Categories

TF-Works Intercooler for BMW E30

1st Feb 2025

As we ventured into the E30 Kswaps, majority of our clients have been going the turbo route.
We get it, why pull the M20 motor and spend $15k+ to gain maybe 50whp, but if you slap a turbo onto a K-series, you're at 400whp without dropping a sweat.
We were fabricating one-off intercooler kits for the cars we build in house.  All of them ended up with a different front bumper, and for us fabricating an intercooler kit for a car wasn't a huge task.  This does require some trimming of the bumper pieces.
As you can see below, here is an example of an intercooler using our Billet aluminum end tanks.  This car is making 430whp on 93 pump with a Euro bumper, which had to be modified slightly to fit.

intercooler6.jpg

As we have built several E30's in house, and with our new L15 swap kit coming out, we decided to design a bolt-in solution for the BMW E30 chassis.  
We started with a pristine single owner rust free chassis, which is very important to reduce any fitment issues.
We actually fabricated an intercooler kit for this car, but that is where we decided it was time to have one that can fit behind the stock bumper with minimal modifications.

intercooler4.jpg

It does simplify things some what to have a product base to see where the optimal mounting locations are or other interferences.

intercooler1.jpg

We 3D scan the entire front end with the current intercooler to build off of.

intercooler3.jpg

You can see the tight constraints we are working with.  
OEM bumper provides little room between the core support and the bumper as the E30 wasn't designed to house an intercooler there.

intercooler2.jpg

You can see how we had to taper the end tanks to clear the front bumper, while allowing for a smooth tight 90 degree bend.

intercooler5.jpg

We understand that some of you maybe running the Euro bumper or an aftermarket bumper, but we have found those provide slight differences where some trimming might be required.  Not only that, let's face it this is a 30+ year old car.  Not every chassis will be perfectly straight, and although we left 1/4" clearances around the intercooler, there still may be some areas where slight trimming might be required.
Overall, we hope that this intercooler will help those looking to do our L15 engine swap or even a Kswap or any other swaps that requires an intercooler.
Lastly, our intercooler is designed to flow over 800CFM, which should be able handle 400whp and more with proper ducting.  We rate our intercooler slightly lower due to the lack of air flow from the stock E30 bumper, and we don't want to over promise.

United StatesClose
Flag of United States
Powered by
duty and tax information for United States