Daniel, what I am trying to say briefly is;
An intercooler is solely made to SAVE power, not make it. Due to its inherant large size, product placement when front mounted is therefore sometimes hurt by conviluted piping , you can lose power due to many reasons. One being excessive piping to get to the front of the car, another too large of a core. A proper sized FMIC (not a "mine is bigger than yours") will generally make up for its losses in high heat situations and high air movment speeds when less power will be lost by heat soak. Its very typical to see pressure loss on a FMIC from a smaller OEM side mount. Pressure is power. Therefore when the air temp isnt a factor,(fall/winter cool days esp) you may lose power compared to smaller sized IC. When its 90 degrees out, you still lose power, just not as much as a small SMIC that would be very heat soaked. (this is the same idea as superchargers take power to make power by belt drag).
Sorry to confuse anyone by short generalizations