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Re: [T3] is painting the engine good or bad?


On 23 Apr 2005 at 18:29, Matt Sanderson wrote:

> If i was to paint the case, cylinders, heads the same colour as the 
> body colour, would the overall temperature of the engine be higher? 
> Cause if the cooling is the same i want to make the engine look just as 
> clean and funky as the rest of the car haha. Thanks again guys.

One could argue that a layer of paint would act as something of a thermal 
insulator, which would make the engine run slightly hotter. I'd not expect the 
effect to amount to much, but I really don't know. The Bill Fisher book 
suggests that a THIN coat of black might actually help shed heat, just because 
black is the best emitter (the best absorber is also the best emitter.) There's 
a problem with this, however, because what we're really interested here is how 
it acts in the far infrared, so the color our eyes see is likely to be 
irrelevant.  

I'd avoid a thick coat of anything, just judging from the fact that VW put all 
those ribs on the bottom. If shedding heat from that surface wasn't important, 
they would not have bothered with all those ribs.

-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
*******************************

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