Ford Fiesta ST MK8 VUDU Intercooler Testing.

Roll up, Roll up, and get ready to witness a truly VUDU tested Fiesta ST MK8 Intercooler. This Intercooler has been put to the pace, from lapping the Nürburgring, to heat cycle testing on our 2000whp Dynapack hub dyno!

If you want to read about our testing at the Nürburgring of our Ford Fiesta ST range of VUDU products, including this Stage 3 Intercooler we will drop a link at the end of this testing article.

Dynopack Heat Cycle Testing.

The standard Ford Fiesta OEM intercooler was fitted to our Fiesta Demo car and loaded to our in-house dyno to set the initial benchmark figures for the following parameters.

• Charge Temperature
• Power @ The wheels
• Torque
• External end tank temps (using IR heat gun)

To conduct this test, we felt it necessary to conduct a 20-second run on the dyno, with an extremely high load profile using SAE correction. This would push both the stock Fiesta ST Intercooler and the VUDU Stage 3 to the maximum limit of heat and efficiency.

At the start of testing the temperature of the hot side from the turbocharger, that feeds into the Ford Fiesta OEM intercooler, was around ambient temperature. From this point, we conducted the 20-second loaded run.

Ford Intercooler Tests (Stage 1).

Below is the Dyno graph that was taken from the first run. As we can see from the graph the Fiesta ST MK8 with stage 1 remap software was producing good numbers.

The images below shows the temperature increase of the hot-side of the Ford Intercooler, as well as the temperature of the cold side of the intercooler where the boost pressure exits the Intercooler. As you can see the delta between the external temperature is high. This data is backed up by the data logs from the ECU underneath where you can see the increase in intake air temperature.

In the images above you can see the temperature of the hot side compared to the output temperature of the intercooler. To ensure a fair test we conducted a full back-to-back session of X6 dyno runs. From these tests, we saw a considerable drop in power and torque due to the Ford OEM Intercooler being pushed beyond its efficiency. This results in ineffective heat soak and is unable to feed the engine with dense cold air.

Ford Intercooler Summary

Built to suit the OEM market, the Ford Intercooler works well on short pulls with lots of cooling time in-between runs. However, if it is pushed past its efficiency with increased boost pressure and load you can expect the plastic end tanks to fatigue over time and are liable to fail with heat cycles. The Intercooler also suffers from heat soak and in turn drops in power due to its inability to reduce the boost pressure temperature.

VUDU Stage 3 Intercooler Test

At this point, we attached the VUDU stage 3 Fiesta ST MK8 intercooler to the demo car, still loaded to the dyno. This way we could conduct a true back-to-back test without too much change in ambient temperatures, dyno room pressure, etc.

We conducted the first dyno pull the same as the stock run to ensure total continuity with a 20-second, fully loaded dyno pull.
Below you can see the ambient temperatures on the hot side end tank at the start of the run and end of the run showing the massive delta in heat.

The image below speaks volumes on the cooling efficiency of the VUDU Stage 3 Intercooler. It shows the cold side temperature of the intercooler along with a fantastic power increase on the first loaded run. Followed by a data zap of our IAT Vs the stock ford intercooler IAT.

We then conducted a further five, 20-second, full load dyno pulls to see the long term heat-dissipating efficiency of our Fiesta ST intercooler. The tests we conducted provided amazing results with a drop of less than 2WHP across 2 full minutes of hard, loaded dyno pulls along with the car already been warm from the stock intercooler test. (imagine driving in 4th gear from 1500rpm to 7000rp over and over again for 2 minutes).

You can see the best and the worst of the dyno pulls laid up from our VUDU stage 3 Fiesta ST intercooler just here:-

VUDU Intercooler Summary.

We love this new Fiesta Stage 3 intercooler. Ford has done a great job with the Fiesta ST MK8 platform and now, the engineers at the VUDU garage have made huge gains in performance, and reliability with this intercooler. It has a massive bar and plate core which has great cooling properties, custom-made cast end tanks, and a specifically designed turbulator spec inside.

This Dyno Graph shows the comparison of the Ford Intercooler and the VUDU Intercooler:-

Check out the testing the testing we conducted at the Nürburgring here: