Ok i was just wanting to get some opions here about a mod(?) a friend of mine was telling me about.

A friend of mine watches the speed channel alot, and he said he saw some show call horsepower something, well they painted (he said inside but that cant be right so it must be out side) of an intake manifold white, white dispurses heat better, so its suppose to keep things cooler = more hp(not much but 1 or 2), I guess they tested it.

sounds bogus or the information from your friend is inaccurate. Unless the intake is exposed to the sun, the color would not make a difference.

Terry

Well white does dispurse heat better than any other color, but you are right about it would need to be hit buy some serious sun or something to get it to a temp where you would be able to tell.

no white does not disperse heat at all. White reflects heat caused by the sun. Period. A white aluminum intake under your hood convered will not disperse heat any better than a black intake. Color does not determine heat disipation. the material of the construction is what will determine how efficient the part dissipates heat. For example cast iron has a tendency to contain heat whereas Aluminum will allow the heat to dissipate. That is the reason more intakes are manufactured from aluminum today than back in the 60's where most were cast iron.

Terry

Originally posted by Star Turbo Talon
no white does not disperse heat at all. White reflects heat caused by the sun. Period. A white aluminum intake under your hood convered will not disperse heat any better than a black intake. Color does not determine heat disipation. the material of the construction is what will determine how efficient the part dissipates heat. For example cast iron has a tendency to contain heat whereas Aluminum will allow the heat to dissipate. That is the reason more intakes are manufactured from aluminum today than back in the 60's where most were cast iron. Terry

first of thanks for your thoughts, thats right so by painting you intake manifold white it would reflect the heat put out by the engine, thus bring the air temp down? (oh yea i guess disperse was not the right word). But i dont think it would make a huge dif. has anyone ceramic coated their intake manifold?

forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=770766

It's not so much the color of the paint, but the composition of the paint color. The part your less-than-erudite cohort neglected to tell you is that you're supposed to use white/silver header paint which has a certain amount of ceramic in it. This ceramic serves as a heat barrier. On a header, it is intended to prevent heat from inside the header burning the paint pigment away. That's all. It's not intended to be used as a performance coating.

The bottom line is, if you paint anything in your engine bay, paint it for looks. You'll not see any significant gains whatsoever from doing this sort of thing.

my intake is ceramic coated upper and lower(not painted but true ceramic coating). I never took reading to see if it made any difference.

Terry

+1 the paint is just for looks

ok thanks, where and how do you go about have things ceramic coated?

You have to find a shop that does the coating. If you have a local speed shop then ask them or check the phone book. Here in IL we have LOKO Coatings located in Oak Lawn i think.

Terry

Originally posted by Natep
Ok i was just wanting to get some opions here about a mod(?) a friend of mine was telling me about. A friend of mine watches the speed channel alot, and he said he saw some show call horsepower something, well they painted (he said inside but that cant be right so it must be out side) of an intake manifold white, white dispurses heat better, so its suppose to keep things cooler = more hp(not much but 1 or 2), I guess they tested it.

Copper coating works too I think I may see if I can combine both copper and ceramic

Color does have a effect on heat transfer. Different colors have different effects on the amount of radiated heat the object can transmit/absorb. It is the perfect black body effect.

Heat can be moved by convection, conduction or radiation. Most daily heat transfers occurs by convection or conduction with the except of heat from the sun. Anyways, radiation starts to make a much larger roll as the temperatures of the objects increase. Engine operating temperatures are larger enough to produce a very large amount of radiated heat transfer. This is the purpose of heat shields, they block the line of sight so heat can't be radiated from the engine/exhaust directly to another body. The heat shield absorbs the heat and blocks that radiation and disperses it to convection.

Black absorbs/transmits the maximum amount of radiation, while white does the least. This is why radiators are painted black. They want to transfer the most amount of engine out of the radiator.

Painting the inside of an intake manifold white would decrease the amount of heat passed to the intake air in the form of radiation. It would still take heat in form of conduction and convection.
I still doubt it would make a 1-2 horsepower difference.

The idea of paint being an insulator for convection and conduction is more emphasized then the actual effect. The thinkness of a layer of paint so small that the effect of insulating is minimal.