Heat Shield on LICP, thoughts?

[daren_p]

Here's the deal, my current setup is a short route Victory Performance FMIC & FP3052 turbo. The turbo outlet is the standard down firing setup, mated to a silicon elbow, which attaches to the IC pipe that runs at the bottom of the rad, over to the drivers side IC core inlet. With the 3052 turbo, Iam no longer able to run a lower factory heat shield. The IC pipes are aluminum so I was wondering what people think would be better, to wrap the LICP with some of that silver reflective heat shield material or leave it?

I have arguments for both methods. If I wrap the pipe I will insulate it from the heat coming off the turbine housing but I'm wondering how much this will actually effect the pipe air temp? My other thought is maybe leaving it bare will dissapate some of the heat generated from the turbo? So what is going to be the hotter heat source, the radient heat generated from the turbine housing thats about 6" away at the closest point, or the heat generated from compressing the air & not being allowed to dissapate? I would prefer answers from real world experience & not people just guessing either way, thanks.

 

[CanadianTSi]

My LICP sits maybe 1-2" away from my 3" o2 eliminator DP.

Last Year I wrapped it with the header wrap stuff. This year I left it unwrapped, can't tell a difference.

 

[romeen]

Given your geographical location I tend to think wrapping it would be a better idea. The majority of the year you will have relatively cool air intake temps (correct me if I am mistaken about the weather there). But I believe that the heat generated from the turbine housing is much more independent of ambient air temps (more related to state of tune and boost levels being run). So I would speculate that you're more likely to be heating up the air inside the LICP from the radiated heat from the turbine housing.

I have pretty much the entire length of my UICP wrapped and a portion of the LICP (where it physically contacts the lower radiator hose). However I don't have any actual measurements to support the presumed benefits.

 

[daren_p]

Given your geographical location I tend to think wrapping it would be a better idea. The majority of the year you will have relatively cool air intake temps (correct me if I am mistaken about the weather there). But I believe that the heat generated from the turbine housing is much more independent of ambient air temps (more related to state of tune and boost levels being run). So I would speculate that you're more likely to be heating up the air inside the LICP from the radiated heat from the turbine housing.

I have pretty much the entire length of my UICP wrapped and a portion of the LICP (where it physically contacts the lower radiator hose). However I don't have any actual measurements to support the presumed benefits.

Well as far as ambient air/inlet air temps, I do have the intake sectioned off with a heat shield & a duct directing air into it from the stock SMIC location but my Eclipse is a summer only vehicle, so in general the ambient temps are fairly warm. My inlet temps may drop to the 40's on a rare, fall night occasion but most of the time would be 70+ deg, I believe my inlet temps were something like 92 today. But I don't think this has much of an effect on what I'm trying to figure out.

As for you comment about the turbine housing & ambient air temps, I think you missunderstood what I was trying to get at (or I missunderstood your reply). I wasn't implying that the two were related or in otherwords wasn't implying ambient temps effect the heat generated from the turbine housing, like you had mentioned. I was just referring to the effect of the turbine housing heating up the air around it, in turn heating the IC pipe & internal compressed air vs the types of temps already seen inside the pipe from compressing the air.

As for the UICP, personally I would think it would defently benefit from being wrapped as I would think the surrounding air in the engine bay would be hotter then the internal air temps. But I can't bring myself to cover my nice pipes with some ugly wrap

 

[romeen]

I was just referring to the effect of the turbine housing heating up the air around it, in turn heating the IC pipe & internal compressed air vs the types of temps already seen inside the pipe from compressing the air.

Actually I was thinking of the exact same thing, I probably didn't word my response the best . I was thinking that the LICP would typically still be moving air that is cooler (even though the compression has heated it up some) relative to the air surrounding the outside of it in that portion of the engine bay thus making wrapping it a good idea. But now knowing that the car is driven primarily during the summer puts a different twist on the whole thing. Sorry, I know that's not very helpful.

