draperjojo

Pics were taken out in the garage a few minutes ago of a 1991 C2.

964russ

Cool! or not! erm!

draperjojo

Whats "erm"?

964russ

"erm" is a dontknow/uncertain coment. In this context it means mayb a joke? Messin about.
Is there any reason why had a thermal camera?
Where did you get access to this type ov camera?
Ive only seen that good in iraq. On tv!

draperjojo

We just picked up the line and are selling them, mainly to maintenance guys at large plants for looking at loose electrical connections, bad steam valves, heat loss, etc.. Great for troubleshooting. They are made by the same company that puts cameras on gunships for the military, and builds night vision stuff for law enforcement. I just took it home to get familiar with it before I take it out to demo for customers. I shot pictures of the Harley and the 911 just for fun to see the heat signatures.

Marc Shaw

It is surprising that the vents of the engine cover seem to hold in so much heat.

Marc

etom

I could be wrong, but I think these images (or images like them, shot for specific purpose) might be interesting in order to understand heat issues related to our engines. What would this image look like after a vigorous run, for example? Is the air more cool at the intake area? etc etc.

Great job, and if you or anyone has any ingenious ideas for using this technology, why the hell not? Isn't the purpose of the forum to know as much as possible about these engines, and this kind of photo might reveal a few things hitherto debatable.

In the pic of the open engine . . . What part/area looks coolest?

draperjojo

The lowest temp in the open engine bay pic appears to be the A/C line running to the compressor. I think I can manipulate the crosshairs on the camera while still keeping the car centered in the picture. I'm still learning how to run this thing. It would be fun to put it on a lift after a spirited run and get pics from underneath, set the crosshairs on the hot spots and read the temps.

draperjojo

It is surprising that the vents of the engine cover seem to hold in so much heat.

Good point! Why isn't the heat escaping and showing up on the pic coming out of the vent???? Hmmmmm

dfinnegan

Can you try one with the spoiler open at similar temps?

Could put to bed the debate over whether opening the spoiler in stop-n-go traffic is worth while, or not.

ddubois

IR cameras measure the 'temperature' of a surface based on emissivity, they don't measure air temperature. So I bet the image showing the 'cold' hood was shot immediately after closing it, after it had been open for the engine images, i.e it was still cool on the surface.
Since they 'measure temperature' based on emissivity the 'temperature' readings are pretty much worthless when looking at something with a varying range of material emissivities, such as a car.
Their purpose is for measuring relative surface temperatures like illegal aliens hiding in bushes, or as mentioned troubleshooting hot points/leaks.
They are useful, as we use them, for measuring temperature distribution across a single material such as heat sinks, where you set the material emissivity and get a fairly accurate temperature distribution.

zicoramone

Have you ever tried that camera on a woman's body before?

draperjojo

Um...why do you ask??? Did somebody say something???

springer3

Absolutely correct. Shape and color (emissivity) affect the color in the image as much as temperature does. Similar to an x-ray, it takes experience and a trained eye to interpret an IR image. I once watched a person try to "prove" something that was not correct simply because he did not understand the limitations of IR. Look at the valve stem on the rear wheel. It reads hot (222 F, over 100 C) only because it is black (high emissivity).

A contact pyrometer is far more reliable if you need to know an under-hood temperature.

RallyDogRacing

Would be worth perhaps shooting IR pics from a chase car to get a view of how the airflow & heat is moving. Especially if you've got roughly identical cars and one of them has the under-tray!