Vadim,

Thanks a million for showing these pictures!!!

I tried to explain it in words, but a picture is worth a 1000 words.

 

Why not try ceramic coating the intercooler? If it is prone to heatsoak, would this make sense since it is a water to air intercooler?

 

Even though the ICs are not sitting between the cylinder heads, there are still no free lunches. Look at the close proximity of the IC to the exhaust manifold. I would hope that there is some form of a heat shield between them in the production application.

Also note the ram's horn style exhaust manifold. Something we used to see on Vettes a loooong time ago.

 

vrus: My pleasure!

medici: Yes, the intercooler can be ceramic coated. We have not tried it, but my guess it will just delay the heat soak. The labor cost of removing and reinstalling the intercooler will probably make it too expensive on HP per $ front.

 

I think there is a heat shield in SLR to keep exhaust heat from reaching intercoolers. It is still a better design though.

 

When you say it will delay the heat soak, do you mean the heat soak will still set in eventually, or that it will only minimize the heat soak to a certain degree (though still lower than without coating)?

 

My guess, is that intercooler will eventually heat soak. It will just take longer.

 

medici78 Said - I think this is a great idea! The ceramic coating is a true insulator, which means it will prevent the transfer of some of the heat that was being transferred before. As far as the $/HP thing goes I think vrus should try this out. He seems handy with the wrenches (free labor) and the coating would not be very expensive. If he decides to do this I am going to stick my neck out there and say it will be worth +15 HP. I also say that doing this in addition to the EVO intercooler up-grade will multiply the effect of the intercooler up-grade because the Hp increases of the K55 motor due to colder Intake Air Temp. is not linear and HP increases multiply more as the temp. gets lower in the temp. range these changes are taking place in. I say go for it vrus. - Bob

 

But isn't the point of ceramic coating to insulate? Applying this logic to coated headers, the car will eventually reach the same underhood temps as before,it will just take longer to get to that level.

Granted, I wouldnt expect an amazing reduction in IAT's, but I would expect the temperature to be lower overall and more consistent.

 

[QUOTE=medici78]But isn't the point of ceramic coating to insulate? Applying this logic to coated headers, the car will eventually reach the same underhood temps as before,it will just take longer to get to that level.
QUOTE]

Maybe not. Are you are saying that the amount of cooling air into the engine bay is so low, all heat will get trapped? Shouldn't the terminal temperature be reduced as well as the heat rise time by the ceramic coated headers?

 

All you guys are amazing

THIS IS THE BEST THREAD EVER -- THANKS FOR ALL THE INFO

 

[QUOTE=E55AMG99]Exactly. I was just trying to make a point based on what Vadim said.
My thinking is the same as yours.
I reworded my post. I think my wording might have been confusing.

 

I thought that is what you meant.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Bob.

To be perfectly honest, I would do it but only if I was going to install an updated throttle body at the same time. I know Kleemann has a bigger throttle body they sell.. Would love to get one and test it out..

I understand the supercharger needs to be removed to install this (I am assuming so anyway), so it would be a perfect time to get the intercooler "coated".

Hey Cory.. Can you give me a good deal on the Kleemann throttle body so I can do some testing with it.. You know you'll get some dyno numbers from me to help promote the product...

 

Victor,

You are correct in that the SC needs to be removed to install the new throttle body. Cory should have mine done in a few weeks.

 

When you say a few weeks you mean that the throttle body will be ready to install in a few weeks right? I was guessing it would take me 2 solid days to re/re the supercharger (basically do it over a weekend).

Can you say how much the throttle body is going for? Any details on whether it will adapt itself to the stock programming or if you have to get a reprogram done?

 

Hey, vrus, are you using a shop manual for reference?

 

Nope. I bought one of those StarDiagnostic DVDs off eBay which is supposed to have all that info on there but I cant make heads or tails of the info.. Its so hard to search and find anything that I just poke around the engine compartment to find answers.. That, and I ask other people specific questions.

 

Cory has all the parts and is waiting on the V12-Bi Turbo throttle body which should be in any day. My understanding is that it will adapt to the stock programming. Not sure on the cost since we have not discussed it yet.

 

Some thoughts re: ceramic coating the intercooler:

When headers are ceramic coated, underhood temperatures are decreased. This occurs because the headers radiate less due to the coating - by as much as 2/3 less. This means that heat that is normally lost to radiation is now contained within the headers. Is this the right thing to do for an intercooler?

