[SILVY968]

I was watching an episode of Horsepower TV and they discussed the racers trick of painting the intake manifold to cool the fuel charge by getting rid of heat.

The idea is that since white reflects heat they used VHT ceramic white paint on the bottom of the intake manifold to reflect the heat back down into the engine and they used flat black on the top of the intake manifold to dissipate the heat into the air. They said that a flat black engine would run cooler than a chromed engine and therefore have more horse power due to a cooler fuel charge.

I can see me painting the bottom of the intake manifold white if it helps, but not painting the top flat black.

Anyone done this?

Thoughts?

Brian

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[DaveN]

I was just thinking about this the other day. Pulled my cam cover off as it is a bit stained and the electroplating is worn in places. I have a shiny new (sore fingers) fuel rail cover thanks to an evil post that showed a high polish cover <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/tongue.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> Next I was going to paint my intake and cam cover to match better and reflected on what colour they should be. It would be cool (no pun intended) to have midnight blue with a poilished alum cover in the middle to match my car but the first thing I thought was hey, dark blue will not shed heat, especialy on an intake manifold. So I am probably going to powder coat the pieces the same colour as my C2 wheels, very light metallic silver.

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[PorscheDude]

I used black wrinkle finish on my cam cover.



There is truth in black body radiation.



Some interesting reading for the nerds:



Planck's law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law



Black body

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body

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[flash]

if my engine were exposed to sunlight, i might consider this an issue



the ceramic itself is more likely the reason it ran cooler

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[PorscheDude]

No real gains to be had on a street car.

I did mine the way I did, because thats the way I wanted it.

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