Monty

I found this company who manufactures some pretty neat heat management products, http://www.heatshieldproducts.com.

This product looks especially interesting... http://www.heatshieldproducts.com/rs_hp_shield.htm .

gkull

Monty - That shield is what I have been looking for. I've always needed something from the collector reducers right under my feet. Because it gets so hot in the summer.

terryrudy

Hmm, would there be any benefit in wrapping up my intake pipe (sorry, talking about my turbo Eclipse) with this stuff? I have a hard metal intake pipe that I'm sure gets a lot of underhood heat transferred to it. I have K&N filter blocked off from heat but then that goes to this hard metal pipe right to the turbo inlet. Not sure if it would make much sense since the turbo gets so hot anyway.

What specifically were you going to wrap with this? Won't the turbo heat things up for the intake charge the most anyway (compared to headers?) Sorry, not trying to be doubting, I am seriously clueless. :)
thanks!
-terry

Monty

There might be some benefit to wrapping or ceramic coating your metal intake pipe if radiant heat is heating it up. The most accurate way to really tell would be to compare intake charge temps right at the intercooler outlet, versus intake air temp at the intake manifold inlet at the throttle body. Any increase in temp would be as a result of it getting heated by radiant heat as it passes from the intercooler into the intake. This is assuming the intake/tb itself isn't being heated by radiant heat and therefore heating the intake charge in the manifold. I'd be willing to bet that unless there is some significant radiant heat present, the performance benefit for a street application would be minimal. A simpler test might be to simply measure the exterior of that hard intake pipe with an infrared thermometer - the "laser" kind where you point the red dot at onobkject and it will tell you it's surface temp.

I was considering using the product I specifically highlighted around the inital foot or so of my downpipe. The way my system is designed places about 6"-12" of the downpipe as it exits the turbine housing within 3"-4" of the inner fender. My downpipes are ceramic coated in and out, in addition to be constructed of 16g 304 stainless, and the inner fenders and engine bay have been painted with a black industrial grade, high-temp epoxy, but this shielding add an additional layer of protection against potential problems. I would only apply it to the side of the downpipe adjacent to the inner fender.

Judging by the way you are asking you questions with regards to the turbo heating the intake charge up, I think I need to clarify something. A turbo, as with any other device that compresses air (including centrifugal superchargers, roots blowers, screw/Whipple superchargers etc) also causes the air temp to increase. Any time air is compressed, it's temperature increases.

A common misconception seems to be that turbos heat the intake charge air up more than other superchargers (a turbo is really just a specific type of supercharger which is driven by exhaust energy rather than a belt/chain connected to the engine's crankshaft) due to the fact that it uses the exhaust energy to drive a turbine, which is connected by a shaft/bearing housing to the compressor. Heat transfer from the turbine side to the compressor side, and hence the intake air charge, is vertually non-existant. The determining factor of how much the intake charge gets heated is related to the efficiency of the compressor. You will often hear people refer to a turbochargers compressor map. This indicates the efficiency with which the compressor is able to compress air vs. how much it heats the air up. Actually, if the compressor is properly selected and optimized for the specific application requirements, their compressors are generally more efficient than any other means of supercharging, including roots, centrifugal, and screw/Whipple.

JoeC427

:cool:

terryrudy

Monty, thanks for taking the time to educate. Wasn't aware that the intake charge wasn't really getting heated by the turbo. One of my next mods for the Eclipse is to get an intake temp gauge. Am always curious.
thanks again
-terry