Anybody know where one might buy some raw phenolic material? McMaster-Carr has one extremely expensive material under plastics called kevlar/phenolic garolite. Most the the Garolite family of products touts flame retardant properties, but that was the closest to being a good thermal insulator. So, whats the right stuff and where can it be purchased from.

BTW, that Kevlar/Phenolic Garolite costs $308 for a 12 x 24 x .125 sheet

 

I think you found the right source.


I think you are about right 1% is good for a NA motor.

Bret

 

I’m going to chime in on the “icing the intake is a waste of time” and respectfully disagree based upon real world experience having been formerly sponsored by a dyno shop.. On the dyno you can consistently pick up 5-8 hp and 8-15 ft torque by icing down a LT series car. At the track you pick up about a tenth and 1 mph.

Iceing the intake is the real deal unless you start the car or allow it warm back up by sitting hours in the staging lane.

On a heavily ported intake and heavily ported heads the effect is not as great as one with more metal, but don’t think for a second cooler (read denser) air doesn’t help.

This comes from the school of "been there, done it" with probably 500 pulls on the dyno testing and tuning.

 

Denny, I just skimmed through this thread again and don't see the post you're referring to that says "icing the intake is a waste of time". I don't think anyone would say that with any engine experience.

 

"It would probably have about as much effect as blocking off the exhaust crossover passage on a carbureted intake manifold- very slight gain to be had. I'm sure it's gotta be worth something. People don't ice down their intake manifolds at the dragstrip for nothing."
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I missed the "don't" in the earlier post. My apologies…. Just read a bit to fast I guess.

Interesting enough my LT4 intake is ported almost paper thin in some areas and the LE3 heads are pretty thin also. We iced everything down a couple of weeks ago during a tuning session just to see how much it would pick up and it only picked up 3hp and about 7lbs torque. This was after about five runs trying different water temps and cooling periods as it picked up virtually nothing on the first pass.

Not sure if it was because we had the tuning pretty much dead on prior icing the intake, a whole bunch of material removed and less to hold heat or just one of those days. I’m going to do it again after the first of the year as I typically see much more of a gain.

Frankly I’d like to see it replicate itself low again as icing is a pain in the butt.