If you're up to the intake inlet, you're too deep anyway. Cowl would be difficult due to how air works, it's lifting up over the car at that point and would be low flow unless you had a massive scoop that forced it there.
The biggest difference I saw was the stock IC, while definitely running cool when under acceleration, will slowly start building up the average. Example:
90 degrees steady state
80 upon accel
102 upon getting off
92 degrees steady
80 upon accel
105 getting off
94 degree steady
and so on...
I can see the injen being a royal PITA but it's like a once a year/every year and a half job so I'll just suck it up because it and the K&N are the only ones which improve the piping, which is where the real benefit is.
Yes I did, probably 2 hours total, most of it in the disassembly portion. Need a second set of hands for the bumper removal/install and should probably use two people for the intercooler but I managed by myself.
I don't think there is much difference between any of the brands so I wouldn't fret...
We've been hovering around 18 for probably 5-6 months so, yeah, 1.7 total since switching to Sunoco is pretty crazy in this thing where you can fight for .1 for 2 weeks and lose it in 5 minutes.
We just took a 1200mi round trip to Norfolk VA. On the way up there our gas mileage increased from 19.1 to 19.4 and I thought, OK, we're going downhill the whole way so we'll probably lose it all coming back. Came back yesterday and it actually went up since this picture to 19.7.
We recently...
That sounds good. My test was not the same road and of course it cooled off about 10 degrees in a day too.
At ambient 70 the stock IC gradually crept up to around 102 with prolonged driving. Sitting at a light would raise it into the 110+ range and it would come back to about 104, then slowly...
I have these on the pillar:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/vehicle-lights/off-road-lights/led-pod-lights/led-light-pod-30w-side-shooter-spot-flood-beam-2-700-lumens-single-2-pack...
Install was easy, except all the heavy stuff.
A short drive revealed drops as low as 70 and steady state around 98 but it is cooler today. Definitely never saw anything below mid 90s yesterday.
Install will be tomorrow. I ran data today with the stock Intercooler and we had a little unexpected off-road session too.
Stock:
Normal cruising, once warm 105-111
Accelerating usually drops temp 3-5 degrees until off throttle then return to cruising temp after short spike up.
Stopping...