Volkswagen Golf TSI/GTI/R Intercooler 2015+

Everyone loves a good underdog story. There's just something uplifting about the little guy persevering. If you know anyone who's a Philly sports fan, you're probably never going to hear the end of the most recent underdog story (S'go Birds). The Eagle's run might have cemented them into underdog history, but that's in the past now. The big game for Mishimoto is heating up with the MK7 Performance intercooler, and we feel like the hungry dogs on the block now.

What exactly makes us the little guy in this story, though? For the most part, it's the placement of the stock unit, and that we're still contending with the proverbial "intercooler sandwich" situation. Though, if you look through our last post, you'll notice we're not going into this entirely unprepared. We have some "Philly Specials" of our own, including that 89% increase in internal core volume while appearing about the same size as stock, and we plan to deliver quality with that design.

Part of that quality comes from our rigorous

We last left you off with the scaffold and tales of what our new intercooler design would be. Now it's time to put our money where our mouth is since the production sample of our new MK7 intercooler has arrived here at Mishimoto. This arrival gives us the tangible fruits of our prototyping labors.

Typically, these new intercooler production samples show up like a wrecking ball. No, not like a scantily clad Miley Cyrus, but rather with size-doubling volume increases figuratively smashing the stock unit to smithereens. This time around, though, given our extremely tight build envelope, our new design might look mostly the same to some. We can assure you that much like the subtle outward appearance of the MK7 GTI and Golf R, looks can be deceiving.

The end tanks for our MK7 GTI's intercooler have taken on a more supporting role than usual. If it wasn't already mentioned enough, build space was a huge limitation when it came to this intercooler. We started from the ground up with these end

Big things in small packages have long since been the idea behind the hot-hatch. Smaller, punchy engines in small bodies creating big smiles in the corners is the name of the game, and the GTI wrote the rule book. Now, 44 years later, the seventh iteration is the ideal platform for any enthusiast of fast and practical.

For those looking to enhance the sporty Golf even further, you might have already taken notice that we're already on the case by way of cooling the charged air running through your 2.0T. A beefier intercooler is a start, but unfortunately that air doesn't transfer into our intake manifold via osmosis. Naturally, ducting is still required.

When it comes to designing a new intercooler for any vehicle, it's all about finding the right balance between core volume and flow. Knowing this, our engineer made some adjustments to our intercooler's inlet and outlet sizes to maximize flow for stock and remapped tunes, while maintaining the right diameter for the MK7's stock piping. However,

Bigger is better has long since been an unofficial mantra of the automotive world. To go faster or further, you have to go bigger. Either by way of more cylinders, bigger turbos, thicker sway bars, the increase in size helps quench the thirst for speed. The Golf GTI and all its subsequent variants have been showing us since 1974 that sometimes smaller can be just as good, and plenty of speed and practicality can come in a condensed package. The same can be said for our intercooler design for the latest generation of VW's compact chassis. It's not the size that matters, but rather the innovation packed inside.

Limited space in the engine bay is always a challenge when it comes to designing new products, but in the case of the MK7, it was a major obstacle.

With the MK7 especially, available space is the first major hurdle to overcome. If you revisit the stock review of the MK7's intercooler, you'll see that the intercooler is the meat in a heat exchanger sandwich, all mounted on the front

When we're talking about cooling the charged air in any forced induction vehicle, the intercooler always steals the show. To be fair, it is doing a majority of the work. No matter if you're still running a stock unit or if there's an all-aluminum core seated in the front of your car, it's the star. However, the intercooler would be nothing without the back-up band, the intercooler piping. Putting in all the effort to cool off the charged air would be useless without a method to transfer it to the intake. If the stock intercooler unit had some shortcomings, the piping was bound to end up with some flaws, too.

The safe passage for your charged air is currently left up to the combination of plastic and rubber construction that makes up the factory piping. It might seem that we're prejudice against these building materials, but it's quite the opposite. These materials are great for the mass production of your Golf or GTI, providing an easily produced, lightweight channel for the charged air