bought the exhaust wrap from summit racing and just finished wrapping my AEM CAI intake...check it out...

 

does that help a lot for intake cooling/whp-wise....reliability?

also, besides aesthetics, are there any benefits of getting heat shields for jdm 4-1's

 

I'll probably be getting the heat shields with my JDM 4-1. It keeps heat from the engine bay.

 

the exhaust wrap can keep the air coming from the CAI cool....cause most of the time, even thought it sucks in cold air, but the heat from the engine bay heats up the intake tube....so you might not be gettin cold air all the time.

i'm thinking about wrapping my header...but dont have time right now.

 

and how long do you think the air actually SITS in the intake tube?

waste of money. i've seen a few people do it locally, and i told them the same thing. should have used it on your header.

 

Looking at trying to keep things cool - the surface of the air intake tube may remain cooler due to the to the exhaust wrap, but you neglect residence time. The air is moving too quickly to absorb any sort of significant heat from the engine bay.

If you wanted to do a basic thermodynamic analysis of the pipe, using the flow rate of air, and the temperature differentials between ambient temp and the temp of the air tube surfaces, go ahead, you wont see much difference. If i didnt have some work to do right now i'd work one up... maybe tomorrow.

-Ryan

 

Now if you wrapped the intake to prevent it from being gouged by the a/c lines, then that might be worth it

 

that is UGLY!

 

Underhood temps are drastically lowered. You'll be very surprised at the difference once you throw the heat shield on.

 

Yesh... greatly.

Will
-whos a/c lines thank him

 

haha....i didn't buy the exhaust wrap...my friend bought a 50ft one and have some left over...so i thought i wrap up my intake tube. I know it probably won't give me much power gain...but oh well, I've got nothing to do and the wrap actually covers up some scratches on my AEM CAI...




[Modified by Pure R Racer, 9:19 AM 11/29/2001]

 

where to buy heat wrap?
im thinking about doing that w/ my headers

 

I wrapped mine a long time ago in the same way. I also measured the air temperatures at the throttle body before and after using a calibrated thermocouple.
Guess what! Around town, and on the highway the intake temperatures were up to 15 degrees lower after wrapping the intake. (Note: The measurements were taken with the thermocouple in the same exact place, on two days with nearly identical outside temperatures, allowing the car to warm for a similar amount of time, driving in a similar fashion etc.)

Yes, the air inside your intake isn't there for long, but neither is the air passing through your radiator. However that air seems to transfer a great deal of heat....Hmmm?


Notice that little wire running in just by the throttle body? That's the thermocouple.


[Modified by ThePunk, 12:27 AM 11/29/2001]

 

You'd be surprised... Using our datalogger on the dyno, the intake air temps were sitting at around 140F before we even noticed it. We chilled the intake manifold and intake temp instantly dropped to 114-115F and guess what.. we saw a good 5-7whp gain instantly.

 

I'd like to see that calculation

The AEM CAI has a pretty long tube. That cold air from the bumper has to travel through all that "hot" piping before it reaches the intake manifold.

The word of the day is "convection"...without it, intercoolers would not work. Air does have a lower convection rate than water and as such, water to air intercoolers are smaller in size.

Examples of "forced convection" include intercoolers, computer heat sinks with fans, and intakes. Forced convection has a greater heat transfer rate than "normal convection" as the fluid (yes, air is a fluid) is travelling (forced) at a high rate.

 

Yeah, it's ugly...

But if it works...

Unfortunately, my Header does not have the provision for heat shields... but I like looking at the Stainless Steel...

You'd think some ingenious company would make a double-walled CAI with some insulation between the layers... not that the AEM fits with it's current girth...

I'd like to see those pre- and post- wrap dynos for CAI, Header, and both... but, real world is not they dyno. The Punk's comment about sesor readings is more significant IMHO; you can extrapolate what that means in terms of power.

 

How much exhaust wrap would you say you used? I'm guessing that's 2 inch thick stuff.

 

Heat shields will also help to keep the exhaust passing through the header hotter, which will make it easier to exit.

 

And doesn't that warm up the Cat better and thus equal much better emissions?

 

All the way to the tip of the muffler baby!

 

Can this really help? The air dwel time inside that tube has got to be measured in milliseconds and a radiator has surface area, plus water-heat transfer, plus a thermostat for extended water dwel time inside the radiator core. Nice looking wrap job, looks great!

 

Where can I get heat wrap?

 

I don't think it will work. Air is hard to heat isn't it? The millisecond a quanity of air spends passing through the intake couldn't change it more than a fraction of a degree.

On the other hand, wrapping the header will keep things cooler under the hood, AND will make the exhaust flow faster...

 

Again.. if you read what i posted above, intake temps make a dramatic difference in power output.

It makes sense for you to believe that the air doesn't spend enough time within the intake and manifold for it to heat up over ambient, BUT IT DOES.

After making about 10-15 passes on the dyno, the intake temps were sitting at around 140F. We never bothered to account for it.

We then chilled the intake manifold and brought the intake temps down to ~114F before making further runs.. We gained power INSTANTLY across the ENTIRE rpm band.

If chilling the intake manifold didn't make a difference, then were did the extra 5-7whp come from??? Obviously, the lowered intake charge accounted for the increase in power.

 

I agree with you it is ugly!!!