[artistang]

Well, I just got my cheap a$$ aftermarket radiator from Auto Zone today for my resto project. I was rather dissapointed in the product but I guess you get what you pay for. The core and tanks are smaller than the original and the tanks are plastic....yuck! Anyhow, the core is bright shiny aluminum, should I paint it black and if so, what kind of paint should I use?

I know black dissipates heat better than shiny alum, but would the paint act more like an insulator than a heat dissipater?

I have also seen pics on AFM of turbo cars and the innercooler is visible from the front and those too are shiny.......should those also be black?

...just wondering...

[EagleAutosports]

You can paint it if you want. Nothing wrong with the aluminum look either. If you do, you can get some engine paint to handle the heat.

[STONECOLD]

I would think that the paint would interfere with the radiators ability to dissipate heat.

[EagleAutosports]

I was thinking that too, black actually holds heat, but...

[artistang]

Originally Posted by EagleAutosports

I was thinking that too, black actually holds heat, but...

It does, but it also radiates heat better than any other color.....check out this article on "paint-it-black"

http://www.offroaders.com/tech/paint-it-black.htm

[Aimbot1]

Originally Posted by STONECOLD

I would think that the paint would interfere with the radiators ability to dissipate heat.

you are correct, certin paints will be VERY bad for it

[HalfPackLX]

are the intercoolers silver because they aren't painted at all?

[EagleAutosports]

OK, I didn't know that. I don't claim to know everything and am always glad to learn something new.
And intercoolers aren't painted at all. That's the reason for the shiny surface.

[STONECOLD]

I don't think the color of the paint really matters, its the fact that the surface that is supposed to dissipate the heat will be covered.

[J. Rhapsody]

Most are unpainted cuase it doesnt matter and less into it is less you pay for it. Unpainted aluminum probally cools better

[artistang]

OK, here is the answer to my own question, as per my NASA buddy in Huntsville......NO, it is not necessary to paint the radiator black.

All my life I have been working on cars and every radiator I have seen was black, even when they come back from the radiator shop. So, naturally, I would question a silver colored or bare alum radiator as far as heat dissipation is concerned. Here is the real deal on radiators. You could paint it pink, orange or green, doesent matter, because the dominant mechanism of heat exchange of an automotive radiator and the atmosphere is convection not radiation. It just does not get hot enough to radiate a lot of heat by radiation. Fans are installed in most cars models to increase air flow to increase convection. A car will quickly overheat if the fan belt breaks, a car in stop-and-go traffic for a long time will overheat too. I guess the same goes true for innercoolers.

So, why do we call them radiators when they are really convectors????

...go figger....

Guess I did right by not painting the radiator or convector, even though it really doesnt matter. Got that sucker installed, fan and shroud and will probably fire it up tomorrow.......

[sleeper_inc]

My car doesn't have a fan and 10 minutes of down town driving I was hitting the 250*f mark

[J. Rhapsody]

So you COULD paint it if you wanted to??

[sleeper_inc]

In short... Yes