Painting intercooler? Installing Blitz LM kit.

[NismoR34]

Nice work Abo Bob!

Did you need to cut your front bar at all [to fit the ic]? Near where the pipes attach to the end tanks etc?

I wonder if the i/c pipes stick out as much with the standard front bar, I am thinking of getting a blitz kit too??? Anyone?

Thanks.

[Abo Bob]

No I didn't need to cut it at all.

I'm going to cut the number plate bit out and a little bit to scoop up to the air guide (which is not fitted at the moment) in January when I'm on holidays. Should look really good.

[tridentt150v]

Why didn't you get it black anodised, plenty of shops around that would do it, about $80, and no paint coating inhibiting heat transfer, anodising toughens alloy, and doesn't chip easily. I got my blitz anodised [but I got a black car, so did it blue].

[Abo Bob]

I've heard a few people saying it's coming off their coolers.

[tridentt150v]

Hasn't been cleaned properly in caustic solution, has to be clean, clean, clean.

Had mine on for 18 months, no problems.

[Ed G]

I want to get mine anodised.... any ideas where to get it done (in bris btw)?

[NJR 34GTT]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I just bought this kit and wanted to raise a thought.

Looking at your mounting, maybe it is designed to go higher up in the bar hence why all your mounts didn't line up exactly and the return pipe sits so low?

I'm tossing up whether to attempt to install this myself but I'm a little unsure if I want to make modifications to my front bar support and the back of the bar as its suggested needs to be done. Quite impressed with your tutorial but I don't want to make any serious mistakes.

Also, did you get your car immediately retuned following fitting? I'm currently running rich as a pig so it would have to make a significant change to inlet temps to make it lean out. Although from memory you are running the stock ECU so it couldn't have been done. Hmmmmm.....

Cheers

[Abo Bob]

I see what your saying. I guess if I was willing to modify the front bar support then I could have pushed it further up but I wasn't keen on that.

At some stage I'm going to revisit this project to cut the front bar as I posted earlier. The car has had a full respray in January which is why I didn't get this mod done.

I didn't get any tuning done afterwards. I have a chipped ECU but it is as good as stock for this purpose. GT-t's don't seem to gain any power from a FMIC but I certainly gained fuel economy. Very noticeable.

[NJR 34GTT]

Thanks, the fuel economy is the primary purpose I got it for and secondly to allow further mods down the track.

[paulr33]

i dont see how you would gain any power? unless you were running like 15psi and had massive pressure drop heat soak on the stock cooler as it was a mega restriction.

you should notice more lag in the system if you goto a fmci and dont make any other changes, youll have the some power level but more lag

[Abo Bob]

Yes there is more lag.

[The Dan]

My brother and I did a test between a normal intercooler and a painted one. The painted cooler had 25 degrees hotter intake temp than the non painted. every coat added after that gained approx 2 degrees extra. We ended up with almost 70 degree intake temps and massive pinging. The car lost around 50 HP because of it.

We completely stripped the paint off to bare alloy again and intake temps stayed at 38 degrees.

All tests were done on the same car with the same cooler and same level of boost and timing at the same time of day over a 3 day period.

It doesn't matter what colour it is either. What Tigger said is correct, it doesn't allow for proper disipation of heat. Intercoolers don't work the same way that radiators do.

Gee I shouldn't have said that. Now I'm going to have to explain it to everyone.

Not gonna happen...read up on them if you want to know why.

[Abo Bob]

How many coats of paint are you talking about?

I did two very light coats of the front surface only. It's not like I sprayed right in all the fins or anything.

[The Dan]

Started off with one light coat and added coats from there.

Up to around 5 in the end. We took multiple temp measurements after each coat had dried and got an average out of each coat. We tested both heat resistant paint and normal paint. Normal paint was always better. You could add almost two extra coats of normal paint to get the same temp as the heat paint.

[The Dan]

you will see the difference in intake temps no matter how many coats you give it and no matter how light, they all make a difference. Whether it has effected your performance I doubt. The aim of my first post was really to educate people so they don't go out getting them powder coated or spray on thick coats of black thinking that it will disperse the heat better.

Remember that a radiator disperses heat, an intercooler absorbs heat. That is why radiators are painted black and are made from steel, Intercoolers are made from aluminium. Aluminium RADIATORS do not get sprayed black as they work on a similar principle to an intercooler. The heat is on the inside. Spray black paint onto the outside of an intercooler and you will attract heat from the outside.

Water to air intercoolers are different, spray them black if you like.

[NJR 34GTT]

I don't want any power gain. I just want my inlet temps not to be so ridiculously high. My intake side pipe was still almost too hot to touch after my car had been turned off for an hour after driving home from work.

[The Dan]

In theory it should be the turbo side that is the hottest.

What type of cooler do you have?

And is it Tube/fin or Bar/plate.

I would take that somewhere to get checked out before you do some damage.

[NJR 34GTT]

Stock GTT cooler.

Theres nothing wrong with it, a 30+ day and stop start traffic. Car is running fine and mechanic has confirmed this, just running very rich AFRs.

Thinking of ditching my air guide as I think the air it is directing through the radiator would be better used flowing over the top into the engine bay as I have an oil cooler anyway. Maybe bonnet vent time too.

[siksII]

its easy to heak soak the stock cooler and have the outlet the same as the inlet, happened many times when i had a stock cooler.

i painted my cooler and all pipes black, and by my hand-thermometer confirmed that the cooler outlet was still the same as ambient, and the inlet was very hot same as before it was painted.

[Brazen]

Good thread... been looking at the LM Intercooler kit for my Stagea and wondered how the pipework went and what cutting etc is required.

Looking at your install - Id say you've found an interesting alternative install height than intended by Blitz - good in that it doesnt mean cutting the front bar, but less good I guess because it protrudes below the front bar. Its definitely meant to be a few inches higher - the bolt holes you used for the piping mounts were wrong I think... the one you attached goes on the next hole up, and the one you didnt bolt on goes on that one instead...

Thatd give the correct height to not have the return piping lower than the front bar. But I think with the Stagea LM intercooler kit I wont even have either hassle - no front bar cutting and for some reason the piping on the Stagea Blitz kit is different and returns back behind the radiator - this is a pic of the Blitz kit installed in a Stagea:

Unfortunately the different/extra piping in this Blitz kit also gives it an extra $200 on the Nengun price tag over the price of the skyline equivalent kits