Reading thus far, I have yet to see any hard evidence of anyone displaying actual results or hard data of heatwrapping their cold pipe on thier setup. Most people just say, o well it felt colder then it usually does. That doesnt cut it for me. How much temperature change are we talking? 15-20 degrees? Does the temp. difference stay consistant with outside temp changes? Subscribing for the possiblity that someone has logged actual differences and compared temps.

Blaze

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Blaze45 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Reading thus far, I have yet to see any hard evidence of anyone displaying actual results or hard data of heatwrapping their cold pipe on thier setup. Most people just say, o well it felt colder then it usually does. That doesnt cut it for me. How much temperature change are we talking? 15-20 degrees? Does the temp. difference stay consistant with outside temp changes? Subscribing for the possiblity that someone has logged actual differences and compared temps.

Blaze </TD></TR></TABLE>

Use theory. Thermal conductivity is thermal conductivity. If you are trying to keep the temperature in the tube as low as possible and the temperature around the tube is higher, by theory you want the tube to be most resistant to heat transfer. This would mean using heat wrap after the intercooler.

Will the difference be huge? Its really hard to say. Air flows extremely different on a turbocharged system than a naturally asperated engine. On a NA engine one could say the air sits far less time in the intake stream. In order for there to be a pressurized system there needs to be enough air to build up in that volume. This to me would mean the air moves slower/sits in the intake system longer. This would also mean to me that the air would be more likely to transfer energy with its surroundings. Regardless of how much effect the temperature around the intake pipe has on the air inside the intake pipe, the theory is still there and you are safer going along with basic laws of physics then going against them.

Conclusion: Heat wrap/Cermaic Coat your exhaust components. Test under the hood temps. If they are significantly higher than ambient, it would be a good idea to heat wrap your intake pipe post intercooler. If your hood temps are lower than ambient temps, use aluminum. If they are similiar, your material of choice won't matter much.

 

wELP i REFABBED MY DOWNPIPE TODAY WITH THE WAStegate recirc point after the oil pan, and at a much more merged angle....around 30 degrees. Also Clowled the hood up 3/4" and took off the weather stripping at the back of the hood...It SEEMED to help underhood temp a noticable bit.

When I do the headstuds-gasket/ water pump/ timing belt this weekend... I am getting my manifold ceramic coated, wrapping the downpipe and dump tube, and wrapping the cold side pipe. I was gonna get the turbo housing coated too, but ive decided to hold off... and maybe put a DEI blanket around it when my cash is back up in a couple weeks.

I dont plan on doing any precise scientific measurements, but will post what these differences make (at least qualatative observations) when I get her running again next week. I DO agree with the aforementioned though... wrapping the hot side pipe would seem to me be more detrimental, as the underhood temp would be lower than inside the pipe, however---I think wrappping the cold side would be good since once the air in has passed through the intercooler, you would want to isolate it from the temps outside the tube, since they are higher than the charge (at least I would HOPE SO...).

 

Anyone else care to share some input?

 

It's pretty hot out at where I live right now... About 28-30 deg C for the next few days. Since my charge piping is easily accessible, I can give it a good wrap and log some before and after changes. I'll be doing this simple test based on some street driving, so it gives a chance for the engine bay to really heat up to log any noticeable difference. I am also curious whether wrapping the charge piping really helps.

Mind you though this test greatly depends on other factors such as intercooler efficiency, power level and actual engine bay heat. Cars with poor airflow/efficiency across the FMIC is going to be less affected by heat from the engine bay; whereas a setup with a very good intercooler is going to cool the air much closer to ambient and would be more affected by hot engine bay temps or heatsoaked charge piping. Also cars pushing big power (big airflow numbers) would show less of a difference because of big CFM of airflow vs charge pipe length. What I mean is that the charge pipe with only a small fraction of surface area and material (acting as a heatsink) is going to heat up say 300 CFM of air much easier than say heating up a whopping 800 CFM of air, etc etc... So the larger CFM is going to show much less of a temperature change.

I'll be logging:

Ambient Air temps (outside)

Engine bay Air temps (I will be using a spare IAT sensor and let it dangle in the engine bay)

IAT's with charge pipe wrapped

IAT's with no wrapping on charge pipe

I don't have a multichannel IAT sensor, so I couldn't log IAT's after the intercooler and IAT's after intercooler and charge pipe. That's the best I could do along the way.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tony the Tiger &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It's pretty hot out at where I live right now... About 28-30 deg C for the next few days. Since my charge piping is easily accessible, I can give it a good wrap and log some before and after changes. I'll be doing this simple test based on some street driving, so it gives a chance for the engine bay to really heat up to log any noticeable difference. I am also curious whether wrapping the charge piping really helps.

Mind you though this test greatly depends on other factors such as intercooler efficiency, power level and actual engine bay heat. Cars with poor airflow/efficiency across the FMIC is going to be less affected by heat from the engine bay; whereas a setup with a very good intercooler is going to cool the air much closer to ambient and would be more affected by hot engine bay temps or heatsoaked charge piping. Also cars pushing big power (big airflow numbers) would show less of a difference because of big CFM of airflow vs charge pipe length. What I mean is that the charge pipe with only a small fraction of surface area and material (acting as a heatsink) is going to heat up say 300 CFM of air much easier than say heating up a whopping 800 CFM of air, etc etc... So the larger CFM is going to show much less of a temperature change.

I'll be logging:

Ambient Air temps (outside)

Engine bay Air temps (I will be using a spare IAT sensor and let it dangle in the engine bay)

IAT's with charge pipe wrapped

IAT's with no wrapping on charge pipe

I don't have a multichannel IAT sensor, so I couldn't log IAT's after the intercooler and IAT's after intercooler and charge pipe. That's the best I could do along the way.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sweet, let us know what you come up with!

 

Yeah Im definetly intersted in the results you will come up with.

 

Sorry guys, you'll have to wait a while for the results... The weather was way too cool the last couple of days to perform the test. I will have to catch a nice hot day to actually make this test somewhat useful

 

Shoot, well keep us updated!

 

show me the temps!