Verticooler Kit - Subaru 15-21 VA WRX

The Process West Verticooler represents a total rethink of Subaru cooling. Born from years of motorsport expertise, the Verticooler’s unique "slant-mount" design solves the inherent flaws of the traditional top-mount intercooler (TMIC), providing a level of cooling efficiency usually reserved for front-mount systems.

The Problem: The "Traffic Jam" Effect

The factory TMIC sits horizontally on top of the engine. While it works for short bursts, the heated air passing through it has nowhere to go but directly onto the hot engine block. This creates a "traffic jam" of hot air in the engine bay, leading to rapid heat soak and a significant drop in power during spirited or track driving.

The Solution: The Verticooler Advantage

The Verticooler solves this by mounting a massive, free-flowing core at a 15-degree, near-vertical angle. This orientation transforms how air moves through your engine bay:

• Optimised Exit Path: Instead of trapping heat, the angled core allows air to flow naturally down through the engine bay and out through the transmission tunnel.

• High-Velocity Airflow: A vehicle-specific hood duct force-feeds fresh, ambient air directly into the fins, maintaining high air velocity for maximum heat exchange.

• Massive Core Volume: The Verticooler boasts one of the largest volumes on the market, featuring core measurements of 400mm flow length x 205mm stack height x 120mm thick.

Performance & Reliability

By drastically lowering intake air temperatures (IATs), the Verticooler ensures your FA20 engine stays within its safe operating window. You’ll experience more consistent throttle response, sustained boost levels, and improved engine longevity—even in demanding conditions.

What’s Included

The Verticooler arrives as a complete, comprehensive kit for a professional installation:

• Verticooler Core (Available in Satin Black or Silver finish)

• Application-Specific Hood Duct & Splitter

• Specially Formed Silicone Hoses

• High-Quality Constant Tension Hose Clamps

Custom Setup? An optional silicone hose is available for drivers running traditional "tube-style" outlet turbochargers, ensuring a perfect fit regardless of your turbo configuration.

TRACK TESTING

     

A hard test session was carried out at Australia’s Regional Wakefield Park Racing circuit. Although being a very cold day… about 14C in ambient temperature a series of rigorous tests were carried out in an attempt to pile on the heat.

Scheduled testing of 7 – 10 minutes at a time of flat out operation is enough to see the factory cooler heat-soaked and the intake temps start to rocket, but the Verticooler equipped MY15 pegged the inlet at no more than 23C

Any way you look at that data it’s a delta temperature change of only 9 degrees celcius, which is in fact the kind of temp gain you would normally expect to see in a normally aspirated application! Don’t believe it? Well as they say ‘The data never lies’ and we have included the raw testing to show you how good Verticooler really is!

• Green trace shows intercooler outlet temperatures in degree C
• Red trace shows intercooler inlet temperatures in degree C
• Black trace shows speed in km/h
  

DYNO TESTING
Once we felt – and measured – how good the Verticooler system was on the track it was time to see how the numbers stacked up on the dyno. The procedure went like this -
First was baseline testing

• Car was stock with a cat back exhaust… pink line
• We then tuned the car with stock intercooler… green line
• Verticooler was then installed and allowed a much more aggressive timing map and increased boost… red line

Graph shows power/boost pressure

Graph shows power/torque

We also performed 3 back to back dyno pulls in quick sucession.

The Stock intercooler saw outlet temps quickly rise to 51 degee C.

Verticooler kept temps indefinitely under control with max outlet temp of 26 C.

It’s also worth noting that this testing was done in the midst of winter here in Australia.

Expect a much larger performance difference between the stock intercooler and Verticooler in the heat of summer.

Stock intercooler 3 x back to back runs - note intercooler outlet temperature – green trace

Verticooler 3 back to back runs - note intercooler outlet temperature – green trace