Intercooler piping...protecting from heat?

[deviant]

So this weekend I installed a N***an Pulsar GTIR intercooler in to my supercharged AW11 MR2.
The standard intercooler in a AW11 is a tiny little POS that very quickly becomes heat soaked so I put the much much larger intercooler on to try and improve the situation.

The AW11 suffers with building up huge heat in the engine bay so I am wondering if it is worth me using exhaust wrap to protect the pipes for the intercooler from the heat?

Will this just trap heat in the pipes?

Or there is the silver, heat reflective stuff?

Before anyone says it I'm not going to get the pipes ceramic coated!

I am also looking at wrapping the exhaust manifold as I am pretty sure this is responsible for a heap of the heat build up!

[oldcorollas]

depends if you are trying to keep the heat in or out

reflective tape is only good for radiant heat (like from hot exhaust components) and even then, is not so great.

if the pipes will be cooler than the engine bay, you could use some sort of fibreglass tape as that will slow the transfer of heat from engine bay to pipe.. but also does the reverse..

then again, youwould hope that the IC does it's job, and the air is cooler than the engine bay

[Mr Ed]

Only the pipe after the intercooler should be cooler than the engine bay air, hense thats the only one I would wrap. Thats my thinkin anyways.

[Billzilla]

Before anyone says it I'm not going to get the pipes ceramic coated!

Guess what I was going to say?

[deviant]

I'm pretty convinced the intercooler is doing its job.....But it is still hot to the touch...I guess its quite difficult to really know how well they work because by the time I have stopped anywhere it has begun to heat soak again, something I know I can never stop completely with a top mount IC but I would like to just slow it down.

So to answer your question..

Keep the heat in the exhaust and keep it out of the intercooler pipework

Ok so instead of using tape and risking it trapping heat in what difference would doing something like painting the pipes white make?

As you may have noticed budget....almost ghetto solutions are what I am looking for

[Billzilla]

Air is a reasonable insulator.
If you can, maybe try making a double-layer pipe and blow ambient air through the gap between them. The outer pipe will take the heat of the engine bay, and the air will take any of that heat out with it. The inner pipe should stay fairly cool.
The intercooler air also should have a cooler output air temp than that, by the sounds of it.

[deviant]

Guess what I was going to say?

Hmmm just a sudden thought on ceramic coating...

Is there some sort of budget solution to this....like is there some sort of paint that could be used that is normally used by people for decorating ceramics?

As you can tell my knowledge of thermodynamics is somewhat limited to 'ouch thats f@ckin hot!'

[oldcorollas]

thats a bloody good idea as long as you have space for ducting and maybe a big computer fan

white paint = buggerall... the colour affects the absorbtion of radiated heat, but not conducted heat.. hot air to pipe is conduction not radiation....

oh, you could stick a couple of temp sensors around the place see what is really happening....

ghetto?
ghetto is a few layers of hessian sack, with foil wrapped around the outside and clamped with tie wire

edit, you mean glazing?
main issue is bonding to the metal and not falling off during heating/cooling/vibration... exhaust wrap is a combination of air insulation, and obstruction(?)..

hmmm.. anyone got a plasma torch? wanna try and turn it into a plasma sprayer?

[Billzilla]

Hmmm just a sudden thought on ceramic coating...

Is there some sort of budget solution to this....like is there some sort of paint that could be used that is normally used by people for decorating ceramics?

As you can tell my knowledge of thermodynamics is somewhat limited to 'ouch thats f@ckin hot!'

Maybe some plain old VHT paint in a spray can. Cheap enough to try.

FWIW Jaycar sell a half reasonable infra-red gun for something like $60. You don't have to guess how how/cold things are, you can measure then accurately.
(Also good for pointing at extractors pipes, to work out rich/lean cylinders, etc)

[deviant]

Paint is struck off the list..

Space is at a premium in the engine room..

hehehe I love your ghetto idea!

Maybe for the time being I will look in to a couple of temp sensors and then try and see the difference between a wrapped and an exposed pipe.
Until then I might just have a play with wrapping just the 'cold' pipe and doing the super accurate 'ouch thats f@cking hot' or 'brrr thats abit chilly' sticking my finger under the wrapping test

Thanks for the help guys!!

EDIT: Cheap infa red gun FTW!! Cheers Bill!

[oldcorollas]

(or you could pack the pipe in a 25% aluminium powder/75% alumina powder mix, with maybe 2% of ammonia activator, heat at 800deg for 3 or 4 hrs, and then plasma spray alumina onto the surface... )

[deviant]

(or you could pack the pipe in a 25% aluminium powder/75% alumina powder mix, with maybe 2% of ammonia activator, heat at 800deg for 3 or 4 hrs, and then plasma spray alumina onto the surface... )

Can I get this in a can from Malz?

[feral4mr2]

more air flow through the eng bay and i/c is the winner if useing a a2a i/c in the aw11. and IMO only way to acheive this is to build a better vented eng lid to alow the air that comes up out. the stock eng lids are too restrictive in that matter, specialy the s/c one.

[Mr Ed]

Do 4As have a water line plumbed into the throttle/idle control system?

2Js do and Im bypassing mine to try and help intake temps, I have no need for a the system as they were designed to stop the throttle freezing shut in cold Japanese weather and Im in sunny Qld. I have no idea how cold it gets in WA though....or where abouts in WA you are.

If you do have something similar it is a very simple mod that could be quite effective.

[roadsailing]

i wouldn;t worry about insulation trapping heat in your cooler pipes, the engine bay is pretty much always going to be hotter than your charge air, your charge air is what keeps the pipes cool!