Wrapping intercooler piping.... options/opinions thread.

So I was going to just paint match my newly acquired intercooler tubing but its mild steel and being that there is a lot of radiant heat as we all know in our engine bays I'd like to do as much as I can to keep IAT down.. now I've read its only beneficial to wrap the tubing after the intercooler to the turbo as you don't want to "keep the heat in" with wrap before the intercooler, however wouldn't the wrap create a heat barrier against the radiant heat in the engine bay?

Also which type of wrap?

There's the typical fiberglass style header wrap, the gold reflective tape everyone is raving about, then there's the silver wrap I found but can't find a name or much info (probably because I don't know the proper terminology for it.

As far as looks go, I really don't think anyone looks better than the other and its not why I am wrapping the pipes anyway.

Ceramic coating will insulate and last better than any wrap

Thewespaul said:

Ceramic coating will insulate and last better than any wrap

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Does that include ceramic paint? Or is that not as effective?

Its not the same, ceramic coating is bonded to the steel so it lasts forever. Probably better than nothing though!

Just wondering if the pipe from the compressor to the intercooler should be left unwrapped... the idea is to get rid of heat and the underhood temp will be less than the compressor outlet temp (when under boost).

It’s a trade off, when not moving at highway speeds the temp under the hood would be greater than in the piping, and the opposite when on the highway. The intercooler is going to do the job of transferring heat either way

DrCharles said:

(when under boost).

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This is the key right here. I agree with Dr. Charles on this one. While you're not at highway speeds, aren't your EGTs normally around 300? That's still more than the 190-200 that comes out of the radiator.

Hang on a sec, Bronco The EGT is what's coming out of the exhaust manifolds, whereas I was concerned with the temperature of the compressed air exiting the turbo (and before it's cooled down by the intercooler). That temp is likely to be as high as 300F under boost also... when not in boost it'll be closer to the intake duct temp.

Wes is right that the intake piping could absorb some heat from the engine compartment when not boosting (I seem to recall that underhood temps are typically 100 to 150F depending on where it's measured and how fast the truck is moving). But that won't be a problem when not under boost anyway. Intake air temp matters most when you're wide-open and pulling hard (which also generates high EGT).

Yes and the intercooler won't be doing much either. Of course it's not very important unless you're under boost, which I quoted from you and said that "this is the key right here".

I’ll throw my 2cents in. The speed the air is moving through the piping, there’s really not enough time for the air to pick up a ton of heat from the pipes. I can tell you the pipe from the compressor gets hot. If the pipes had heat exchanging fins inside it maybe but just open pipe, I think the amount of heat pulled into the air from the pipes is going to be extremely minimal.

When I pondered doing this what i came up with was to do similar to the 7.3 super duty. they left the hot charge air pipe unwrapped and the cold charge air pipe wrapped with a insulational tape of sorts.
there could be cases for both wrapping and leaving it unwrapped on the hot pipe. the hotter the air that goes into the intercooler the larger the temp difference from outside air flowing though it. heat temperature differences are what give you cooling, the greater the difference in temp the faster it cools down. It might also help keep heat in the pipe allowing it to flow faster similar to exhaust wrapping for faster spool. and it should keep some heat out of the engine bay. everything i have heard and seen says these will be minuscule gains at best.
If you dont wrap it, i would allow the charge air pipe to act on a small scale as a cooler, because it might allow for more area to shed heat.

It really is a catch .22 if i were going to wrap anything it would be the cold charge air pipe. And even at that I didnt find the cost of $75 dei titanium wrap (which is what i would have used) to be worth the gains. I would rather put that same money towards a water **** kit, or even an diff fluid change as I think those would gain you more than wrapping. But there does come a point where all the easy to gain power has already been gained and you have to start looking at the hard to gain power that doesnt gain much, but a gain is still a gain.

03wr250f said:

there could be cases for both wrapping and leaving it unwrapped on the hot pipe. the hotter the air that goes into the intercooler the larger the temp difference from outside air flowing though it. heat temperature differences are what give you cooling, the greater the difference in temp the faster it cools down.

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I’m going to respectfully disagree here. Hotter air going into the IC is only going to result in hotter air coming out of the IC. The thermal exchange in the IC is governed by the heat transfer into the metal from the inside to the outside and the interaction time between the air and the surfaces coupled with the heat conductance through the metal will dictate the temperature drop in the air as it passes through the IC. All things being equal, the IC will only shed so many BTUs.

The only benefit to wrapping the hot pipe is engine bay temp but if you are just going to shed that heat through the IC and into the radiator or not at all because the IC is not capable of it, it seems really pointless. In the end, the heat has to go somewhere be it out the tail pipe or into the air passing through the engine compartment.

03wr250f said:

It might also help keep heat in the pipe allowing it to flow faster similar to exhaust wrapping for faster spool. and it should keep some heat out of the engine bay.

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The reason we wrap the pipes to keep heat in is really about volume. The combustion process emits a fixed number of molecules of waste product mostly in gaseous form. The volume of a gas of course is dependent on temperature as per the ideal gas law. So as a gas cools the effective volume it occupies decreases so the net result is as you said a “slowing down” because the we measure the gas movement as a volume over time. Reducing the volume/time will result in a slower turning of the turbine. Header wrap on most gassers (especially with high flow exhaust) is all about keeping header heat out of the engine bay unless you really are trying to squeeze every last bit out of the system. The headers don’t hold in heat like a cast manifold will.

03wr250f said:

everything i have heard and seen says these will be minuscule gains at best.
If you dont wrap it, i would allow the charge air pipe to act on a small scale as a cooler, because it might allow for more area to shed heat.

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Completely agree. It’s the time component. The pipes aren’t that long and the velocity is pretty high. There’s just not a ton of interaction time with the pipes hence why the IC path is more tortured to force the interaction.

There are calculators on the web for calculating IC pipe sizes for a given CFM. I think the consensus is you want the flow to be sub sonic. On our engines, if I recall 2” would actually be sufficient. 2.25” is good and 3” is way overkill.