to soak than the stock unit because of its extra mass. It also took more time to cool off once it soaked, and while soaked to the same temp the car was just as much of a dog as on the stock top mount.