SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

I've searched and searched and searched and have never been able to find before and after testing of heat wraps, turbo blankets and heat radiating tape with actual numbers to back up any claims. I'm not being paid by anyone but just wanted to see if any of this stuff works and if it does, how can I use it to not only lower under hood temperatures but to also lower intake air temperatures.

I purchased DEI's new Titanium Heat Wrap to use on my turbo manifold, waste gate dump tube and down pipe. I purchased a turbo blanket designed to fit on a T3 turbo. I also purchased DEI's Reflect A Gold heat tape to apply to my intercooler and piping. Lastly I purchased several Wireless Digital Thermometers with probes to gather and record my temps.

I'm starting off by logging the under hood temperatures at idle, at a steady average speed of 60 mph and a WOT pull to show any differences. I'll be placing probes between the driver's side headlight and turbo manifold, radiator fan and engine, and the intake manifold and firewall. All probes will be measuring air temperature only and not surface temperature. Probes will be arranged to not come in contact with anything but air.

The total amount of data that I'll be recording during every test is:
1. ambient air temp
2. probe temp
3. engine coolant temp (ECT)
4. oil temp
5. intake air temp (IAT)

I'll be conducting the Overall Under Hood temps in the following order:

1. No wraps, blankets or tape (record temps idle/60mph/WOT)
2. Wrap turbo manifold (record temps idle/60mph/WOT)
3. Apply turbo blanket (record temps idle/60mph/WOT)
4. Wrap down pipe (record temps idle/60mph/WOT)

After recording all of the above data, I'll then start taking temperatures of the inside of my intercooler charge piping. The probes will be inserted in the following locations:

1. turbo inlet without filter or tube
2. turbo outlet
3. intercooler inlet
4. intercooler outlet
5. throttle body inlet

Depending on if the temperatures gathered on the inside of the charge piping is less than the temperatures in the engine bay, reflective heat tape will be applied and further testing will be conducted to note any changes. The goal would be to reduce pressure drop and intake air temps. The ambient, probe, ECT, oil, and IAT temps will be recorded during this testing as well to note any changes.

Test Subject:



Purchased Items:







The other day I started recording temps under the hood (hood closed) at idle with no wraps or anything at all to gather my base line readings. The ambient temperature that day was 54 degrees. Probes were placed in the locations described above and the following was recorded. Fan Eng. means how many times the radiator fan kicked on.



The first thing that I noticed with the probe between the headlight and turbo manifold was that every time the radiator fan would kick on the under hood temperature would rise very quickly. After the fan would cut off the temp would lower a few degrees but never as low as it was before. The fan would then kick on again and the temp would rise again and would usually rise even higher then what it was before.



Now after placing the probe between the radiator and engine I noticed something a little different. The temperatures were still rising drastically when the radiator fan kicked on, but after rising the temperature would then go down a few degrees (radiator fan still running). I would see numbers like this:

157 degrees, fan kicks on temp rises to 169 degrees and then drops to 167 degrees before fan cuts off.



Now after placing the probe behind the intake manifold the results were much like the ones taken between the headlight and manifold except much higher. The first thing that I noticed was the higher temperatures, in fact they were the highest temperatures in the engine bay! Of course when the fan kicked on the temperatures would rise every time except the temps would just peak out and not fall back down. My early theory was that maybe the heat is trapped between the intake manifold and firewall, causing the higher temps.

Hypothesis: I can see now how effective those custom setups that you see on S2000's can be. The setup I'm talking about is when custom fabricators direct all the air that passes through the bumper, intercooler and radiator and channel it up and out of the hood, keeping that heat out of the engine bay. I was seeing temperatures increased as much as 12 degrees when the radiator fan kicked on, this may not be a lot, but when your boosted and IAT's are everything that 12 degrees means a lot!! Especially when the highest temps recorded were right next to the intake manifold!! I'm sure if someone could fabricate something similar to what you see on S2000's on a Civic/Integra it would help. Let me know what you guys think and feel free to give me ideas on other ways to do this and stay tuned for more test!!

powerneedy

Thumbs up sir

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Thanks this subject has been a debate for a long time, hopefully now we will have some rock hard numbers that will prove it all!! I got tired of searching and always finding threads pertaining to this but never any evidence to prove anything. I've used the above items before in the past and you can definitely tell a difference, just now we will know by how much.

BiggieBert

in for more results

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

So next after gathering the Pre Wrap data at idle I went for a drive. Now I know I could have taken the temps and various speeds, as I'm sure it would have reflected different temps I decided to go with an average speed of 60 mph (plus I didn't want to get pulled over) lol. This part of the test was straight forward, I took temps in the same location as last time; between headlight and turbo manifold, between radiator and engine and between the intake manifold and fire wall.

During this test I noticed a considerable drop in temperature in the engine bay with an average temperature reduction of 73 degrees. Here are my graphs below.







Stay tuned for more test! Next test will be after the heat wrap is applied to the turbo manifold.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

More results are in!!

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Now the third test that I did was noting the temperature differences after the heat wrap was applied. My turbo manifold was wrapped with DEI's new titanium heat wrap. I have a equal length manifold and all that was wrapped was the 4 runners and the tube running to my waste gate. Immediately a reduction in overall under hood temperatures were noticed (at idle). Another thing that was noticed was that the rate at which the under hood temperatures climbed were much slower then before (no wrap). For these comparisons I used the highest number recorded and the same amount of time was used to gather the results to try and keep the results as true as possible. Now on to the results:

Between headlight and turbo manifold:
Before Wrap:189 degrees
After Wrap:130 degrees
Reduction:59 degrees

Between Radiator and Engine:
Before Wrap:180 degrees
After Wrap:129 degrees
Reduction:51 degrees

Between Intake Manifold and Fire wall:
Before Wrap:202 degrees
After Wrap:133 degrees
Reduction:69 degrees (highest reduction yet!!









