I bought a used aftermarket HE and I want to clean it up some and spray the front so it looks new again. Will this harm the functionality of the HE?

 

nope, unless your painting it with black then maybe temps will go up in the sun.

 

it will not be with black, loll. anyone else?

 

It will be fine. Especially silver.

If you put 400 coats on it you will have a thermos effect keeping heat in, but a reasonable amount (3 coats) will make no difference. DO IT

 

I'm on the fence with this one. Does painting raw aluminum alter how fast it can transfer heat, absolutely. Will it be enough to make a measureable difference if you just paint the face, probably not.
Just throwing this out there, the h/e from FB is painted. I haven't heard anyone report anything negative concerning the painted finish.

 

Paint would be last resort, I would clean it with Alumaprep 33 first (like an acid dip).
It will actually clean & bleach the aluminum and it will look lighter and mat, no shine.
If you don't like how it turns out after the alumaprep, at least it will be prepared for paint.

 

I would say deffintly. Obviously the paint would cause it to retain heat.

 

The rate of emissivity from a polished surface is approximately one-tenth of that covered with a thin (.0017”) film of black anodizing. Alcoa’s Engineering Handbook claims a rough black surface is more than ten times better in heat-radiating ability than a plain cast surface. Must be noted that seldom is any AMG heat exchanger exposed to direct sunlight while underway.

Do avoid glossy coatings. One need only look as far as his stove to notice tea pots are polished to keep their heat in. Had my aftermarket piece bead blasted to a natural patina during recent downtime. Does any of it amount to measurable IAT differences? Don’t know.

It’ll continue to wear its ensuing rock chips and bug splatters with pride.

 

Beware of rock chips

 

I thought about spraying the end tanks black so you couldn't see it as well. I am seriously doubting that it could do any significant harm

 

I painted it hypersilver with a gloss clear coat finish. I will put up some before and after shots tonight for you guys. It turned out real good in my opinion. I did about 4 light coats each side and one coat of gloss clear coat.

 

i would probably jsut do matte black...try to hide it so people dont know

 

I am totally opposite when it comes to my setup, I want it to be in your face so you know what you are getting into if you dare to tassle with the beast

 

^ Word Up

I extended mine on 6 inch support runners so it actually sits in front of the bumper. I installed a whistle and a light so that it can be seen and heard even at night.

 

Thats what I am talking about

 

I put in the PLM H/E, and it is shinney, and obvious. I do like that for real. It looks mean, and looks like it means business. I just wish it could keep things a little cooler, but its good enough until the next mod is done...

 

yeah see when I get mine, fist mods are cm30 and HE....every badge is coming off, the HE will be black. The only way you'll know its the AMG is if you know. PLus, I'm planning on converting to a 63 front end. So theyll think it a 63, but then realize when they hear the slight whine what it is (if they know). Theyll know what the tail lights look like, and what is sounds like from the back atleast
ooooh its gonna be soo muchh funnnn

I'm used to my SUV suprising some people...imagine when people mess with me thinking its an e350 or somethin! my exhaust may give it away though..... (i like loud)

 

You might run into some problems with the clear coat finish, most clear coats are urethane based, urethane is an olyfin and olyfins do not disapate heat well, they retain heat. For some reason black coatings disipate heat better than any other color. As you may or may not know I own a trucking company, all of our trucks have big turbos on them. When we are detailing our trucks and they are in for maintanance we spray the product below onto chipped up radiators and intercoolers and it works great. It is a high heat, heat disapating ceramic aerosol spray paint, about $10.00 a can available in many colors including silver. Ceramic disaptes heat and that is what you need for a radiator or intercooler.


http://www.kpg-industrial.com/produc..._with_ceramic/

 

Are most of the aftermarket HEs all aluminum? I could anodize one black or clear just for kicks. I would not want to risk a new one though. At least not until I know how the current in the tank will flow through the part. It would be possible to burn one up in the tank if it isn't handled right.

If someone has an old useless HE or some of the fin material, I would be happy to drop it in one of our anodize tanks and report back to everyone.

 

You think spraying that over the gloss clear will help?

 

Well, I guess I will use the alumaprep 33 like yachtmaster recomended to clean off all my hard work, loll.

Then I will finish it off with the duplicolor high heat dissapating ceramic paint like jr cart suggested.

I see that they have silver and white, hmmm

A white dusting sure would pop hard through the black mesh grill.

 

If you are going to do all that work again, how about datalogging before and afterwards?

 

If I had that kind of time, I would do it. Leave the house at 6am, go to gym, hurry to my 8am-6pm job, come home, play with my 3 yr old girl and 1yr old boy, chat with the wifey and voila it is 10pm. Maybe pull the cover off the AMG, stare at it, smile and then go to bed.

I just sprayed the HE with alumi prep 33 and it blistered all the hypersilver paint right off, loll.

 

painting it black will NOT make it run hotter, black surfaces tend to dissapaite heat better actually.

 

finished the face lift today. Alumi prep is the best product I have ever used. I sprayed this stuff on and it literally peeled both the gloss clear and basecoat off like an orange peel. Some after spray got on my skin and it hurt like hell. The aluminum got so clean it almost lookked white.

I then sprayed the heat disapaiting ceramic back on there in white

It looks killer, just waiting for my CM30 to get in and I will throw them on there together.