Beat the heat

Beat the heat.

That sounds so wrong but that’s what you’ve gotta do to get engine bay temps down. My friend Preston Smith is now doing just that with his new service. No this isn’t an ad, although it would be a good one. His website is https://thegarageidiots.com

I’ve tried a few things to stop nuking my engine bay. Ceramic paints that just burn off, heat wrap that comes apart and looks disgusting a month later, turbo blankets that are the perfect way to capture oil and start a fire of their own. So what is Preston doing that’s different or new? Well it’s not new or different, it’s just more accessible to our level of motorsports. Integral Heat Shielding is its official name and you’d see this being used in aerospace, aviation, then formulae 1 at some stage. So the trickle down effect is real and that lands us here today. Pun intended.

Preston recently did a job for Wyatt Stengel (A racer here on Slip Tracker) covering his turbos on his AWD Turbo Diesel drag truck. In New Zealand we’d call that a ute, but we’ll let it slide. In Wyatt’s video starting at 14min and 24sec (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqrefR9sR-c) he demonstrates the heat difference from inside and outside the turbo with a bench test he performs. The test wasn’t truly scientific but it was clear to see that it was significantly reducing the heat that would be radiated out into the engine bay.

So why do we care about a little heat getting out. There are a few reasons and some or all may apply. Firstly no one likes a raging fire in their engine bay. This seems kinda obvious but it happens more often than we dare to admit. All that fuel, oils, plastics and heat makes for a great bonfire! Second is performance. The cooler you can run certain parts of your vehicle the better it will perform. Keeping heat away from brakes fluid means they will actually work and not boil over, cooler intake pipes will increase horsepower and avoid skyrocketing intake air temps, wires carrying our little electron friends don’t like heat and can fail to send signals or burn out completely. Thirdly, giving your paintwork a sun tan isn’t a nice look and can age and warp panels prematurely. If you’ve got a carbon fibre or fibreglass bonnet exposure to high heat will turn it into a wet taco that droops down onto your engine. Finally, heat in the cabin will cook you and make racing super unpleasant. My Nissan Laurel has exposed metal floors and the heat from my exhaust makes it so hot even wearing shoes doesn’t help.

As I said earlier in this article I’ve tried everything to stop the heat from my exhaust from cooking everything. The way forward is definitely Integral Heat Shielding. So if you are in the US and you do have a problem with heat management then definitely check out Prestons work. He is in Colorado and you will need to sent the parts to him to be done. But if you’ve tried everything else then this is worth a look!

Nic :)

Written by Nic Neame with no A.I. what so ever.