I know I have a intercooler leak, I can hear the hiss when I charge the system with air. Hard to tell, but it sounds like it is coming from the intercooler itself, not the boot. Can a small leak make a big difference in performance? I can still hit 35psi but it feels like nobody is home.

 

I'd imagine it's just as power killing as driving around with a blown boot. When my boot was blown, I could still hit 35psi, but it felt like a gutless hog, and killed my economy. I hear intercoolers can be a pretty penny

 

Thanks for the reply. I am looking for a used intercooler at this point. The truck still runs, but you are right, it is a dog. How hard was it for you to replace the boots?

 

I have a used 12 v cooler

Bob

 

Not too hard. Though I did mine at night with no lights on my gravel driveway with a pos ratchet that wouldn't turn, so that raised the difficulty level from a 1-cuss-word-every-10-minutes job to a 10-cuss-words-every-1-minute job.

7/16 gear wrench or a 7/16 deep socket with a 3" extension would probably be the easiest tools to use.

 

You can do a band aid fix on a leaky intercooler with 2 ton epoxy. I did it to one of my old gasser turbo's and it held 60psi.....car only made 24psi though I used a compressor to leak test it

 

When I tore a boot I could hit 35 but egts were way up and power was way down as well as mileage.Leaks suck.Normally in the same situations I could hit 45 psi

 

Thanks for all the replies. I know I have to remove it, which looks like a real pain. If the leak is fixable, I will try, but I am still looking for one in case it is not. I don't want to take it out, have to toss it and not have something ready to replace it right away. Just another day under or in front of the truck.