has anyone else looked into this? I saw Yoshi and his tomei ej26 were running a vmount for pikes peak, but i have not seen many others looking into this.

First picture shows a V-Mount intercooler. Used in a lot of setup with 13b in RX-7 TT

V mounts are in the most part wank factor.

Sure you have shorter piping. But LOL at anyone that thinks the picture posted in the OP is going to get any significant airflow, its basically paralell to the main direction of air flow, where as you want it to be as close to perpindicular as possible

A proper v-mount tilts the radiator back. The gap it leaves as tilts back, the IC goes in.

The further the radiator can tilt back, the better the angle of the face of the IC to the airflow.

The point of a v mount is, response from shorter pipiing, and is often done because the car is overheating. So, also it gives the radiator better airflow, as its not getting the 'ehaust' air from the intercooler that used to be mounted infront of it.

A properly done v-mount can be excellent. They are almost never properly done though.

When I made the setup on my GR STI the bumper air duct fed the radiator and the grill fed the intercooler. This allowed a 90 degree angle between the two cores.

With a BRZ/FRS a V-Mount would be compromised because of the design of the front of the car. I think a traditional front mount works just fine in this chassis

Already done. I've been testing water to air intercoolers for months.

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My local company is going to make a water/air intercooler next spring. I will be running non-intercooled during cold winter months (PNW) with low boost. IAT never went above 101F after +30 dyno pulls, no fan/with fan etc. I will create a build post once I get mine installed this month!

how about no intercooler?

There's two in-line intercoolers on that intake path in the second picture. One is pre-charger, second is post charger. technically a heat exchanger, not really an intercooler.

our cars struggle with heat once boosted, atleast the actual track cars.
the s-max car has proper ducting built into the bumper and front end. not ideal layout for what i was thinking though.
i you were to build a similiar setup on our car by removing the section of the core support that unbolts and "open up the hood" i think we could see major gains in cooling efficiency on the radiator side.

very good point about opening the hood, getting cold air in is important but so is getting the hot air out. Also is you play the aero right it could pull the hot air out.

Is the heat issue a result of the front mount intercoolers or front mounted turbos or both?

i am not sure... i am not boosted yet due to the fact that no one kit really appeals to me due to the inherent issues with all the setups.

i know the element tuning guys were struggling with oil temps. the exhaust manifolds and turbos being where they are dont help things. i think we would see a significant drop if we just got rid of the ac setup.

Or position the turbo where Subaru has for the last 15 years. They seem to know a few things about the subject.

what about doing a FMIC and a TMIC? combine the routing, maybe both to cool the same air? just throwing thoughts out there