Intercooler piping Question

pablo59

Registered User
Has anyone ever wrapped their intercooler piping with heat refelective tape and what were your results.

I'm thinking since the lower pipe is so close to the exhaust manifold that if the tape can help reflect some of he exhaust heat that would result in a lower intake air temp.

The same thinking would apply to the upper pipe, but it would be reflecting heat being generated by the engine itself.
 
The piping has radial ribs that run along the pipe,this is so that the pipe can cool itself and give off heat.I have mine wrapped since installing the motor but next time i get under the car the wrap is coming off.
 
you know, the ribs are pointless especially since it is so close to the exhaust manifold, dude do a search for my thread. i recently wrapped mines and i am happy with the results, i used the thermoshield ultra from thermotec from jegs for 21 bucks. nice.
 
I have a wrapped lower IC tube. You won't see any performance gain so to speak, but it definately helps reduce heat soak. I've also got mine jet hot coated inside and out.

The biggest thing that I noticed is that it doesn't take nearly as long to cool the engine down between runs when I'm at the track.
 
If you use the fiberglass stuff, then you can also soak it with ice water in between runs. This will draw the heat out, and can actually make the return tube colder than ambient between runs.
 
RadiumSC said:
I didn't think think the bottom pipe had ribs, just the top one.

Ok, strike that. There is just the smallest fraction of ribbing at the very top of the bottom pipe.

Has anyone wrapped there top pipe too?
 
Dont wrap you i/c tubes!! Trust me on this one. Wraping the lower Ic tube will not only keep the exhaust heat out of the ic tube, it will also keep all of the heat inside of the tube as well. You really want that tube to be able to exchange heat. I did this in my 89 years ago. I actually think I lost power due to heat soak after several runs or lots of highway driving. Jethot coating your headers (exhaust) would be ideal for dealing with this. I really thought that this would work well, but it just seemed to keep all of the heat in. just my 2 cents. maybe someone else will have better luck.

Rick
 
so do i.

I think the best alternative is to be rid of the stock IC tubes all together and build your own FMIC. It costs the same as a DIC and the lower IC tube is no longer by the manifolds.

Here are some pics of mine and i am more than satisfied with the results.

06-06-06_1813.jpg

As you can see the Lower IC tube runs under the upper, away from the hot exhaust manifolds.

06-06-06_1812.jpg
 
Rick Mink said:
Dont wrap you i/c tubes!! Trust me on this one. Wraping the lower Ic tube will not only keep the exhaust heat out of the ic tube, it will also keep all of the heat inside of the tube as well. You really want that tube to be able to exchange heat. I did this in my 89 years ago. I actually think I lost power due to heat soak after several runs or lots of highway driving. Jethot coating your headers (exhaust) would be ideal for dealing with this. I really thought that this would work well, but it just seemed to keep all of the heat in. just my 2 cents. maybe someone else will have better luck.

Rick

I have to disagree too, at least on the lower IC tube. After jet-hot coating mine and wrapping it, I noticed a HUGE difference in the amount of time to cool everything down between runs. Sure, back to back runs you're not going to have that cooling time, but very few actually make back to back runs with out at least a few minutes to cool down. Since then, I've also wrapped my exhaust manifolds to keep the radiant heat down there as well. But before I did any of that, the lower IC tube would be hotter than the IC. That alone tell a guy that the lower IC tube absorbs radiant heat from the exhaust. Then everything gets heat soaked tremenously.

I do agree with you on this topic pertaining to the upper. That can and does radiate heat, so I think header wrap on that is useless or even harmful. However, you can wrap the upper, then soak it with cold water between runs and you'll get a lot more heat extraction from it that way...but wrap alone won't help at all there.
 
I've got my lower tube wrapped also. Does it help? I can't tell for sure but it seems logical that it would. It certainly isn't going to lose any more heat being that close to the headers. I don't want to add back any heat that the IC has just lost. Any gains are probably less than a tenth of a sec in the 1/4, though. I stop at the water station after every run and hose down my IC with cold water. It's cold after that.
 
yeah what i noticed is that my car cools down faster when the fan kicks on, plus now it takes forever to warm up also.
 
hey do those go to a fmic, or a stock one??
pictures??

paul

xThunderbirdSCx said:
so do i.

I think the best alternative is to be rid of the stock IC tubes all together and build your own FMIC. It costs the same as a DIC and the lower IC tube is no longer by the manifolds.

Here are some pics of mine and i am more than satisfied with the results.

06-06-06_1813.jpg

As you can see the Lower IC tube runs under the upper, away from the hot exhaust manifolds.

06-06-06_1812.jpg
 
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