Intake Heat Soak, Looking for Suggestions

J

JimW337

New member
Having just finished putting headers on the ITB Rabbit, I have been thinking about the intake getting heat soaked and was wondering what others may be doing. Here’s some idea’s I’ll throw out.

Sheet metal box around the intake and duct some fresh air to create an air barrier, is this legal?

Header wrap, I have heard arguments for and against this method.

Header coatings, any recommendations?

Insulating nylon intake gasket to help keep head heat separate from intake, anybody heard of such a thing?

Reflective paint on the underside of the intake.

Anybody have any other suggestions?
 
Whatever you do don't ceramic coat the outside of the intake :D My car(dodge omni) is a non-crossflow
head and I'm going to get the header swain tech coated to help in this area....hope this helps...mdg
 
Jim, the gasket spacer Wont really do enough since most of the heat is likely off the header not the head.

If I where to care about that, I would look into wrapping the top of the header, or having it coated.
 
General comments:

Coat the header. Wrap is effective but has been known to catch on fire if it gets oil on it.

Create a heat shield for your intake - but in order to be legal in needs to be attached to your 'open' intake since there is no provision in the rules for just adding one as a stand alone.

Add some reflective heat tape to the intake tubing between your filter and throttle body now that that is 'open' as well.
 
Andy good heads up on the wraping vs coating. one more thing to consider if I ever bother coating my header.
 
General comments:

Coat the header. Wrap is effective but has been known to catch on fire if it gets oil on it.

Create a heat shield for your intake - but in order to be legal in needs to be attached to your 'open' intake since there is no provision in the rules for just adding one as a stand alone.

Add some reflective heat tape to the intake tubing between your filter and throttle body now that that is 'open' as well.
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I already have the intake tube insulated with reflective tape, easy fix.

If the "heat shield" only attaches to the throttle body then this would be the legal grey area? But, to be effective it would be best to duct some fresh air to the heat shield. Would this still be legal?

I think coating the headers is going on the Winter Project List.

The heat shield sounds interesting, anyone else care to comment?
 
If the "heat shield" only attaches to the throttle body then this would be the legal grey area? But, to be effective it would be best to duct some fresh air to the heat shield. Would this still be legal?


The heat shield sounds interesting, anyone else care to comment? [/b]
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This is my thought on the rule:

No place in the ITCS does it say that you can add a heat sheild between the exhaust and the intake.

But the rule does state that you can do just about anything you want as far as intake (with restrictions posted in the rule) so if you attach your heat shield to the intake 'system' then you are ok. The TB is not to be modified in any way so to say that your HS is part of the TB is not legal...neither would be a stand alone HS. Ducting to the filter is not legal.
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Wrapping the header will destroy it in short order for road race applications, unless it's stainless steel.
I'd get it coated, unless you get headers for dirt cheap.
 
Don't spend too much money on this. The column of air inside the plenum and runners picks up very little heat from the manifold as it races inward at 5000-7000 RPM from the source to the back of the valve. VERY little.

We've done tests and measured the IA Temps with and without shields etc. No appreciable difference.
Now for street (stop start, engine off/on) and turbos, you have issues, but not so much with NA cars.

You want your airbox cool as that is the source and that air can be slower and have time to absorb heat.

Do what is easy and cheap. But dont kill yourself looking for 1/4 HP here. I know there are tons of heat isolator products for V8s but that is a far different design than a VW. Many say the V8 stuff doesnt do anything either btw. :P

PS - if you are skeptical. Go read Smokie Yunnicks book. His high heat manifold will blow your mind. :blink:
 
I think the big problem with intake heat soak is if there's a temp sensor there that's used by the ECU to control mixture, and if that temp sensor is significantly affected by the intake temperature rather than accurately measuring the air temp. You can then run lean because the ECU feeds less fuel to what it thinks is hot air. This is pretty likely to be the case with some cars but not others, based on the engine management scheme.
 
I think the big problem with intake heat soak is if there's a temp sensor there that's used by the ECU to control mixture, and if that temp sensor is significantly affected by the intake temperature rather than accurately measuring the air temp. You can then run lean because the ECU feeds less fuel to what it thinks is hot air. This is pretty likely to be the case with some cars but not others, based on the engine management scheme.
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that might be the bigger issue. on my car the intake manifold is right behind the radiator, along with IAT sensor.

aem on air inlet heak soak;
http://trucks.aempower.com/press_events_detail.asp?aid=15
 
" —hardly enough time to transfer an appreciable amount of heat into the air stream on any system.
"

It's nice to know even AEM figured it out :P
 
" —hardly enough time to transfer an appreciable amount of heat into the air stream on any system.
"

It's nice to know even AEM figured it out :P
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at first it makes sense - hey the pipe is hot, probably heating up the air going thru it. then you wrote how fast the air is going thru and thats why it makes little difference and that made sense too.
 
Heat Shield Question

Is this in anyway legal for ITA?

http://www.okmiata.com/p_index.html

Scroll down to the Monster Flow intake with Heat Shield.

I was thinking if the intake tube is attached to the heat shield AND the chassis it may fly. Or if i attach it to ONLY the intake tube will I be ok.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
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