B5 A4 1.8t Front Mount Intercooler Install Instructions Only work underneath your vehicle after properly supporting it with adequate jack stands on a flat surface. NEVER work under a vehicle only supported with a jack.
1) Remove the engine undertray. 2) Remove the front wheels and /or leave the steering unlocked to turn the front wheels to gain access to the wheel well fasteners for the front bumper. 3) Remove the front bumper: Remove the screws in the wheel well that attach the fender liner to the bumper cover. Remove the lower bumper grilles. This will expose the 6mm allen head bolts that will come out downward (toward the ground). Remove these 2 bolts. With a helper, Slowly slide the bumper off of the 2 supporting mounts, be prepared to unhook connectors for the foglights (if applicable). You will also need to pinch off the headlight washer hose on the vehicle side of the quick connect (visible on the driver side of the car with the bumper pulled out). Once the hose is pinched off, disconnect the hose. 4) Remove the headlights and set aside. 5) Remove the stock side mounted intercooler and hoses. This may require you to loosen the bumper mounting bolts on the driver side and the fender to front support bolt. 6) Remove the power steering cooler mounts from the front of the car (Leave the hoses attached) and pull the cooler to the side. 7) Hold the intercooler core against the radiator (centered on the vehicle) and trim the rubber radiator shroud where it interferes with the intercooler end tanks. 8) Unbolt the lower horn and remount it to supplied extension bracket and hardware.
9) Back to the front bumper of the car, it is necessary to remove the aluminum support beam from the plastic cover. The bumper beam is held in with a series of rivets and plastic clips and with the front license plate mounting fasteners. (Note: Bumper beam will have opening cut into it to clear FMIC, in next step, however, these pictured show a trimmed bumper beam) Remove the front license plate and the license plate mounting bracket. Remove the headlight washers from the bumper. Carefully pull the washers up and unclip the covers from the sprayer.
With a drill bit (larger than the head of the rivets) drill the head off of all of the rivets. There are 2 rivets that cannot be drilled out. The bottom of the rivet can be broken off with a large screw driver and a hammer.
With a large screw driver, release all of the mounting clips while prying the aluminum beam out to keep the tabs from re-clipping. A bit of patience and a helper will make this step easier.
10) The aluminum bumper beam needs to have an opening cut into it to clear the intercooler core. This will require some patience and a die grinder or angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. First cut the lower aluminum mounting tabs off of the support. These were the tabs that riveted the aluminum bumper to the plastic cover. Cutting the opening will be covered in the next step. 11) It is best to clearly mark off the cut lines you will follow to make the opening to clear the FMIC. Find the center line of the bumper beam (on the inside the side facing the radiator) and clearly mark. On the top edge of the beam draw a clear line 18, centered around the middle. On the lower edge, make two marks, 21.5 apart, again centered. On the bottom of the bumper support, mark out the same 21.5, measuring in 1.25 deep at the extents. See below photos for clarity. 18 21.5
1.25 12) Attach the included brackets onto the FMIC core. The bracket should be attached to the front side of the mount on the core using the round hole, NOT the slotted hole.
13) With an adjustable wrench, twist the steel mount tabs to match the curve of the bumper.
14) Lay the FMIC core in the bumper beam and mark the slotted holes in the beam. These will be your drill holes to mount the intercooler to the bumper. 15) To mount the intercooler to the bumper, there are 2 options. One is to drill a 0.25 hole and use the included gold fasteners (some effort will be needed to screw these in as the threads will be cutting into the aluminum). The 2nd option is to drill a 6.5mm hole and tap it for an M8 x 1.25 bolt as seen below.
16) Attach the intercooler core to the bumper support, being sure to center the core in the bumper. 17) Attach the intercooler + bumper assembly to the car using the 2 long bolts you originally removed that hold the bumper on the car. 18) Using the included hose clamps, install the silicon hose from the turbo to Intercooler. Don t forget to attach the bypass valve. 19) Attach the 2 nd silicon hose to the intercooler outlet. The long leg of the hose will be the end that attaches to the intercooler. 20) Install the included aluminum L pipe. Attach one end to the throttlebody using the short silicon coupling. The other end will attach to the short leg of the silicon hose. *Note, if your car had a pressure sensor in your factory intercooler, this will be mounted to the flange welded onto the L pipe using the included hardware.
21) If you re-use the stock power-steering cooler, you can carefully bend it over your leg to give it a curve. It can then be mounted to one of the remaining aluminum tabs that previously held the plastic bumper cover to the aluminum bumper core. 22) Zip tie the outside air temp. sensor out of the way but where it will see airflow. 23) The plastic bumper cover will now need to be trimmed to clear the intercooler core and piping. To visualize what needs to be trimmed, test fit the plastic cover on the car and mark where there is interference. On both sides of the car, trim away the lower grille openings to clear the
intercooer/piping see image below. Furthermore, some of the grille opening will need to be removed and/or trimmed back. 24) When the plastic bumper has been trimmed enough, it should slide back onto the car with relative ease. (Before you install the plastic cover, confirm that all of your hose clamps are completely tight!!) 25) With the plastic cover in place, re-attach the license plate frame to secure the plastic cover and engage the side clips on the fenders. 26) The lower grilles can be installed and may require some trimming to fit properly. They can be additionally secured using black zip-ties. 27) Re-install the headlights, headlight washer covers, engine undertray, fender-liner fasteners and anything else removed to aid the installation process. Congratulations! Enjoy your sweet extra power!