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270 Posts
Again, you have no idea how much I appreciate your honesty. You sir, are an unicorn in the automotive aftermarket industry. You are the only vendor/fabricator/manufacture that I know of that does not try to up sale someone. One mistake I see from almost all the shops or tuners, is that they all fail to listen to the customers about what the customer's goal for the car is. Instead, they will tell the customers on what they should buy from them even if the part is not better than OEM. False expectations leads to false promises which leads to unhappy customers and the end result is usually Subaru gets the blame because they build cars that are not "strong enough".Research is good, but data is better. Everything you're saying here is unsubstantiated. If you were to base your decision on "which engines have more failures, FMIC or TMIC". You would definitely not want a FMIC! W-A-Y more engines out there blown up with FMIC than TMIC. Although, that mostly has to do with power levels, tuning, end so on. Not intercooler choice.
The data is just numbers. It's doesn't lie. If you want what's best for you, you need the most efficient intercooler, with the least pressure drop. This is going to be different for everyone, which is why we gave debates like this based on products and people making generalized statements based on their own experiences. "I ran 40psi on my Ebay FMIC without problems for 2 years" is not a quantitative data point.
At Killer B we've run both OEM, aftermarket, and our own designed FMICs and TMICs, many different turbos and setups, from stock to +700whp. Results are not always what you expect, but the data never lies.
"Extreme Hot Climate" means different things for different people: Stuck in traffic all the time. Super high humidity. Extreme ambient heat. High thermal load (turbo, oil cooler, A/C, etc.) it varies by application. If you have a trifecta of conditions then using a FMIC is not always the best choice as it then compromises radiator and oil cooling performance. It's always a balance, and always a application specific answer.
To the OP, remember that "what you want" is subjective and actual data, which shows you of "what you need", is objective. If FMIC is what you really want, which sounds like the case here, then absolutely go for it. Just understand that it is not what you need. FMIC has their own shares of flaws as well. 1) Due the the extra distances air has to travel, turbo lag will be more significant. 2) As I mentioned earlier, it also blocks airflow to the radiator which will have an impact on the whole cooling system, which is vital to an engine's longevity and reliability. This is not often mentioned for one simple reason, it does not help them to sell the "false imagine" of insane amount of horsepower.
Anyway, I will like to thank you again for being so forthright about the quality of the stock TMIC. You are a true asset for all of us here on this forum and the great Subaru WRX community.