Your Intercooler Thoughts (visually)

[l_uk3y]

As the poll suggests. Ive just bought exhuast and cooler today. the big question being. On a silver car. are people leaning towards getting it out there for the world too see, or does the idea of concealing it partially to make people look twice to notice sound more enticing.

The theme of the car is a clean street car. No bodykit or huge chromies planned.

The other question. What sort of paint would be recommended as odviously some heat will be involved?? Also would a layer of paint normally reduce an IC's ability to lose efficiency??

Edited July 24, 2007 by l_uk3y

[Rancher]

The reason its polished is so that sun light bounces off it, not soaking with heat. Painting it will cause it to not work too well, and heat soak faster then if it were polished. People might like the look of it being out there, but still. Black mesh might be ok, but could take away the cool air being passed through the intercooler when the mesh gets hot.

IMHO leave it polished, and not behind mesh.

[SLIPPERY]

zoom or someone similar did a test with black versus polished a few years back and the black cooler (was a GTR cooler) produced cooler inlet charges by a little

This was because the black paint radiated heat better than a silver/chrome surface, which is what you want.

Sunlight isnt gonna cause too much heat soak

[markimak]

depends if its powder coated.. or that ionized... if u just spray the cooler with local black can spray it will perform like a gtir top mount lol

[r33cruiser]

As the poll suggests. Ive just bought exhuast and cooler today. the big question being. On a silver car. are people leaning towards getting it out there for the world too see, or does the idea of concealing it partially to make people look twice to notice sound more enticing.

The theme of the car is a clean street car. No bodykit or huge chromies planned.

The other question. What sort of paint would be recommended as odviously some heat will be involved?? Also would a layer of paint normally reduce an IC's ability to lose efficiency??

hi , ive been thinking about this issue as well. at the moment i have the cooler on show. but recently ive been thinking of puttiing some black mesh in front of it. that way u will still see the silouette of it. either way will look good

[ish]

BWhahhaha

[adam-__-]

I've put a black mesh over my cooler. To be honest, you can't even tell the difference with it on or off. I just put it there to protect the fins from bending.

[13thracer]

go the black cooler, and personally i havent had any issues with a can black job i painted mine with a can and cant fault it havent looked at my inlet temps through my microtech but my mates wrx who also painted his with a can of black saw no change in inlet temps from when it was shinny (monitored through his microtech) during the day it is the same and at night has seen his inlet temp drop into single figures.

[DR R33]

i sprayed mine black looks tough sleeper look

[STATUS]

the greddy coolers have a special anti corrision treatment on their V-SPL and R-SPL coolers that is as functional as it is pretty (polishes up nice and still radiates heat very well)

[l_uk3y]

Thanks guys this is good. To be honest i was expecting almost all the votes to go towards sticking it out there for the world to see. Good to see some varied answers.

[R33silverS2]

I reckon just leaving it polished but tucked in nicely behind the standard front bar looks nice and clean whilst giving you the slightly tuff yet subtle street car look.

[r33_racer]

black....not only does it look tough and stands out...it gives best heat dissipation....alot of truck intercoolers are black for that reason.

[ardie]

better yet, put an hks stencil on it, imagine the power gain then! personally i like the wank factor of the silver cooler, then again i have a black car, so a black cooler would blend right in. i really like the look of a clean silver SII with a cooler mounted nicely behind the front bar, but that might be just me

[Aif]

i got my FMIC sitting out there for everyone to see. i love it. ah yeah and i cut out my M-Spec front bar so now my car smiles at me

Aif

[TTT]

Black.

Same goes for your rims..

black.

[spirosky33]

`b l a c k =tough

[saltbager]

There is nothing like looking at a massive intercooler ... unless you want the stealthy/sleeper look

-$aldi