JNA 13B

Would black intercoolers work as well as the silver ones,if so why aren't there any around ?

mazdaspeed7

The black is just paint. A thin layer of paint doesnt have a negative effect on the efficiency of an intercooler. I think many people just want to be sure theirs gets seen, trying to show off the fact they have a turbo.

JNA 13B

Mazdaspeed I'm sorry but i don't think you read the question properly.........

mazdaspeed7

What did I not answer? A thin layer of paint wont hurt the efficiency, so the IC will perform the same. As for why you dont see them, they dont stand out like a silver one. A lot of people with turbos/big intercoolers want them to be seen. And for the people that do have black ones, you cant tell its an IC from any distance, it just looks like the AC condenser in any other car.

GreyGT-C

I agree with MS7.., about the only drawback i would see to a black one, is more potential heatsoak (purely speculation) while the car isn't moving. If someone were to load the paint up thick on it and start closing off the fin area, that would be a different story.

TrboSpdAnt

Heatsoak would only affect AIT if you go from, say, the staging-lanes with the heat beaming straight on your [F/T]MIC, right onto the track... Or a parking lot after being parked, all day.



While thermally there's only that, the few micron-thick layer of paint won't do anything, inversely affecting AITs... Powder-coating, however, is an entirely different thing, since it actually DOES have some dynamic thermal properties, inherently.



Outside of the, "around the block to get next door," response, the answer is yes; a black [F/T]MIC will work just as well as one that's conventionally silver, in color...



MS7 is right about one thing, for sure: Most guys who've got an FMIC want to show it off, so having it black is self-defeating to the whole, "look at me" principle.

1988RedT2

Hmmmmm?



http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/cla...radiation.html





Further intercooler-specific discussion here, though not particularly scientific:



http://forums.viperclub.org/rt-10-gt...tercooler.html

TrboSpdAnt

That link was pretty cool... Took me back to middle-school science class!



The thing about radiation (solar) absorption is that the absorption curve in nearly inverse when the material is out of direct sunlight. Kind of plays the same as you or I going out, during mid-day, getting cooked, then dropping off, into the shade for a cold one.



Because the surrounding AMBIENT air is cooler than the surface of my sunburned skin, the heat will be wicked away due to Kirchoff's law of thermal radiation.



While this could be WAY out of the scope of standard FMIC equations, it IS something to factor in, since you're looking at POTENTIAL AIT changes ranging some -xT, while driving to +yT while parked.



Sorry to geek out, like that, but knowing is half the battle.



(Gratuitous '80s cartoon plug? Anyone? Anyone?)