painting intake manifold

Pimpin Dsmstyle · 08-27-2005

Why do people do this? Plain and simple, I do not get it. Is there any down side to doing it? Performance loss? I would think it would have something to do with heat transfer but I don't know. Someone enlighten me please. Thanks

AJ · 08-27-2005

Well in the case with Jana's car we power coated it a metacllic red to match the rest of the engine bay. In this case it was pure looks. IN all honestly the stock intake manifold can and does become an eye sore on a otherwise sexy engine bay.

Painting it in most cases won't keep as much heat in as some may think and thus performance loss probably won't effect anything from your "average" dsm'er. This is why the logical nexy step would be to pick up an aftermarket design.

**Goat Blower** · 08-27-2005

There isn't enough time to dissipate any heat through the piping or intake manifold after the intercooler, the air moves too fast. Aftermarket manifolds make power due to decreased airflow restriction, it has nothing to do with heat transfer, that's the intercooler's job.

Paint away, it doesn't hurt anything.

Raptor · 08-29-2005

If you really believe that theory, isn't the air moving at roughly the same rate through the intercooler? If it is moving at too fast a rate in the intake and piping that anything you did wouldn't cause an effect either way, then what good does it do to bother with finding better core designs etc.

Of course intercoolers are designed to remove heat from air, but the same basic priciples apply to both applications and adding more thermal insulation via paint etc to any alluminum casting will alter its ability to dissapate heat. Also, if it doesn't matter, why bother cooling the intake on the dyno with water? See that done all the time, if the air is moving too fast, that certainly is a waste of time. You also neglect to consider the intake manifold is also an additional heatsink for the head to draw heat out of it and reduce combustion chamber temps. That heat also needs to be able to dissapate into the atmosphere and not be held in. That is the only decent argument against using a phenolic spacer that I agree with as it cuts that effect out.

Not to step on your toes Steve, but I completely dissagree with you on this.

Enes · 08-29-2005

Key with intercooler is fins and air having bigger surface area to touch. If you think about it, the fins are 3mm high, 4inch wide x 24 or 36 however inches long. compared to the radius of the 2 1/2 pipe, you have SOO much more surface area in the intercooler, and thats where the cooling comes into the play.

-E

Pimpin Dsmstyle · 08-29-2005

Oooo, mikey is back from the dead