Hey guys, I've had this idea for an intake for a while so when I bought my CT engineering intake (aka comptech icebox) I figured I'd try it out. As always we're always taking about the best ways to keep heat out of our intake system for a cooler, denser air charge. I tried to accomplish this like they do in F1 because if its good enough for them its definitely good enough for me. The idea is that the reflective and light weight properties of gold make it a good way to block out radiant heat. The only issue is due due its thermal conductivity you wouldn't want to say wrap your aluminum intake piping with it because as the under hood temp rises, the gold wrap will insulate the intake so the warmer conditions under the hood are trapped in the piping itself warming the air charge. Also another reason why aluminum doesn't make a very good intake because it has high thermal conductivity and will draw in heat from the engine very easily. That's why honda, and pretty much every other car manufacturer, make intakes out of plastic because it has low thermal conductivity.

The idea I had was to wrap the box in the reflective tape because directly behind it sits my header which is obviously a huge source for radiant heat. DEI sells an adhesive gold tape called reflect-a-gold which is pretty cheap (about $20 for a 2in by 8 foot roll). The other good thing about the tape every component of it is made for high temp applications so its perfect for you turbo guys to use the help your exhaust shields etc. reflect the heat and it won't burn and the adhesive won't degrade. It markets that it only needs a 2mm gap between the tape and up 1300 F heat sources.

Due to the fact that the intake box is such a bitch to pull in and out of the car I did no before and after data logging. This idea is purely based on theory but the ideas are pretty simple and make a lot of sense. At the end of the day it may help or may not help but either way it was a fun project.

Oh and did I mention? It looks badass

Thanks for reading
Jeff

 

Dude, check the other pictures below that. That was just a picture without the carbon fiber lid on.

 

Your pictures are too big man. I can only see whats in the thumbnails.

 

Ya I know, idk whats up. Just ctrl minus a couple times and then they are a bit more managable

 

would be nice to compare IATs before/after

 

That looks very good

 

This isn't exactly new. This has been in the sponsor section for over a year; and not even the DEI variety

 

Yeah, I've seen this done on stock boxes before but I figured I'd post some pics up of the comptech in case people were curious

 

Sad thing is, is that despite the stock intake being plastic, it still absorbs a LOT of heat and keeps it in. I've seen peoples datalogs with flashpro that have the stock intake. On a hot day, the stock intake is about as effective when driving around slowly as putting a scoop to catch air from the radiator fan.

 

I am glad you did this. I have the icebox also and hadn't always wondered if people did some sort of wrap with the box. Can you pm me with a little more details on how you did this!! Thanks