V2Rocket

Ever notice that most radiators and condensers and oil coolers are black painted? I'm sure there's a cosmetic reason for it, but that's got to be an expensive bit of makeup for the radiator companies

hopps

So what about using a high heat paint vs just regular black. How would that work?

azbanks

I'm wondering if I should paint my radiator black along with the intercooler.


Flat black grill paint should hold up to the high temps.

67King

Ever notice that that only applies to copper heat exchangers, and not aluminum ones? Probably was done for corrosion protection, since aluminum forms a protective oxide, and copper does not.

Thought the results were interesting......however, folks here seem to be ignoring that the benefit was entirely with no airflow. Kinda hard to make boost and not move. And that when airflow as introduced, there was a slight degradation in temperature. I'm wondering if the paint becomes an insulator when you introduction conduction as a method of heat transfer, and not just radiation.

On edit here: I stunk at heat transfer. However, with stagnant air, the heat transfer mechanism is almost entirely radiant. When you start moving air over it, then you are introducing conduction as a method of heat transfer. Once an intercooler is heat soaked, conduction will be the method by which it does its job. And while I know that the difference was pretty small, I'm not sure that I'd conclude that painting it is better, but rather the opposite.

I don't know what the right answer is. Obviously the industry doesn't, either. I'd be interested to see what anodizing one would do, as it just dyes the protective oxide layer that will form within minutes, thereby adding color without

refresh951

Overall I think it is a bad idea. Very little upside and potential for a bad downside. Keep in mind that a manufacturer can do the engineering to pick appropriate materials, control the application, and do the environmental testing. As Harry mentioned, at flow radiation is negligible. You could goop up your IC and easily mess up convection heat transfer and this would definitely not be good.

V2Rocket

most if not all setrab oil coolers ive seen are factory black and they are aluminum. the 944 ac condensers are black too, also Al...

zeusrotty

So would this also work for radiators?

George D

Who cares what your intercooler does without air flow? I actually watched the video, and painting did nothing towards additional cooling of forced air. As soon as you boost anything, all static temp differences become irrelevant.

azbanks

I wonder how useful this would be for someone who does a lot of drag racing. Just sitting waiting for your turn at the light, black would keep things cooler. How long/much air flow would be required to overcome this initial advantage? Would starting the run with a lot cooler charge be a big advantage or would a slightly cooler charge later in the run be more beneficial? I have no idea what the answers are to those questions.

67King

I would expect it to hurt. You are not going to get your turbo to spool much without a load, so it would actually be absorbing ambient air. But the drag racers usually run air/water, and run icewater into the tanks.

Rannem

Doesnt the Porsche 930 have a black intercooler?

Jherriott

These guys did the ceramic coating on my exhaust. They also make a heatsink coating that I was wondering about... seems it has its merits, and better than spray paint.

http://www.fireballcoatings.com/inde...id=7&Itemid=14

67King

True. Guess I was thinking of radiators. Never seen a black aluminum one, but all the copper ones were black. But, I'd speculate that anything that can be seen from the grille of a car is probably going to be painted black for aesthetics. Radiators are hidden behind AC condensors. A big honkin' piece of silver colored stuff doesn't look very good to the average person (I'm personally not a fan of the blingy look, either).

t3rra

Well from my logs the stock in set up needs to get over 50 mph before it starts to cool the intake air. Now this could be due to a number off things but my intake temps are recored after the throttle body

Dougs951S

Interesting, I'd love to see your datalogs since I have no info with a system even remotely stock. My FMIC gets heat soaked sitting in hot sun, temps can climb to 140F pretty quickly, but it cools right back down to barely above ambient as soon as air flow gets over it, even if I'm not going very fast. My intercooler is not ducted and at first I was concerned about that, but I truly believe it has more than enough cooling capacity for a ~400 rwhp car. My sensor is a few inches before the TB.