Gold reflective tape on top mount turbos...

[Torgus]

Honestly, why the fuck do people put gold reflective tape all over their engine bays and on their sheet metal on their struts towers etc. on top mounts?

Did one idiot do it and the rest followed on the gram?

What logic leads someone to believe covering the sheet metal will help in any way shape or form? 1 it looks hideous, 2 it does nothing.

Wrap the DP, use a turbo blanket, move the washer filler neck, and you are done. Insulate the waste gate lines if you are paranoid. That is all that is needed. Anything else is overkill and does nothing. At least on an AFC kit.

Example:

I don't see what it does on the VC either...

 

[fmorelli]

 

[The Convert]

There is some merit in it depending on how much heat is radiating into the sheet metal. The strut towers are structural and heat cycling them will fatigue them and embrittle them over time until failure occurs. How much, over what time, and at what temperatures is another question though.

 

[Torgus]

There is some merit in it depending on how much heat is radiating into the sheet metal. The strut towers are structural and heat cycling them will fatigue them and embrittle them over time until failure occurs. How much, over what time, and at what temperatures is another question though.

I agree, if no blanket was used...there is a potential but I doubt the gold reflective wrap would help. If you use a turbo blanket and DP wrap there is basically no meaningful radiant heat in that area. Which is why tjhere is zero reason to put the DEI gold reflective tape all over the place.

There has also never been a reported failure of a strut tower and top mounts have been out since what early 2011?

 

[335i_nick]

Some people go overboard with the tape

 

[Omar@VaderSolutions]

why put tape on the engine cover? no fucking clue that is silly

for plastic valve covers i guess it helps preventing it from cracking or burning a whole through it . but like @The Convert said "How much, over what time, and at what temperatures is another question though."

 

[135iTX]

because racecar.

 

[rev210]

left over tape?

 

[J. Dub]

I'm not seeing a filter on the turbo in OP's picture... I'm also 35 and my eyes aren't what they were 10 years ago. Surely he doesn't run filterless right?

 

[martymil]

Polished silver ceramic on the dump pipe, ceamic coat the turbo and a blanket is more than enough.

 

[F87Source]

Some guys do it over wiring harnesses to prevent them from going brittle, or they do it to protect the paint on the hood, a turbo blanket is pretty good at heat insulation but if you track it hard enough it can still bubble the paint over time, it can also make carbon hoods have a yellow tinge in the clear coat.

Or guys with external reservoir coil overs wrap the tanks and lines to prevent heat from affecting the fluid inside the reservoir. There is also the idea that they don't want the metal and other components in the engine bay to heat soak, so if the engine bay is well vented with a hood and fender vent setup then the heat will be sucked out more efficently instead of building up on metal components during low speed conditions.

Otherwise I guess some people like the look, and what they do is up to them I guess. For me I just wrap my coil over reservoirs, oil catch can hoses and water injection lines, since my turbo setup on most of my old cars was bottom mounted and gold tape is crazy expensive/tacky. I did wrap an aluminum intake before since it sat on top of super hot radiator hoses and data logs showed iat's spiking heavily during redlight idling which caused the car to run crappy (Sti's have crappy ECU's which really dont adapt well) so thermal tape helped.

 

[fmorelli]

Coatings are effective, especially since keeping heat INSIDE is good for exhaust velocity. Once the heat gets outside, then everything is suffering from greater heat cycling. I've seen pipe, welds, etc all suffer from excessive heat cycling. Another thing that would help is a bit of airflow through that part of the engine compartment to carry away heat. I've given thought to a reverse NACA duct attached to the undertray on the exhaust side to help flow some air across the exhaust side of the engine bay.

Filippo

 

[9krpmrx8]

Monkey see, monkey do.

 

[Milan]

The tape is not nearly as bad as the idiots running a turbo guard or any other screen over their turbo

 

[F87Source]

The tape is not nearly as bad as the idiots running a turbo guard or any other screen over their turbo

+1,000,000,000,000,000

 

[martymil]

When you ceramic coat a dump its done inside and out.

This reduces heat transfer dramatically, as most mechanics will tell you fix or reduce the heat in the first place.

Heat tape is great and works very well but not a solution as it doesn't last forever.

 

[martymil]

The tape is not nearly as bad as the idiots running a turbo guard or any other screen over their turbo

Sometimes you have no choice as room is limited and you cant run a filter but its not a good idea if you can.

 

[F87Source]

When you ceramic coat a dump its done inside and out.

This reduces heat transfer dramatically, as most mechanics will tell you fix or reduce the heat in the first place.

Heat tape is great and works very well but not a solution as it doesn't last forever.

+1
I personally just use the tape on stuff you can't ceramic coat.


Edit-

Sometimes you have no choice as room is limited and you cant run a filter but its not a good idea if you can.

That's a crappy sacrifice to make power then imo. Or the top mounted turbo kit was not designed right, or is trying to fit a turbo that is too large.

However if all you care about is squeezing that last bit of horsepower then it is what it is, you gotta take risks.

 

[martymil]

I personally will never run a top mount and this is why I helped design and build the first RHD bottom mount which they said could not be done.

We mangaged to squeeze a GTX 3584rs in there too whit out any compromises at all and we have no heat issues or filter compromises.

We had to remove the heat shielding from the body and replace it with glue on stuff due to room constraints, we used silver on the rails as it looks oem
and we have absolutely no issues and we don't even run a blanket as the ceramic works really well.

In the end its all in the initial engineering but people can do what they want.

 

[F87Source]

I personally will never run a top mount and this is why I helped design and build the first RHD bottom mount which they said could not be done.

We mangaged to squeeze a GTX 3584rs in there too whit out any compromises at all and we have no heat issues or filter compromises.

We had to remove the heat shielding from the body and replace it with glue on stuff due to room constraints, we used silver on the rails as it looks oem
and we have absolutely no issues and we don't even run a blanket as the ceramic works really well.

In the end its all in the initial engineering but people can do what they want.

That's fricken awesome!

Yeah I personally hate top mounted setups too, especially the filterless setups.