I'm thinking about doing a little heat management work......What shoulg I do?

Exhaust ports? (Will this reduce heat absorbtion through the port walls and pick up velocity?)

Combustion chamber in head? (Will this help reduce hot spots, maintain higher combustion temps, or just cause more detonation?)

Valves? Exhaust only, or Both?

What about the intake ports? (Will this maintain a cooler intake charge temp?)

What's the general consensus?
Thanks,

Oh, and will reverse flow cooling just be a waist with all the "heat barriers" in the combustion chamber??

 

IMO, it depends on what the rest of your engine is, and it's use.

If you are relatively stock and driving on the street, coatings won't give much return for the high cost. If, however, you are in a race-only mode, have squeezed the last ounce of compression, intake flow, exhaust , cam, etc. and still want more, coatings might give you the extra edge. They aren't the magic bullet, unfortunately.

Would I coat basically stock parts? Nope. Spend your money on heads, intake exhaust and valvetrain. No sense buying truffle sauce for you Big Mac. Sorry about the foodie analogy, but it's lunchtime here.

Check with folks like

http://www.swaintech.com/

 

Thanks oldstroker,
I'm at 12psi with a procharger and was just wondering if it would help me reduce the chance of detonation with 93octane.
Is this stuff durable enough for the street?

 

I'm torn between two lovers on coating with octane and detonaton limits with either very high comp. ratios or boost.

One says coat to hold the heat in to make more power and coat to protect the piston from melting from the combustion heat generated with 12 psi boost.

The other says try to help prevent detonation by getting the excess heat into the coolant thru the aluminum heads. Detonatiion is like hitting the engine in the teeth with a hammer (not an original comment). It's not nice, especially on pistons.

You might try coating the pistons, but not the heads.

If you have detonation now, I'd get rid of it first and not use the coating as a band aid. If you are just trying to protect the piston IN CASE some detonaton sets in if you get a hot inlet temp or slightly low Motor Octane number gas ( the 'M' in the [R + M]/2 pump octane rating), I'd consider Swain's GoldCoat.

With 12 psi, I don't think you'll see much airflow improvement with coating.

Stroker McGurk's motto was "If some is good, and more is better, then too much is just enough." 12psi on the street is very 'McGurkian' in my opinion. I'm a very mellowed Stroker. Age does that.

My highly opinionated $.02

 

I don't see why coating either the pistons or the head would prevent detonation because detonation is caused by heat. The coating is trying to hold more heat in the combustion chamber. You do want to keep as much heat in the combustion chamber as possible for the most horse power. More heat = faster gas expansion = more HP.

Coating the intake port to keep the charge cooler is a legitimate idea. The HP increase would not be substantial. IMHO.

 

I've heard coating the valves help reduce detonation drastically cause they stay cooler. The fewer the hot spots in the chamber the better. Mayby coating the head too would standardize combustion chamber temps.