Announcing TopgunZ ACE Supercharger Kit!

takemorepills

I wouldn't put too much concern into the crash bar.

If you modify the stock aluminum one, you'll likely have extensive collateral damage in a minor impact, possibly the IC and condenser colliding and damaging each other. A modified aluminum crash bar will be much weaker.

If you have a custom-made tube bar setup, some impact energy may go directly into the bumper mounts and frame rails causing even worse, more expensive damage in certain situations, and likely the clearance between a custom bar and the intercooler may mean that you may still end up with IC and condenser damage along with possible frame damage if the tubes transmit too much crash energy into the frame. There's a reason the stock bar is aluminum, it's nice and squishy, relatively speaking.

There's a decent amount of squish area behind our plastic/aluminum front end, stuffing a fat intercooler into that area is going to bring trade-offs one way or the other.

I think the tube crash bar will be fine for very low speed impacts.