Painting Intercoolers black, what's the story?

[Woofwoof]

  Can anybody shed some light on the advantages of painting Intercoolers. I've now seen several posts suggesting that it's well worth doing. If it is, why are the vast majority of Intercoolers left unpainted, even the more expensive aftermarket performance one's.  After all a drop paint is not going going to cost much.  

[colnerov]

Black radiates heat better. Google it.

[welshpug]

[lewis]

Watch this:


Edit,
Beaten to it by welshpug!

[Woofwoof]

Sept 16, 2015 9:39:03 GMT colnerov said:

Black radiates heat better. Google it.

Yeah, I know that.


What I was looking for was an explanation or justification for painting my I.C. black and why 99% of I.C.'s are not painted. I'm presuming possibly wrongly that radiating heat from an I.C. is not as important as cooling it with forced air.

[sowen]

I don't care about the science but it makes my car a lot less obvious having a whopping great front intercooler with it painted black to blend in behind the grille

[darrenh]

to save you watching it, the black paint made it way better at radiating (stand still, no air flow) but negligibly worse at convecting (moving, air flow through rad)

[dunning123]

Beaten to it! I assume the benefits are so negligible for the manufactures they don't bother to foot the extra costs? But then the MCM test contradicts that...much confused

[hamps]

Because bare aluminium looks cack after a while! black is cleaner and less obvious.

[Smiler]

I wonder what effect "anti-flash" white would have as used on the old V-bombers that were painted in it to reflect the heat from the atomic blast after dropping their load.

[hario]

I was going to say 'because unfortunately shiny sells'

But the above post regarding painted IC's becoming marginally worse at conducting heat to airflow (presumably due to the insulating properties of the paint) seems perfectly valid.

Though I agree painting would prevent corrosion which I think would be much more adverse for conducting heat than a thin paint coat..

**Sneaks off to buy paint..**

[Ryannn]

Sept 17, 2015 10:01:32 GMT hario said:

Though I agree painting would prevent corrosion which I think would be much more adverse for conducting heat than a thin paint coat..

**Sneaks off to buy paint..**

Paint it silver and no one will know! Lol

[matty2300]

Not to sure about that mighty car mods video - its testing the ability of the intercooler to loose (and gain) heat via radiation.. but thats not the primary function of an intercooler, they loose heat via convection, convection is going to be decreased by an insulating layer of paint!

painting black is also going to make a hot engine bay warm up an intercooler faster (increased absorbtion of radiated heat)

[matty2300]

[Woofwoof]

Sept 18, 2015 14:59:56 GMT matty2300 said:

Thanks for that, I found it yesterday myself also another article on the exact same subject.  I was very sceptical about applying black paint, well any paint for that matter. Glad I was too. 

[hario]

Sept 18, 2015 14:57:27 GMT matty2300 said:

Not to sure about that mighty car mods video - its testing the ability of the intercooler to loose (and gain) heat via radiation.. but thats not the primary function of an intercooler, they loose heat via convection, convection is going to be decreased by an insulating layer of paint!

painting black is also going to make a hot engine bay warm up an intercooler faster (increased absorbtion of radiated heat)

I think you mean they loose heat by conduction, conducting heat to the moving ambient air. if the air around the core was stationery then it would convection cool (where the heat still conducts from the metal to the air lol).

[darrenh]

thermal energy of the air inside "conducts" to the metal (yes) but the ultimate function of a car radiator is to shed that heat in the metal by convection, or rather forced convection (if the car is moving, or the aux fan is on)