9BASE3

There is a radiator paint that lowers temps (supposedly) and is flat black. Ordinary flat black wont do ****, however, there is a special paint that is supposed to lower temps.. I'll leave mine alone..

ColinRX7

That may be mixed up with the notion that re-cored rads are sometimes painted black by the rad core shops. They do that to prevent the new core from corroding and leaking prematurely (in areas that see heavy salt annually). It's not to increase cooling efficiency by any means.

maxcooper

There is special radiator paint. It seems like regular paint would not be good since it would likely insulate the radiator. However, it is unclear whether painting an aluminum radiator would help dissipate heat.



Setrab and other cooler manufacturers paint their coolers black (the stock oil coolers from Mazda are black). I'm not sure if this actually improves the cooling performance or if it is just that they need to paint them and they coincidentally choose black. If black was significantly better than other colors, it seems like everyone would do it, but Mocal paints their coolers silver. It does seem like painting them black could improve performance, but it seems like Mocal would use black paint if the effect was significant. Hmm...



I don't have any answers, but I am curious if it would help or not. The facts I posted here don't give a clear indication one way or the other, but I think they are worth considering.



-Max

slmshgy

paint may very well be an insulator, this alone may help to distribute any heating more evenly than bare metal for possible added efficiency through the addition of working surface area

It seems common knowledge that the color black absorbs heat more readily than say a reflective silver color, but it should be pointed out that if any material (or color for that matter) absorbs heat more efficiently it will also dissipate that same energy more efficiently by comparison (simple highschool lab experiment)

And it may be true that a special coating material would help the radiator to cool but this should be negligible, and certainly not cost efficient especially considering that your cooling system would hopefully always be more than adequate and never pushed to such a limit



bigger radiator, electric cooling fan(s), *better coolant*

evans npg+ waterless coolant pineapple racing