[1mz-fe]

well, me and my motorhead friend were digging around in the engine of the trep because i received my chilton's manual in the mail today. poking this, prodding that, saying "oh gee, that's what this mass of 50 wires does!" anyway, it had been sitting down there for awhile with the hood open and i assumed it was cool. wrong. i set my hand on the manifold and found it was still very hot. i know that these cars run hot, even when it shows normal on the gauge. it didn't concern me that much, but it did provoke my imagination.

my friend and i are both pilots. we immediately thought of the #1 to disperse heat from an aircraft engine....cowl flaps. obviously cowl flaps wouldn't fit on an intrepid, there'd be far too much work involved. i was wondering if anyone else had considered doing some cutting to increase air outflow from the engine bay. with the heat that the intake has from sitting even those inches above the really hot parts of the engine, there's a lot of HP being lost in it. make a cold air intake. by the time the air gets to the cylinder it's gonna be just as hot as air from the stock box. we have to get heat out of the engine bay to see gains from a cold air system.

second, we all know the headlights leave something to be desired. well, first of all even if they are not visibly hazed, take some rubbing compound and slap it on there and let it sit for awhile. take it off and use some swirl remover, then polish the suckers. WOW. after that, do yourself a favor and make sure the alignment and the level are both adjusted properly. i assumed mine were because i asked the tech to do it when they did the 60k service. well, both of my lights were pointed more or less straight into the pavement and were facing plenty off to the sides. the proper tool (this sounds dumb, yes) to make the adjustments is a 7/64 allen wrench. i'd never imagined i'd use anything that small. well guess what? now i can see at night.

this is a long post, sorry. it's also 1:30 and i'm bored. please note that these are both good suggestions, though.

 

[NCBrit]

Its an interesting point, but you have to ask how much heat could be dissipated by air cooling. Maybe the best way would be to vent from underneath. Arent aircraft engines air cooled to begin with? That would increase the effect because there are heat exchanger fins on the engine.

Maybe another idea would be to liquid cool the entire intake system. If you wrapped brake pipe around all the components, you could pump a coolant around, and through a radiator.

 

[Warlord187]

How about an intercooler???

 

[Lafrad]

The intake manifolds are still really hot. an intercooler just cools the air down before it gets to the intake manifolds

 

[1mz-fe]

aircraft engines are air cooled for the mostpart, yes. the reasons this is an effective cooling method are several. first, the design of the intake allows a LOT of outside air to enter the engine compartment. the exposed area on most planes is directly in the wake of the propeller, which give entering air additional velocity. also, the air inducted is inherently cooler unless you are taxiing the plane around on the ground. it's also coming in at a much higher speed than the air which a car would draw. and, as you mentioned, most aircraft engines have cooling fins attached to the cylinder heads to help disperse heat.

i think i have an idea, we're gonna take the car out to the farm this weekend and see if we can rig up something.

 

[Dooley_96 Intrepid ES]

Not that this does much (maybe 1-2 degrees), I'm guessing, but I took a razor knife and hacked up the heat cover thats on the hood. I didn't remove it all for fear of baking the paint, but i took out half of it. I just thought it would help the engine cool faster after shutdown. Cause I know what you mean Sport, it sucks waiting so long to work on the motor. I'm like sitting there with these new parts and looking at them and playing with em going ...come on!! I want to get on with it! But thought I'd pass that on. Probably wont really do anything and it looks bad too. I posted a pic for wutang on another subject and I think you can see from there. Peace bro.

 

[gise1]

Something i've noticed on my trep is that right after i've had the car on for a while not extremly long, right after i shut it off i would open the hood and the intake manifold isn't that hot. it's when it has sit for a while it gets hot.

 

[GR8WHT]

The manifold is a special plastic that has a very low coefficent of heat transfer. Compared to the old metal intakes , your charge is going to pick up a lot less heat this way.

The intake only heats up when sitting still, when moving, it's downdraft cooled.
As in the heat is sucked down and out.

GIES1 is right, they are only heating up after stoping

 

[1mz-fe]

our manifolds are metallic and painted with heat-resistant paint. i understand that the compartment is designed to keep air flowing through it and keep it relatively cool. my plan is to add an additional outlet the higher temperature air to escape from the rear. it will be forced out by the incoming air from the front of the car.

 

[artifex]

Okay, my manifold is not plastic... it is metal and it is rather rough, to the point of being sparkly, like textured... I took a look at 97purple_trep's manifold and it was smooth and looked painted grey... I am curious on why some are different... mine's a 96 ES 3.5L and his is a 97 3.5L.... I am going to check next time if the manifold is hot right after I stop... more later.

-Dan

 

[LymanSS]

Heat management in these cars seems to be a reasonable concern. Since the intake is aluminum (which is highly thermaly conductive) it will tend to conduct ambient heat in the engine compartment into the intake air. We obviously don't want this. There are two main ways to fight this. One is to reduce the temp of the air in the engine compartment. The other is to insulate the intake manifold so it can't conduct as much heat to the cool intake air that is running through it. As for lowering underhood temps....I think the first step would be to get a lower temperature thermostat. This will start the coolant flowing through the engine at a lower temperature, and try to mantain a lower overall running temperature for the engine. The second would be to run the fans more of the time. Another major source of under hood heat are the exhaust manifolds. They have some sheilding around them, but they could use some more, or maybe some header wrap. This can lower underhood temps significantly. Put all that together with a cold air intake and you should cut the temperature of your intake charge noticably.

Scott

 

[97purple_trep]

Ok... Like Artifex said, mine is aluminum, painted with a gray paint.

I really wanted to polish all that grey paint off... I was gonna do this when i do my tune up [spark plugs, wires, throtle body cleaning... all would be easier if I take the intake manifold off... gonna get it polished in the meanwhile]

Is this a really bad idea?

should I paint it instead with some of that heat resistant engine enamel?

Im just looking for advice / opinions...

 

[1mz-fe]

consider this. take that gray off and paint it over with heat-resistent black, then clearcoat it. that would look BAD, especially if you shined up that black plastic cover and clearcoated it too.

 

[97purple_trep]

ok... any reccomendations on taking that gray off?

Also, my best friends dad owns a machine shop, so that might come in handy

 

[p3]

I painted my intake manifold and air box bright red.....it looks pretty cool i would suggest doing it