Hi Track Junkies!!! Finally found this part of s2ki. Took me a while but I knew that if bimmerforums had a race section, s2ki had to too. Anyways, I have been looking around to find some info on this buy didn't really get any solid answers or information on it. I basically want to get some of the gold thermal wrap and try to wrap as much as I can. I was thinking about wrapping the following parts since I have a close friend who has done it with cheaper aluminum stuff and noticed quite a bit of difference. One of the main things he noticed was his VTEC crossover wont go higher anymore ( VTEC would be at 7k-7200 after hard sessions at the track). Here is my list.

K&N Intake
Intake Manifold.
Radiator top part
Throttle body? may be?
Header heat sheild***

So basically I wanted to see if any of you have done something similar on the S? I only found one CR who had done it on his K%N too, but that's about it. And I was a bit confused on the header heatshield. I do want to wrap it since I know it gets super hot, obviously, but I am debating whether I should use gold on that or the basic exhaust wrap. Gold wrap says upto 800F so should be good? And do I do it on the inside of it or the outside or both? And quite frankly, the S's bay gets super hot compared to my M3 or other cars I have owned and raced. If I try to check my oil after like 1-2 hours of normal driving, I cannot touch the oil cap so I can only imagine how she would be at the track


And any other spots I should wrap up? Thank you very much

 

The gold reflective material is only good for radiant heat. It won't do much for conductive or convective heat transfer. Not sure if doing the top of the radiator would do anything, but the K&N intake is a good application. But it's probably more crucial to ensure your intake is getting ambient air and not sucking in 250*F engine bay air from typical "cold air intake" designs.

For the heat shield, the SheetHot TF400 may be a better choice:

http://www.dci.com.au/performance


0.02

 

wrap the intkae on the outside only and loop the radiator lines to the tb. I have it on my PRM, same idea as kn's, and I can grab the metal part of the intake right after a track session with no heat in it.

 

Nice! I saw this stuff on Amazon the other day & had basically the same question. Thanks OP!

 

I've been wanting to do this as well and looked at several products. Possibly stupid question here but I know the production cars that do this (Mclaren F1) actually uses legit 24k gold foil, are you talkin about actual gold foil or is it just gold color? I've managed to find both and obviously the real stuff is expensive. Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

 

I've been wanting to do this as well and looked at several products. Possibly stupid question here but I know the production cars that do this (Mclaren F1) actually uses legit 24k gold foil, are you talkin about actual gold foil or is it just gold color? I've managed to find both and obviously the real stuff is expensive. Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

 

I've been wanting to do this as well and looked at several products. Possibly stupid question here but I know the production cars that do this (Mclaren F1) actually uses legit 24k gold foil, are you talkin about actual gold foil or is it just gold color? I've managed to find both and obviously the real stuff is expensive. Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

 

The 24 carat gold thermal barrier material is about the best you can get which shows stats of 98% heat reflectivity with very thin layers (i.e. very light). However, it's extremely expensive. Likely not needed unless you are competing at the top levels of motorsports. I've used Reflect-A-Cool in the past on other vehicles with good success:

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/c...anelInsulation

Just take a look at the properties of whatever you are going to use. Unless it's real gold, just plain "gold color" will likely have a lower heat tolerance but you need to read through the specs to be sure.

 

Thanks for the replies!! I actually ended up using the Reflect A Gold wrap stuff from Design Engineering. Of course not the 24k sutff. It was still pretty damn expensive. a 2"x15ft roll was $51 total and i only had like a feet or two leftover after doing my intake pipe so I will probably order some more later.

Here are some pics of it done. This last track day wasn't really hot so I didn't notice any heat soak without the wrap on my intake. Going to Streets of willow again on the 19th, Ill update this if i feel anything crazy.

 

Nice pics, the application looks very clean!