Paulyy

V2Rocket

can you provide a translation of what the blokes in the hats said during that film?

so it seems that in motion they perform roughly the same, but when its been run hard and hot the black cooler kicks out a much cooler air charge compared to the silver. sounds useful for the road-racer folks.

David Floyd

Why not gloss black ?

drift a 944

Aw man! But I like my big shiny intercooler!

I wonder what kind of effect a different color besides black would have on the temps?

lart951

Why aren't these guys working for Porsche?

fasteddie313

if the paint was still drying when they did there first test with the black and no airflow the solvents in the paint evaporating could have caused the cooling effect that they measured and not the black its self...

I hope that isn't the case because this would be a really neat and simple performance gain...

if the color black its self is the reason for improvement then I think the proper way to go about this would be to have your intercooler anodized black...

if you anodize black then you don't get an insulating layer of paint and it would get the inside of the intercooler and inbetween all of the fins too if im not mistaken about the process...

it is a dip process like metal plating or Parkerizing is it not?

oh I guess the color is still a film...

eh 6 of 1, or a half dozen of another....

Dougs951S

It is not a dip process but a physical change to the surface caused by electrical action which deposits a very thin, sever nanometer thick layer of aluminum oxide onto the surface. Aluminum oxide does not corrode or conduct electricity, is extremely tough, and is also full of small pores into which dye can be deposited to give anodized parts their often colorful appearance. It also does not appreciably effect thermal conductivity.

Kris H

IMHO it's good for Gustaf, but not for Patrick Looks nice as long as the intercooler is hidden from sunlight. If they measured how fast and how much does the IC heat up in summer sunlight - especially in regions like australia or southern states, I dare to believe it overheated pretty vastly compared to bare metal.. just my 0.02

Paulyy

The temperatures they where getting from the hairdryer would be far greater than what the sun will do. They are australians who did the video. they recorded over 100°c

Reimu

I'm far from an engineer but I think emissivity is more concerned with the material than the color. Maybe you could even paint it silver?

Kris H

Paulyy - indeed they recorded high IC intake temps due to connected hairdryer, but i think you're mixing two things here. What i meant was - I imagine the equasion is somewhat like: exit_temperature = IC_intake_temperature - IC_efficiency + IC_to_air_temp_difference

in the "regular" IC, the efficiency is lower, but the IC itself will have lower "idle" temperature even when sunlit. The black one has a lot higher efficiency, but will also heat up in sunlight a lot more than the clear one. My model of course may be completely false, since i am no scientist, but i do feel the efficiency of intercooler is not fixed, but a variable dependant on IC's temperature.

keep in mind, they have done the experiment in a shady garage, not outside when the IC temperature may start to have some impact. I'm not saying what they tell is false. It's true. But I feel there may be this one factor they omitted, which may or may not play a role in the real world. Where I live, the temperatures are not that high even during summer, nor is the sunlight as vertical (in consequence carries not as much energy per area) as in other parts of the world but there's still a very noticeable temperature difference between white or silver metals and black ones when exposed to sunlight. Just food for thought. IMHO that's a really interesting topic for discussion, but it needs a few more measurements before going full speed ahead with it.

Paulyy

I think i get your point.

In the test, they let it heat soak until the out let temp was stable and the intercooler was hot. Which would be exactly the same as if the sun was directly at it for 5 hours so to speak.
So when the car isn't moving, just idling. the out let temps wont change from the head soaked intercooler core.

blade7

My Sierra RS Cosworth had a black intercooler, as did the homologation special RS500 that had a much bigger intercooler. I don't know if Cosworth/Ford would done that for cosmetic reasons.

Kris H

I guess I'm missing something then. It probably will randomly hit my brain tomorrow or the next day Heatsoaking and sunlight aside - for sure the same technique would help the oilpan bottom fins, when painted black, wouldn't it? that would be some of the easiest upgrades ever..

on a sidenote - would a white car have lower engine bay temperature than a black one? It may be a negligible value, but still i guess it could have some influence. I've never before thought about body repaint as a performance upgrade.. it's madness, yet there might be method in it..

Dough951s - " It also does not appreciably effect thermal conductivity" - are you saying that galvanizing it black would not be of same benefit? As fasteddie already mentioned, I thought as it's a very thin coat, much thinner than paint, it would actually work better that way.

refresh951

The downside in my mind is adhesion. If the paint separates, you could get a degradation in convection. For this reason alone I do not think it is a good idea. If you do paint the IC make sure you properly prepare the surface and use paint that will hold up in a very harsh environment. Flat black has better emissive properties because it is flat due to surface roughness. The roughness results in more surface area.