PDI GU Front Mount Intercooler Kit suitable for Nissan Patrol GU ZD30 TD42 Patrol Series 1 2 3
This is a great intercooler for the GU and is huge by intercooler standards and is well suited for high power applications or just to overcome the limitations of the top mounted intercooler design. It has a core size 675 x 320 x 76 with separate bonnet support.
Mounting, close to the air con condenser, ensures the grill can be fitted without modifications.
🚗 Vehicle suitability,:
- Nissan Patrol GU Series 1-3
- TD42 Engine
- ZD30DI Engine
- Patrol Series 1 from 1997 to April 2000 – PDI kit suitable for all Nissan diesel engines.
- Patrol Series 2 from April 2000 to October 2001 – PDI kit suitable for all Nissan diesel engines
- Patrol Series 3 from October 2001 to October 2004 – PDI kit suitable for all Nissan diesel engines
🧩 Fitment Notes:
- Suitable for both high and low mounted turbos, the standard hot side piping has a 90deg silicon rescuer to go onto the turbo in the low mount configuration.
- If you have a high mounted turbo installers typically adjust the stainless and change the orientation of the silicon to connect to the intercooler.
- To install our intercooler, the factory thermo fan needs to be removed.
- Due to the way our front mount is able to extract heat, we suggest that, once you determine a thermo fan is required (and that would be a limited amount of people), it should be mounted on the drivers side.
- We have provided extra tabs on the intercooler itself, if you would like to remount it.
🍵For the TD42 owners:
- Aftermarket Turbo: Hot-Pipe supplied suits UFI, GTurbo, and all other aftermarket turbochargers in a similar configuration.
- Factory Turbo with 3-bolt flange: An extra Adaptor is included to connect the factory GU style Turbo.
- The TD42 has long been a favourite and with the appropriate mods, can be a solid performer.
- Our front mounted intercooler will maintain cold day driving performance.
- We also run through the very front of the passenger side wheel arch area and into the engine bay.
- Connection to the turbo can be fun as there are many different turbo setups and orientations people run.
- The intake side has three parts with the top one being an intake adapter that bolts to the manifold.
- This adapter has a 1/8”NPT port with brass barb for a boost source.
💥For the ZD30 Owners:
- The ZD30 has always been highly strung from the factory with rich air fuel ratios and relatively low boost they exhibit very high EGT.
- It’s the only turbo I’ve seen with a glowing turbine housing on the dyno in stock form.
- Once pushed a little harder the top mount design isn’t effective.
- The ZD30 kit will feature 2 1/2″ stainless pipework to and from the intercooler with the stainless necking down to 2” to roll over 180deg and line up with the turbo outlet.
- This means no elbows coming off the turbo getting blasted with a constant flow of hot air.
- Our silicon joiner here now has an oil resistant coating.
- Piping on turbo side briefly goes through the wheel arch but is in stainless so is very unlikely to get damaged.
- The inlet side piping is also 2.5” stainless and has a joiner in the middle. A port is located on the pipe, before intake for connection to the MAP sensor.
🔧 Testing, and why you SHOULD NOT use a top mount intercooler for your rig,
- If considering the purchase of a top mount intercooler then you need to consider the results compared to our Landcruiser 80 series Front mount PDI front mount kits.
In back-to-back testing, the PDI front mount kit dropped inlet temps from 260°C to 70°C at 100km/h uphill with 40+ psi. Outperforming top mount setups by a wide margin. Here’s some results compared to the best aftermarket top mounts on the market (when tested on a VDJ79 Toyota Landcruiser V8):
Factory Top Mounted Intercooler: 88°C
Upgraded Top Mount Intercooler: 75°C
PDI Front Mount Intercooler: 47°C under identical condition – even dropped EGTs by 50°C at 110 km/h – proven protection and power.
That makes the PDI Coolers front mount 3 times more effective than the aftermarket upgrade.
🚗 Auto Trans? No problem.
- If you have an auto transmission we offer a heavy duty transmission cooler with brackets to mount in front of the intercooler.
- If you need to run a thermo-fan and have a auto transmission, then we would suggest it is better to run a smaller, square shaped transmission cooler on the passenger side and the thermo-fan on the drivers side.
🧊 Auto Transmission Cooler Options,
- If you have an auto then by selection the auto option we will supply the standard kit with one for he best transmission coolers on the market (rated at 45,000BTU) and brackets that bolt to the intercooler with a series of holes that allow it to be located at three different heights.
- The lowest height places it down so only partially covering the bottom of the intercooler.
- If you choose to use the original (factory) transmission cooler then you will need to fabricate some brackets and we recommend placing it on the passenger side in front of the hot side of the intercooler.
- This means the intercooler still has a really good chance to cool the intake air from air heat extracted from the transmission.
💡Thermo fan mounting,
- Following from above for auto with factory transmission cooler or if running a manual gearbox.
- This gives room to place the thermo fan on the drivers side which means any air pushed through may add to intercooler efficiency.
- It means that the cooler side of the intercooler will allow cooler air to pass through and help with air conditioner condenser function.
- Our intercooler has 2 lugs on the top and 2 lugs on the bottom to Thermo fan mounting easier. If running aftermarket thermofans we highly recommend SPAL fans from Italy.
Timely delivery including part exchange and whoever I spoke to over the phone was knowledgeable, gave good advice and put together a kit to suit my existing parts.
Cheers guys at HD!