Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

hey guys,

i have been reading some threads about DIY painting FMIC to black.

THings i have done are:

spraying it with etch primer x 1 layer or maybe abit more.

then let it dry. it says 10 minutes drying time (second layer wait for 1 hr) which i didnt read and i sprayed the high temp paint on it after 25 to 30 minutes.

i gave the intercooler a few layers ot the high temp paint. every thing seems nice n paint seems even.

after letting it to dry for half hour(says on bottle - dried to touch in 10 minutes) after 30 or so minutes. i installed the FMIC back into the car. gave it another 45 miuntes to dry.

And i started the car. drove it around n couldnt feel any problem.

been driving the car around for a few days. nothing seems to be wrong...

so what can go wrong?? losing cooling efficiency seems to be wat everyone been telling me. besides that wat can go wrong to the FMIC or even the car?

thanks in advance.

Paint is not a particularly good or bad conductor so it wont make much difference really. You'd have to set up some experiments to confirm that. That said if all you care about is performance, painting it black really can only hamper the flow and heat exchanging. Up to you whether that is as important as the aesthetic or 'stealth' factor.

black attracts heat more so than what the color of aluminium will...something you dont want in a heat soak. I.e. say your in the sun, it will get hotter than if it were just left unpainted-something which will hamper performance. However, it also sheds heat quicker than any other color i.e. say your in the shade or the cooler is well covered then it will lose heat quicker than if it were left unpainted.

Really as stated earlier it makes sweet fa difference to performance. Main factor it changes is the attention you get-good and bad. Its up to you but iv left mine unpainted and it saves you having to paint it every so often after the paint eventually flakes off.

Edited by R32Abuser

Itll slow down the heat exchange rate a little bit (though not enough to worry about unless you put on like 5 coats). If your really worried about it use paint stripper on it and then get the cooler black ANODIZED. Changes the outer layer of material rather than coating it. And it can make it a little bit tougher depending on what anodizing you use. Plus it will never flake off.

Good luck

leewah did this a couple of months back (but he had micolour piant it...) my guess is that he researched the pro's and cons a fair bit before he did it to a 10 sec car

leewah did this a couple of months back (but he had micolour piant it...) my guess is that he researched the pro's and cons a fair bit before he did it to a 10 sec car

did what, sorry im not sure what you referring to (obviously not the glad wrap idea :banana:), the spraying or anodizing ?

OK, your problem will have uncovered a few other issues you may need to consider (despite all the other replies being full of "dun worry dude, its all good" etc etc etc.

Firstly, your "rice" level has just taken a nose dive big time! You may find that the monster tacho with a redline of 15 00000000000rpm is now completely redundant. This is not cool!

Apart from the complete lack of "fuwwly HeKtIc BrO" you will recieve at the local drive thru Macca's, your chance of picking up "wif teh womenz" will be significantly lower.

The only thing that can save this is a crapload of neons STAT!!!! A GTR badge is also highly recommended, as is a complete shopping list down both doors (bonus "uleh's" if you can slip a random Ralliart or Mugen sticker in there as well.) Oh, no matter what else happens, get a dose pipe or one of those frontal lobotomy inducing BOV's (y'know, the ones you can get from supercheap that are so loud they give you brain surgery unasked?)

Just be grateful that you didn't try this on a Honda - your v-Tec's would be horribly low due to the leakage this influx of stealth would bring!

(BTW, in al seriousness, the colour of your intercoooler will only be affected by the amount of heat it is able to reflect, ie black reflects f**k all heat and light, whereas white reflects almost all - if your 'line is white, I think that would be a much better way of hiding it and not affecting the cooling capacity)

(BTW, in al seriousness, the colour of your intercoooler will only be affected by the amount of heat it is able to reflect, ie black reflects f**k all heat and light, whereas white reflects almost all - if your 'line is white, I think that would be a much better way of hiding it and not affecting the cooling capacity)

true, but black also disperses heat faster

white fmic would look as ugly as sin

  • 2 weeks later...

I heard that if its black but properly sprayed so that it wont come off like a can will, it will actually be better for the car as the black draws the heat out of the cooler just like black radiators.

Is this right?

I heard that if its black but properly sprayed so that it wont come off like a can will, it will actually be better for the car as the black draws the heat out of the cooler just like black radiators.

Is this right?

yes, black also disperses heat fastest but it also absorbs it the quickest.

So in a a location like where the radiator is under the bonnet, there is no light contact so black is a good choice to disperse heat. On the front of the car with a big fmic on show, black would absorb heat faster just sitting there in the sun, but once you were driving around it would also disperse heat faster.

Either way it would make bugger all difference in most applications, and the only real reason you would do it is for some sort of "stealth" effect

THe colour of something will only effect its ability to absorb light energy.

White reflects light heat, black absorbs light heat.

So unless u have a 1kw floodlight in front of your fmic, colour don't do sh!t

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Latest Posts

    • Yeah, it's getting like that, my daughter is coming over on Thursday to help me remove the bonnet so I can install the Carbuilders underbonnet stuff,  I might get her to give me a hand and remove the hardtop, maybe, because on really hot days the detachable hardtop helps the aircon keep the interior cool, the heat just punches straight through to rag top I also don't have enough hair for the "wind in the hair" experience, so there is that....LOL
    • Could be falling edge/rising edge is set wrong. Are you getting sync errors?
    • On BMWs what I do because I'm more confident that I can't instantly crush the pinch welds and do thousands of USD in chassis damage is use a set of rubber jacking pads designed to protect the chassis/plastic adapter and raise a corner of the car, place the aforementioned 2x12 inch wooden planks under a tire, drop the car, then this normally gives me enough clearance to get to the front central jack point. If you don't need it to be a ramp it only needs to be 1-1.5 feet long. On my R33 I do not trust the pinch welds to tolerate any of this so I drive up on the ramps. Before then when I had to get a new floor jack that no longer cleared the front lip I removed it to get enough clearance to put the jack under it. Once you're on the ramps once you simply never let the car down to the ground. It lives on the ramps or on jack stands.
    • Nah. You need 2x taps for anything that you cannot pass the tap all the way through. And even then, there's a point in response to the above which I will come back to. The 2x taps are 1x tapered for starting, and 1x plug tap for working to the bottom of blind holes. That block's port is effectively a blind hole from the perspective of the tap. The tapered tap/tapered thread response. You don't ever leave a female hole tapered. They are supposed to be parallel, hence the wide section of a tapered tap being parallel, the existince of plug taps, etc. The male is tapered so that it will eventually get too fat for the female thread, and yes, there is some risk if the tapped length of the female hole doesn't offer enough threads, that it will not lock up very nicely. But you can always buzz off the extra length on the male thread, and the tape is very good at adding bulk to the joint.
    • Nice....looking forward to that update
×
×
  • Create New...