Plazmaman Water-to-Air Intercooler

Today I went out to see Alex from Plazmaman to get some intercooler pipes welded up for a tech story that shall be coming out in a  future Zoom. While I was there he gave me a quick look at the Plazmaman development mule, a Subaru WRX STi. The top-mount air-to-air intercooler was pulled off and replaced with a water-to-air intercooler.

As Alex points out there are many benefits of the W2A intercooler setup. The two main benefits are:

1) No massive intercooler to annoy the police and registration authorities. The W2A setup is relatively stealth.

2) It keeps the inlet charge at a consistent 30-40deg unlike air-to-air coolers that have massive temperature fluctuations depending on the conditions and driving environment.