I have decided to install a Wagner Evo III intercooler in my E92 335i with an N54 engine. I wanted to go for the best possible intercooler which was a plug and play solution and didn’t require much modification.
Well, it didn’t require much modification but had to trim away quite a bit of plastic cover, which wasn’t a big deal really, but more on that a bit later.
Here is the intercooler, and I have to say, it is massive.
If you peek into the outlet and chargepipe connectors on the intercooler, you can see the airflow divider fin. With an intercooler at this size, you really want to split the incoming airflow, so it is evenly distributed throughout the intercooler.
I have measured the intercooler, and it weighed in at:
13.3 kg/29.1 lbs
The difference in size is massive between the stock and the Wagner Evo III intercooler.
The manufacturer promises 162% more frontal area, and 182% more volume.
I went ahead and removed the front bumper, and the trimming has begun.
The plastic fins in front of the stock intercooler had to be cut away, and also had to trim quite a bit of cover above the intercooler.
I used a dremel, but it melted the plastic pretty easily, and it was a mess to work with, so I ended up using metal cutting scissors and finished up with the dremel.
Once I cut away enough plastic, I started to lift my new intercooler in place with my crocodile lift, and turned out very soon, I need to cut away a lot more plastic than I thought.
Finally, I was able to push the intercooler up into its place and I have secured it and attached the silicone couplers. After that, I also attached the intercooler to the front crash bar from above, which I think is a nice addition from Wagner.
With such a “heavy” intercooler, it never hurts to have an additional mounting point. I am going to be honest, I am not really a fan of the stock bottom plastic mounting points, but I was surprised to see, the silicone couplings are holding the intercooler in place very firmly regardless.
Despite the fact, how huge this intercooler is, with everything in place, you are going to have a hard time telling if the car has an upgraded intercooler or not.
And how does it perform?
I have done a 100-200kph pull with both the stock intercooler and the Wagner Evo III intercooler with the same tune.
With a JB4 and a custom backend flash on map 5, targetting 16 psi and hitting 16 psi, so the stock turbos are far from maxed, but you can see what a huge difference it made.
With the stock intercooler, my IAT has climbed a tremendous amount by the end of the 100-200kph pull, more than 25C.
While testing the Wagner intercooler, there was a point where the IAT has decreased compared to the start IAT, but if we only take the end IAT value into account, then the IAT was rock solid.
With the stock intercooler, IAT was 12C above ambient temp at the start of the pull.
With the Wagner, IAT was 5C above ambient and remained there.
What if you heatsoak it?
I have attended a drag event, where I had to spend 15-20 minutes in the staging lane, and the car heat soaked.
The ambient temp was 30C, and when I got to the Christmas tree, my IAT was 47C.
As soon as I launched the car, the IAT started to drop, and it dropped to 41C, by 3rd gear, and by the end of the 1/4 mile run, the IAT has climbed to 44C.
One thing I have not mentioned yet, that at this drag event, I was running 22 PSI on stock turbos and WGDC was pretty much maxed above 5500RPM.
I have also tested a highway cruise scenario, and after 5 minutes of constant speed at 110 kph, my IAT was only 2C! above ambient.
The ambient temp was 19C and my IAT was at 21C.
Overall, I am really satisfied with how it performs.
It performs really well, weighs barely anything despite its size, so what negative can I say about it?
–Well, the price.
It costs a lot, and really hurts to spend that much money on an intercooler. But after all, it is all worth it. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.
It costs $1.090 on the official website of Wagner, at the time of writing this post.