Thoughts on wrapping TMIC end tanks with Reflect-A-Gold?

After 11 years of no hassles use, I'm finally swapping out my Perrin TMIC for a Grimmspeed unit this weekend before track season starts. The GS unit is the upgraded black thermal dispersant version as well, (no idea if that actually does much but I bought it new but uninstalled from a forum member). I decided to try some DEI Reflect-A-Gold on the end tanks and on each side of the IC and spent 4 hours in the garage last weekend geeking out on making custom paper templates for each zone to be wrapped and then tracing out those on the DEI before applying. Overall, pretty happy with the job. Does anyone have an real world experience using this and have you found any true benefit using it to keep intake temps down? Also, I have some DEI left and was considering doubling it up with a second layer since it seems to bond really well to itself. Any thoughts on that? Just trying to find out if its really going to do anything for me. I hope it does because I have to admit, not really stoked with the gold look, I'm just NOT a gold anything type of guy. You should get a free Kool And The Gang album with your purchase when you buy this stuff.

its all meaningless if you dont know what your post IC charge temps are, or do before and after dyno runs.

It's meaningless to start with, IMO, considering how little time air actually spends inside the end tanks. It also works as a blanket to keep heat in once its in there.

 

If you had to wrap something, I'd only wrap the underside of the end tank nearest the turbo. Keep in mind, gold only inhibits radiated heat to the end tanks. It doesn't help the end tanks cast off heat from convection (from air within) or conduction (turbo flange).

Keep in mind, gold only inhibits radiated heat to the end tanks.

 

Not sure if this matters, because the intercooler is more or less the coolest thing in the engine bay anyway. Radiating heat away only helps when the net amount emitted is more than absorbed. The gold foil stuff decreases both, but just about everything around the IC is hotter so it probably nets a win.

 

 

This is why I didn’t get the thermal coating on my Grimmspeed IC. Everything below the IC is hotter than it, so it would just absorb more heat. You’re not going to radiate much out of our tiny hood scoop, so it’s not helping there ether. In theory one could make a coating that acts as an optical diode, but to do that it would have to be applied like lens coatings instead of sprayed on.

 

Edit: on this topic, if you’re going to wrap an IC only do the rough cast portions. DO NOT try covering the bottom of the bars. This actually made heat soak worse on my AVO because the shiny aluminum bars are better at rejecting heat than the gold foil.

 

 

This is a test I did a few months ago. Left is basalt sheet (“titanium” wraps and such), middle is DEI good, right is raw AL. A black square of paint was put on the back for a consistent radiation point. Put it in front of a space heater and the back of the raw aluminum strip was consistently cooler.

 

Edit2: Opps, thought baconbits was referring to the fast that the gold foil could hurt performance (it kind of can). He's correct in that it only matter for radiated heat. Convective and convective heating are much bigger issues as he says.

When the car is moving boatloads of air is pushing the heat under the car and the only meaningful test is post ic testing per white tiger. I have reflect-a-cool on my gs tmic. I have no idea if it does anything. I did it because it gave me something to do on my car. The out end tank is always much much cooler then the hot side.

The out end tank is always much much cooler then the hot side.

 

All that tells you is that the intercooler is doing its job, not that the gold is doing anything.

Not sure if this matters, because the intercooler is more or less the coolest thing in the engine bay anyway. Radiating heat away only helps when the net amount emitted is more than absorbed. The gold foil stuff decreases both, but just about everything around the IC is hotter so it probably nets a win.

 

How does the gold foil help the intercooler radiate heat? The gold reflects it so the intercooler can't absorb radiated heat from the turbo (which in all honesty, is probably just convected heat from poor air circulation in the bay) but once heat is in the actual end tank, the gold foil won't allow that heat to pass through it... it works as a blanket of sorts even if the air outside of the end tank is cooler.

How does the gold foil help the intercooler radiate heat? The gold reflects it so the intercooler can't absorb radiated heat from the turbo (which in all honesty, is probably just convected heat from poor air circulation in the bay) but once heat is in the actual end tank, the gold foil won't allow that heat to pass through it... it works as a blanket of sorts even if the air outside of the end tank is cooler.

 

It dosen’t, it actually hurts emissivity. I misread your original post (see my second edit). What I was saying is emissivity is actually a bad thing because it’s correlated with absorption unless you get into exotic vacuum deposited coatings.

All good info and debate guys, keep it coming . Maybe I'm looking for an excuse to pull some of this off LOL. Like I said, I'm just not a gold guy, but I'd gladly use it if its providing benefit. The track car leaned to function over fashion about 4 years ago...

I have the underside of the GS tmic on the inlet side only taped with the gold foil on my wagon. The Spec B has the GS heat dissipating coating, so it has no gold foil.

 

I did put gold tape on the underside of the stock turbo heat shields on both cars.

 

I'm happy.

It dosen’t, it actually hurts emissivity. I misread your original post (see my second edit). What I was saying is emissivity is actually a bad thing because it’s correlated with absorption unless you get into exotic vacuum deposited coatings.

 

All good, no worries.

 

I thought we were saying the same thing, just differently. My dad and I get into home improvement arguments all the time... "2+2=4... no... 5-1=4..."

But it looks so bling pretty!!!