If someone chooses to pursue this, a better alternative would be to use a ceramic coating on the inside of the intercool, which would limit radiation into the core. On the outside, use a thermal dispersant coating, such as boron nitride. This would enhance external radiation.

Even then, how much area around the intercooler housing is available to radiate into? With the S/C above and the engine below, probably not much. And is there any air flow through this area to carry away the radiated heat? Something to ponder on.

 

Vrus,

I am unclear whether you are planning to do water/alcohol injection or an intercooler sprayer or both. The power gain and cooling potential from one is not even in the ballpark of the other. Water/alcohol injection into the intake through a sprayer setup near the tank end of the intercooler would probably be an extremely effective way to increase power out of the 55k motor without having to increase boost, would eliminate alot of heat soak issues, and help reduce your lean AFR. An intercooler sprayer might help improve the effectiveness of the intercooler some, but not even close to the power gain of the injection system. Aquamist and Snow both make some decent systems which are relatively sophisticated.

 

My water/meth system is going to be a top notch setup. I am designing/building it in conjunction with the owner of Aquamist (Richard). As far as I am concerned Aquamist is the leader in this industry and he will be working closely with me on getting this project up and running.

I metioned the intercooler sprayer only because I will have this system running already and spraying the supercharger's intercooler would be easy since all I would have to do is install another jet or two.

I expect some big things from this kit.. I know some people are a bit skeptical about it, but I hope to put their concerns to rest with some super dyno #s.

I will be using it pre-supercharger and post-supercharger. Basically, I'll test combinations of both and see what the gains are. I have a really slick setup designed for the placement of the jets to get OPTIMAL cooling. I wont go into details for now...

Waiting for some more parts to arrive from England...

 

Grumpy - We are referring to the heat being transferred into the intercooler structure from the motor parts surrounding it. The intercooler being an air to water type, the radiation, of the heat in the compressed air flow thru the intercooler, is being transferred into the intercooler water. The goal of ceramic coating the outside surfaces of the intercooler was to prevent some of the heat being radiated by the surrounding motor parts from entering the intercooler structure and reducing it's efficiency. The intercooler is getting radiated heat from the motor parts surrounding it and from the compressed air flowing thru it, we are trying to reduce the amount of heat, from motor parts surrounding the intercooler, from entering it.

As far as the insulating qualities of the ceramic coating go I do not understand why it would matter weather the coating was on the outside of the intercooler or the inside (in reality not possible). In either case when the heat reached the insulator coating the insulator would perform it's function (reducing the heat transfer to the cooler side of the coating). - Bob

 

You seem to be mixing terms, which makes it hard for me to understand what you're trying to say.

Let's define the IC this way:

There is a housing that bolts onto the engine in some manner and contains connection points to the outside world (hose stubs, bulkhead fittings for the cooling lines, etc). Inside the housing is the core, which is essentially a heat exchanger consisting of a water line with some sort of fin arrangement (probably - I haven't seen it). In typical operation, cool water flows through the water line and absorbs heat from the intake air via conduction through the fins. The water then returns to the heat exchanger (radiator) in front of the car to dissipate the heat. The cycle repeats. Agree?

My original post referred to the IC housing only - not the core. The housing gets heated via thermal conduction from its contact to the engine and the S/C. It also receives radiated heat from surrounding engine parts (S/C, valve covers, valley cover, etc). I don't know which source is the largest contributor, although, if there's airflow between the IC and the other parts, the heat absobed from radiation will be lessened to a certain extent.

What I suggested was the outside of the housing should have a thermal dissipant coating to radiate heat from the housing. This is the heat contained in the aluminum structure itself, not the heat from the core area. If the outside has a ceramic coating, the housing heat would not radiate outward nearly as much. This is how underhood heat reduction works with ceramic-coated headers.

Now, if both sides of thr IC are ceramic-coated, the housing heat does not dissipate very well and will eventually reach the temperature of the engine block. How much of that heat will radiate into the core area, I don't know. How well would a thermal dissipant coating work on the outside of the housing? I also don't know.

If we really want to get trick, the core istself could be coated with a heat-transfer coating, which would improve its efficiency to cool the intake air. These coatings are also available.

We should stop referring to film insulating qualities and focus on heat dissipation. If we want to insulate, we could investigate the IC mounting points.

 

Hey guys doesn't Evo sell an inter-cooler spacer that acts as a phenolic spacer or am I mistaken. I have seen that mentioned under mods installed.