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right now i have my fmic in the standard aluminum and its verry visible as well as the pipes that come out the side because they are coated in a poloished aluminum colour.

many of the turbo cars around have their setups painted black, you can see that they are turbo if you know what your looking for but if you didnt you wouldnt even notice which is what im going for.

so if i paint the core and endtanks the pipes will still be visible thorugh the fog light holes.

so to paint or not to paint that is the question???

and a pic to show how it looks now, note that the pipes are much shinier now than they are in the pic

I say paint it, I like a nice clean look that someone who doesn't know what they are looking at doesn't notice.

That's why I like the AWIC so much. You can't see it unless the hood is up and even then it looks stock.

it wont transmit heat as well if you put a coating on it like paint. put up with it and put some black mesh over it or something

maybe just paint the endcaps and tubes. i wouldn't paint the fins.

Use radiator paint?

BAC5.2 wrote:Use radiator paint?

thats what i was thinkin, just where do i find the stuff

Pep-boys should have it. I saw some there the other day.

Eastwood has it for like $11 bucks a can in gloss or satin finishes.

I wouldn't paint it, it'll more than likely chip and wear off after while and look like crap. If you want to hide it, you can put some kind of mesh in front of it and paint the mesh black.

Mesh would decrease airflow slightly also. Painting aluminum sucks, though. I used acid etching primer for the manifold and valve covers and it still chips pretty easy. Where it's easily accessable, you could always just hit it with some more paint to touch it up occasionally.

Steve

Don't paint it.

If paint is so bad for the heat transfer why are radiators painted? Or so many stock intercoolers?

I'm in agreement. Unless he were using undercoating or the like I think the difference in intercooler efficiency would be undetectable. He could paint it and find out - removing it probably wouldn't be too hard.

Steve

Go for it. Greddy has done testing that showed flat black paint does not hurt intercooler efficiency. They are working on a coating to improve it. I'm gonna paint the intercooler I get. I like stealth mode.

take the license plate out of your windshield. In case of an emergency, it can turn into a sharp projectile in your car and lop off your head.

JasonGrahn wrote:take the license plate out of your windshield. In case of an emergency, it can turn into a sharp projectile in your car and lop off your head.

it doesnt really move anywhere ever but i do see your point, it just looks so crappy in the front.

also i take it you added to my poll???

by putting your plate in your windshield, it shows that you know the law is to display your plate on the front of your car, but are intentionally not doing so. People get ticketed for this all the time

I voted yes because I think that the paint will have a fairly negligable effect on effienciency of the FMIC, note I said, negligable, not none. However, I prefere the sleeper styling and think painting it would be cool. Personally I think a black mesh would look even more out of place on an old Legacy than the massive FMIC . Definately use the radiator paint though. And if you don't like it for whatever reason, it should be easy enough to remove it. Just my .02.

I think it looks great either way. Flat black might have more of a sleeper effect but the polished aluminum looks cool regardless. As mentioned maybe just paint the piping on each end and leave the core unpainted.

FWIW, when I was fixing up my air-cooled VW years ago, I came across a technical article that said that documented tests proved that a THIN layer of NON-INSULATING flat-black paint on hot parts would cool the part down more than if it was not painted that way. I wouldn't know where to look for that article now but I clearly remembered what it said.

If you don't have the tech to back it up, don't mention it.

The only doc i can find that mentions this is here

i love the way this board is,

i was asking in an astetic question for the most part and it becomes a tech conversation.

imo radatiors wouldnt be painted black if it didnt do any good

You know any topic made here becomes either technical, or goes offtopic, so you should've expected that.

Painting anything adds a layer of insulating, no matter what type of paint you use. Good if you want to lower the amount of heat that is exchanged, bad if you want more heat to be exchanged. You should use a better method if you want it to look good and be as effecient as posssible.

azn2nr wrote:imo radatiors wouldnt be painted black if it didnt do any good

The black paint used is to protect the copper fins from road salt and the elements. This is the reason you dont see aluminum cores painted.

In the end you should do what you want, however, to add to the technical aspect... Would painting it cause that big FMIC to have less cooling capibilities than an TMIC and to what degree does it/does it not?