steven_highet

I wrote this article in reply to someone asking about heat wraps on there turbo.

Heat is the back bone of your engine making power with out it your engine would be a big paper weight. Been able to harness the heat in you engine is a great way to improve power, VE and overall efficiency of your engine. This is why the tuning of A/F ratio has such an impact on power. It all has to do with the increase of heat inside the combustion camber. The leaner the A/F mix the hotter it is going to be. Obviously to lean is bad! But you get what im trying to say. When the spark plug ignites the A/F mixture in the cylinders it is the rapid increase in heat which causes the pressure rise in the cylinder which in turn pushes the piston down. 1/3 of the heat generated is used to create work to rotate you crank, 1/3 of the heat is dissipated into the piston crown, cylinder walls and cylinder head and the last 1/3 is expelled out your engine through the exhaust, That is the beauty of a turbo charger been able to harness the 1/3 of wasted heat and turn it into power. The more heat that is trapped in the correct places the more power you can make.

Ceramic Coatings

For instance Ceramic Coatings on the piston tops, valves, turbo exhaust
housing, manifold and downpipe, intake manifold, boost piping are great ways to stop heat from dissipating off or into these components. Coatings on your turbo parts will increase turbo spool as there is more heat to generate more work on the exhaust turbine. Coatings on your piston tops and valves will increase the amount of heat expelled out your exhaust system due to the fact that less heat will be absorbed into the metal which in turn again creates more spool on the turbo. It also allows you to run closer piston to bore clearance due to less heat in the piston and less expansion of it. Coating the inside and outside of the intake manifold and using a hondata intake gasket is another great way to improve power. As im sure we all know cooler air is denser which is good for making more power. The reason for this is that when the denser air mixes with the fuel and is ignited the air and fuel molecules are packed closer together which allows for a more stable burn rate and better flame propagation. Then on the other side of the scale if you have a hot intake charge when the fuel is mixed with the air it will evaporate into smaller droplets thus increase the burn rate of the A/F mix when ignited. Fast burn rates can become unstable very quickly! Basically you want the A/F charge to burn slowly and steadily from the center of the combustion chamber to the combustion chamber walls. If not there is an increased chance of detonation and pre-ignition. I have seen tests done on completely stock engines ceramic coating certain components and increasing horsepower by 8%– 12% you take that to your 400HP turbo motor and you are looking at 40 – 50hp plus the added benefit of decreased under hood temps, intake temps, component wear, corrosion resistance, fuel economy.

Heat Wraps

And yes you should wrap your manifold and downpipe and get a turbo heat bag for the exhaust housing. The downside to wrapping these components is the increased
corrosion it will create due to it trapping water. Ceramic coating is the better option but I guess it’s what your wallet can afford. I could go on about this subject for ever. It basically boils down to the basics of controlling heat, making it go where you want it to and keeping it away from what you want it not to get to. There are so many little simple things people, can do to improve the thermodynamics of there engines if they just look at there setup and think about it!! There are plenty books that are dedicated to this topic which can be found under thermodynamics of an internal combustion engine. Well I hope you enjoyed this article. More to come!!



Modified by steven_highet at 9:54 AM 3/28/2008