Hypothesis: Well for the most part it's pretty straight forward, however the major reduction behind the intake manifold has me thinking. Are the temps higher behind the intake manifold because it gets trapped between the intake and fire wall? Or is it because of the lack of air flow, because of aerodynamics? This is a question that I would like to find the answer to because judging by the results it has some bearing on IAT's. Now I would agree that most of the reason for high IAT's comes from the head heat soaking everything in it's path, but apparently the under hood temp influence has maybe been a little under rated? I don't know but the numbers don't lie. A reduction in IAT's was noted in all three places that temps were taken! The highest in IAT reduction was 14 degrees!! Now thats not a huge reduction, but when you boosted every little bit counts.

Performance Gains: I originally wasn't going to include this in the review but I kind of have to. After wrapping the exhaust and getting the idle temps I went for a little drive so that I could get the driving temps. Well it started raining and I didn't know if that would have skewed the results so I didn't record any data, however I did noticed a difference in my turbo spool times. Now I'm not saying that its a night and day difference but the reduction in spool time is noticeable. I pulled out of my neighborhood and gave it gas like I normally do, the car started pulling a little harder. I changed gears and tried it again to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. By the time I got to third gear I realized that I was imagining things and that the car was actually pulling harder. I wasn't able to record a datalog as I left my laptop at home. I will however record one when it's not raining. Stay tuned for more, next will be the 60 mph driving when its not raining.

known

iTrader: (1)

very nice info!

check this out too, might be a better deal/product: https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pr...p?Product=1838

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Thanks bro good info!!

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Got a couple of shots, I forgot to take a bunch of photos the other day so I had to run outside and mock it up how I had it the other day, there is one photo where the probe is resting on a radiator hose, it was not like that the other day, this is just for reference so you'll know where I had the probes.

The digital temperature probe, can measure temps up to 600 degrees.



My Neptune RTP in the back ground, lap top, note pad and digital thermometer.



My thermometer at work.



My oil temp gauge at work.

1998GsRIntegra

Thanks for taking the time and spending the money to test everything. I've always wondered how effective the heat wrap was.

I'm in to see if the reflective tape does anything for the IAT's.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

It's no problem, good thing I was putting all of this stuff on here anyway, I just figured maybe I can see exactly what it's doing for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the results are from the heat tape. If it is going to be useful to use it and if it works I will be stoked, especially if my IAT's are lowered.

AcuraIntegraLS-T

I read in your other thread that you were planing to use hood spacers at the rear of the hood to help with cooling. Doing this for informational purposes might be a great idea, it might be nice to see real world numbers from it. But I thought you should see this to help with the assumption that it would let the hot air flow out. http://www.importatlanta.com/forums/...-your-car.html

Anyways keep up the good work its nice to see some numbers for this kind of stuff.

Colin

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for all the effort! Subscribing.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the info and thread, was definitely a good read. As far as the tilted hood concept, I'm simply going to to conduct the test in the same manner that I've conducted the rest. I'm just going to do one with the hood not tilted and one with a tilt. I might even do one test with the rubber in place and one with it removed to see if that helps. When I did my driving test I drove an exact distance of five miles and I will do the same for this one. I'll do it at various speeds since that was brung up in the last thread, I might even record a video just in case people are still skeptical. This might be one of those love hate things, but numbers don't lie.

EGUK

This is great stuff, I'm about to start trying to reduce my under bonnet temps, this will show me which way to go...

Keep it up...

dbang003

Awesome information. Props for conducting a pretty comprehensive test.

Do you have any other cooling aids on the car? oil cooler, etc.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Thanks a lot for the words of encouragement, I'm really hoping that this thread will be usefull to a lot of people. Maybe one day it can be a sticky for quick reference. More updates will be coming as soon as the weather cooperates.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

The only other cooling aids that I have is a 3 core radiator, can't remember the exact number but a really high cfm radiator fan and a mishimoto fan switch. A oil cooler is definitely in the works, I just have to save up for a good one.

AcuraIntegraLS-T

That will be good to see, I do know that one view on it is that it will put air back behind the intake manifold and possibly show a reduction in temps in that area, but it creates an increase in pressure under the hood which would reduce the flow through the radiator. If it is working by letting hot air out that would be a reduction in pressure and the flow through the radiator would then increase and you should measure a drop in ect and a drop in temps behind the radiator. With the test you have I think it should be clear as to what's going on. Anyways again nice work.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Very true, very true. Good info and thanks! We shall see

1998GsRIntegra

Please follow through with this. I've seen so many threads where the OP just disappears all of a sudden. Very interested to see if the hood tilt actually does anything as I've heard there is no difference tilted or not tilted.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

I will definitely follow through, I'm just as interested as everyone else lol. The weather on Saturday is supposed to be mid 50's with zero chance of rain. I should be able to finish the rest if the testing then so stay tuned!

VTECIntegra9

subbed since I do this type of thing for a living (testing). Can't see your posted pictures at work (blocked) but will check em out at home - interested to see your equipment. Obviously lots of expensive stuff at work on hand all the time but performing tests at home could get more expensive than a car is worth.... quick. Thanks for going through with the test keep it up.

SRDFTITAN

iTrader: (3)

Actually the equipment wasn't that expensive at all (outside of the cost of my engine management). The rest was pretty cheap and can be purchased at Walmart lol. I will have more test results tomorrow. Hoping for the best.