I will say that if you do decide to wrap it using the heat wrap that you mentioned to not rely solely on the adhesive backing that is on the tape. From personal experience I know that the heat can cause it to fail and the wrap begins to lift at the edges and eventually becomes loose and/or falls off. I ended up spraying the pipes with 3M trim adhesive, waiting a minute or two then applying the wrap. That was 4 years ago and it is still holding on strong.

 

[daren_p]

Thanks for the install info help Romeen, but I think Im leaning more towards the material thats basically a sheet and then they either sew it to a cylinder shape or the one with the velcro, to get a tighter fit.

I don't want to drill holes in my IC pipes just to check the temps but I guess I could use an infrared temp gun from work & measure the pipe surface temp at the pipe just before it enters the IC both with & without the pipe wrapped. I know I won't get an exact temp as infrared guns are designed to give an accurate reading on flat black but it will give me to numbers that are comparable. I guess it's not as good as sticking a probe directly into the airstream but should tell me which works better.

I know the pipe does get hot to touch & I would think this is more from the heat of the turbine housing vs the heat of compressing the air but being the air passes through the pipe so quickly, I wonder how much this elevated pipe temp even heats the air? I'm begining to wonder if it will even make much difference, like Tyler said.

 

[JFZERO ECLIPSE]

If you don't want heat wrap check out jet-hot coatings.

My o2 housing has been jet hot coated and after a small run I can pop the hood and touch the o2 w/out burning myself unless I leave it on there (don't ask stupid I know) but my 3" SS downpipe I cant even come close to....

Some day I'll send them my exhaust manny and turbine housing

They have different coatings for your needs seeing as how you have aluminum and you might want the nice shiny look get the sterling coating...

 

[Strm Trpr]

Hey Daren, check these guys out. <a href = http://www.performancecoatings.com/performancecoatings.html>Performance Coatings</a>

They do thermal barrier coatings, Ceramic Coatings, Non-Dimensional Change Dry Film Lubricant Impregnation and much much more...

I will be sending my O2 housing, Turbine Housing, FP Race Manifold, and my IC Pipes to them for their processing...

 

[daren_p]

Thanks for the input guys, I have actually been thinking that I should get the turbine housing & O2 housing coated. There's a local guy that has that chrome looking 1300F ceramic coating but also offers the 2000F satin coating, which I think is what I need (plus internal coating, etc). Being a DD I don't want the down time but was thinking I may pull the parts off next spring to get them coated.

I guess there's no problem coating SS, since thats what both the turbine housing & O2 housing are.

 

[gixrman]

Heres my thought, I was planning on fabricating a cover for the compressor housing and ducting cool air from ther front of the car. Blowing cool air across the face of the housing cooling the air as its being compressed.

 

[Strm Trpr]

^^^ That's a really good idea, but we have intercoolers for cooling the compressed charge.
I bet, if there was a CAI on the car, you'd see much better results cooling the charge vs. cooling the comp cover.
Imagine cooling the comp cover in conjunction with a CAI, now that would really have a noticeable affect.

 

[underradar92]

Daren, I went through the same thought process untill I came up with the best of both worlds, I think. A wrapped DP, stainless turbine shield, and an "air gap" half shield on the IC pipe, so it still can radiate in front and won't absorb where it's near the hot parts.

 

[gixrman]

^^^ That's a really good idea, but we have intercoolers for cooling the compressed charge.
I bet, if there was a CAI on the car, you'd see much better results cooling the charge vs. cooling the comp cover.
Imagine cooling the comp cover in conjunction with a CAI, now that would really have a noticeable affect.

I will agree with you there.
Heres the knows, the compressor is connected to the turbine so heat transfer is unaviodable.
Compessing the air heats it up, so anything to cool the air and or parts should cool the intake charge.
I was even thinking of spraying the comp. cover with CO2.
I'm open to anything