I was going to go down your root. I installed a non intercooled
Vortech set up with ~10lbs of boost but didn't like the loss in power during the summer months. I initially wanted to go with a Meth injection set up but was guided otherwise and never looked back. Here is my concern with Meth...
You install a Meth setup and inject Meth to cool your intake charge. Your car now effectively makes less power due to the Meth diluting your intake charge so you add timing to compensate. But since you have Meth you decide to add more timing to take advantage of the prospect of the cooler intake charge. However consider something goes wrong and you don't inject meth (and it happens more often than not). Now you have a lot more timing (first to compensate for the meth and than to get some added power) but are without the meth and that can be a very expensive accident. Plus you need to refill Meth! Why not go to an air to air intercooler and you have consistent safe power that will eventually pay for itself!
I pieced together an intercooler set up it took me two days to do. I took my time and did it right and did not remove the front bumper support. My car currently makes 420rwhp and 408rwtrq on 11-12 lbs of boost (albeit in the winter time). The entire setup wasn't bad at all. I got the piping and intercooler from CX racing. A blow through MAF from HPX and a BOV from
Vortech not to mention a couple other odds and ends. Trust me it is the way to go. And think how sick a FMIC looks not to mention the awesome sound of a V8 with a BOV! That's just my advice.
Before I begin, I need to say that I agree with your advice to get an intercooler instead, for simplicity's sake. BUT, I need to straighten some stuff up regarding methanol.
First, you are not going to make less power spraying meth with no changes to the tune. If you do, it will not be recordable at the track or on the dyno. Your 100% stock tune adds or removes timing based on intake temps; methanol cools those intake temps and the computer will thus add timing (albeit probably not an optimal amount). My car was originally tuned without methanol; I installed an AIS methanol kit and picked up over 2 mph at the track with the methanol, with absolutely no changes at all to the tune.
Second, why on earth would you spray methanol and NOT make changes to the tune? That's the same as tuning the a car without an intercooler, installing an intercooler, and then not retuning. While there's nothing wrong with that, you will not see anywhere near optimal power by doing that.
Thirdly, when tuned properly, methanol is about as safe as it gets. And it's actually very easy to tune. You simply tune the car (AFR and timing) without any methanol just like you would any non-intercooled car. Then you hit it with 'X' amount of methanol, which will DRAMATICALLY decrease the intake air temps (I see a drop of 90-120 degrees, depending on ambient air temp). Leave the AFR alone; it will show it going pretty rich, but that's misleading because the stoichimetric ratio of methanol isn't the same 14.7 as gasoline. My car actually drops roughly half a point hitting it with a HUGE shot of methanol. Most people will see it get .2-.3 richer with methanol. And finally, you adjust the spark tables to add timing at those cooler temps. When tuned like this, the computer will pull timing if the temps go up (i.e. no methanol) to keep it safe; and if the temps stay way down (i.e. methanol is spraying), it adds timing, makes more power, and everyone's happy. Once tuned correctly, your car will make HUGE power from methanol. Once I got a proper tune, I picked up 8 mph in the 1/4 with absolutely no changes other than flipping the methanol switch on. Do the math, and we're talking 70+ rwhp (although I can tell you that you definitely won't see that kind of gain on a dyno).
I'm honestly shocked at how many people don't understand how to tune methanol via this method. It is so very easy and simple to do, and is very fool proof. I actually had the methanol system fail on me once at the track recently; the tune pulled timing and nothing was hurt (minus my E.T. on that run). Tuning it this way also allows you to turn it off when daily driving to keep from using any methanol. I use <3 gallons per month (minus track trips, which I usually use ~1.5 gallons), which totals to around $5 a month, and that's with big nozzles and it being armed most of the time.
Lastly, everything else equal, a car spraying methanol will run better at the track than a car running an intercooler. There is no boost loss from methanol (actually a boost gain [~1 pound] from increased adiabatic efficiency of the blower, if you spray pre-blower), and you can run much more timing with methanol due to the increased octane rating. I'm running 25 degrees of timing at the track without even a hint of detonation. Try that on a blown car on pump gas alone. Most I've heard of an intercooled car running on pump gas is about 18 degrees.
Oh, and one last thing for everyone's information. You said you wanted an intercooler to keep from losing power in the summer months. An intercooler does NOT increase the amount of oxygen in the intake charge. It simply cools the temp. The oxygen mass in the intake charge is 100% proportional to the oxygen in the ambient air. There is nothing you can do to change that (other than nitrous or the like). If you locked the timing on your tune, and then installed an intercooler, you would see absolutely no performance increase from the intercooler. You would actually see a decrease because of the inefficiencies and boost loss through the intercooler. Every single bit of the power increase you see from an intercooler (and methanol for that matter) is a result of increased spark timing which is now possible due to cooler intake temps, NOT from a denser air charge.