Cleaning out the IC
 

Has anyone ever clean out the gravel / pebbles that get stuck in the intercooler? If so, how did you go about doing it?

I hate the fact that so much crap gets stuck in the damn things. I even had a driver of a car in front of me throw a cigerette butt out his window. Guess where it went? I ended up pulling over at the next gas station for gas and had to remove the damn butt from my IC. Some dude on the opposite side pump saw me take it out and laughed. I had to explain how it got there.

Take the IC off the car. Start with an air compressor and blow what you can out from the back. Then get some long toothpicks/skewers... and make sure you've got about 4 hours to spare. It's a lot of slow careful work.

Good news is, if you bend up the fins, I've got a neat little tool that combs them back straight.


somewhere...

I've always heard that you should take it off and spray water through it backwards. Mine's really not that bad though.

^ Yeah thats what my friend did and it worked wonders.

I clean my IC everytime I go through a car wash.

I just did my radiator while it was out of the car. Blew compressed air from the back like Scott said, straightened bent fins with a sharp set of small pliers, scrubbed over it with a small brass wire brush & old toothbrush, used more compressed air... that got it looking decent.

I had decent results on my 02 with compressed air and turning it upside down and GENTLY tapping it on my work bench. I always jammed a rag in the inlet and outlet especially when using the air compressor.