I was recently at a local sheet metal shop and they had a big stack of intercoolers they were powdering coating. Wouldn't powdercoating mess up the heat transfer of the intercooler?

Justin

 

i would think it could not be as efficient if it were powercoated... powder coating i would think would hold more heat in

 

Ya powdercoating would be dumb... ANODIZING is THE way to go, i just put a light coat of semi gloss on mine, but even with that, you CAN feel the difference between it and the bare metal...

 

Powdercoat the end tanks, but definitely not the fins.

I'm sure they were anodizing, not powdercoating.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by supergenius &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Ya powdercoating would be dumb... ANODIZING is THE way to go, i just put a light coat of semi gloss on mine, but even with that, you CAN feel the difference between it and the bare metal... </TD></TR></TABLE>
powdercoating the IC is fine. I haven't done 'testing' but I powdercoated mine and it was good. The paint only gets back a few mm anyway. The heat transfer will still efficient.
Just curious...how did you FEEL the difference? By sliding your finger on it or using a butt dyno?

Here's a close up on my IC. Paper got stuck to it in the oven That's the white crap all over the plates.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by blaze the chemi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
powdercoating the IC is fine. I haven't done 'testing' but I powdercoated mine and it was good. The paint only gets back a few mm anyway. The heat transfer will still efficient.
Just curious...how did you FEEL the difference? By sliding your finger on it or using a butt dyno?

Here's a close up on my IC. Paper got stuck to it in the oven That's the white crap all over the plates.
[]</TD></TR></TABLE>

no testing no care... how do you know your IAT's were not higher than if you hadn't powdercoated it... higher IAT's means less HP

ya of course it will still work powdercoated, but how efficient over the non-powder coated would it be is the question

the purpose of an intercooler is to cool... why make it perform less efficient because you want to "hide" your intercooler

 

you're probably right. Send me your IC and I'll powder coat it. Then you can test it for us . But for the rise in IAT that amounts to a degree and a DD it doesn't matter to me.

Conventional Anodizing creates a film thickness around a mil (0.001"). Hard anodizing creates even thicker film 0.002"+. My paint job was 0.0023" and is just as insulating as an anodized surface. Yes, anodizing is insulating.

Trust me. I'm a chemist in the aluminum and steel finishing business. I've done my testing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by supergenius &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Ya powdercoating would be dumb... ANODIZING is THE way to go, i just put a light coat of semi gloss on mine, but even with that, you CAN feel the difference between it and the bare metal... </TD></TR></TABLE>

that's the only way to go i've talked to numberous poeple about this cuz i'm all about the sleeper look and that's what everyone said

 

If the entire inner core that connect to the fins of the IC were painted I could see a heat transfer issue but they're not.

It doesn't make sense because air is always going through the IC fins which connect to the tunnels to cool/heat transfer right? just because the front of it has a coat of paint shouldn't mean that the entire intercooler should be effected at all. Or am I wrong?

I remember seeing a few dyno tests a while ago on here with anodized/painted intercoolers and there was no difference in cooling/HP loss.

 

I can tell (the difference in temp of the IC itself) with my hand as i only painted the portion of the IC that you can see... That meaning thst the heat dissapation WILL be affected by ANY coating you put on it. Period.

It doesnt take a scientific experiment to be able to feel the difference between the two surfaces (painted and not)... I can FEEL it with my hand...

So with that being said....

 

i would not powder coat it myself and i powder coat a lot. if i were you i would go with the anodize. great for sleeper look! but if you need powdercoating gsspowdercoating.com has some great deals and really good quality.