Intercooler piping material Options

[KOU In3]

Lately it seems as if a lot of the major manufacturers are switching to aluminum intercooler piping. They tend to site two reasons.

1: Weight reduction- That one I'll grant but it seems to come with a possible materials strength issue too IMO (more likely to get dings and dents in the piping I'd think)

2: Heat transfer- This is the one I'm not following. The claim is that the aluminum piping transfers heat better than stainless or mild steel. I'd always thought that the cooling took place in the intercooler and that you'd want your IC pipes (upper especially) to be insulated from the heat of the engine bay if anything.

If I was trying to transfer heat out of my piping I wouldn't be short-routing it either. Is there something I'm missing here? Obviously the decision of the manufacturers to switch is being driven by those far more knowledgable than I am on the subject. So someone fill me in.. what am I missing?

[wortdog]

These are aluminum can pipes here, I would guess they're using something like 0.049 or 0.060 thickness tubing, which is suprisingly hard to dent. If you're worried about dropping tools on these and denting them, its not a problem. That trailer hitch you use as a breaker bar is about the only thing that could dent a pipe We started using AL tubing for our Formula car waterlines last year, and they've survived the rocks and cones that an open wheel race car has to deal with quite well.

You're pretty much right on the upper-intercooler pipe, but its more of a draw than anything else, I'd say the temp of the air coming out of the IC is close to the underhood temp anyway. As far as the bottom pipe goes, the heat transfer from an AL pipe to air isn't all that great either. For the water lines on the Formula car, it was something like 0.5% to 2% of the total cooling drop from hotside to cold side measured with thermocouples. Water to aluminum to air is more effecient that air to aluminum to air, so you can see the effect would be minimal, even though the temperature difference between the underhood air and the compressor outlet air is around 200-300 degrees F, as compared to the temperature difference of coolant and air of about 100 F. If you drive the turbo far outside of the effeciency range, I could see this as being worthwhile from a cooling standpoint, something around 10% of total cooling.

Aluminum is a little easier to bend and put beads on than steel, and prices are pretty similar. Maybe the price of steel went up? All of the above numbers are educated guesses, I didn't plug anything into the equations, so take it with a grain of salt. The only advantage as far as the car is concerned is the weight IMO.

[natedogg]

I'd say the temp of the air coming out of the IC is close to the underhood temp anyway.

I agree.

[wortdog]

These are aluminum can pipes here,

Haha, oops, are -> aren't.

[Temp_Me96]

Hmmm I used aluminum on my custom kit. Ive always been told to use aluminum mostly for heat transfer. Like valve covers on my Cuda Id never use steel it will always be aluminum because of the heat transfer. Although I do see what you mean about the under hood temp. But the under hood temp would be higher if steel was used on more things. So the more you use Alum. the easier it is to keep the under hood temps down. LOL thats my theory.