heres some shot of my intercooler and piping fully polished. only took 4 hours and 2 painful fingers in the end and a lot of wetsanding.








chris

 

bling bling!

thats pretty good! I wish i can do something like that under my hood.

 

Very nice job! The fins on the IC a bit bent up. That from polishing, or is that just the picture?

 

what grit sand paper did you use on this.and how did you buff it out? dremel??.. post your knowledge.. i would like mine to look the same. thanks

 

I hate to say it but, your intercooler just lost about a third of it's cooling capacity with the fins all bent over. Airflow is seriously restricted.


Other than that, the polishing of the piping was a cool idea.

 

i agree. it looks cool, but you need to bend the fins back up to let the air flow.

 

yea i know i still need to do that, some of the fins where pretty bent up before i polished it, i was trying to figure out if i could use a A/c condenser fin straighter or something. i dont know. most of the fins on the IC look like there bent cause the edges got polished are well, cant really do to much about that. are for the polished process it what not to hard at all, there was just me and a friends do it, till my friend decided to go drinking but it took about 4 hours or so with air tools, sand paper and a dremel. first off we hit it with a electric dremel getting all the hard to get spaces, then we hit it will a DA sander (dry) all over the piping and IC, after we got the aluminum all good and smooth, we lighty went over with a steel wheel brush on the air dremel, which did hella good (this was only on the piping), then we starting wet sanding, 400 grit paper nothing special but enough to get it smooth as ice. the DA did most of the work considering that the IC is clear coated (wierd) the wet sanding was the harder, longest part of it all, at this part we were about half way though. then this is where the fun start, BUFFERING!! i used a air dremel tool with a 4in or so buffering wheel, using WHITE rogue on the piping it was bling bling really fast because of how easy it was to get the buffer in there. the IC took the longest about 2 hours by itself, i used RED rogue for the IC, red is a little bit different compound to the white. and at the end of it i hard TONs compound all over me and 2 painful fingers from wet sand, i recommend wearing old clothes for this and a REALLY REALLY FAST AIR DREMEL, electric dremel isnt fast enough, it will take you a long time to get the job done. AIR is the way to go for this. hope this help for anyone. if anyone knows where to get a fin straighter that would help me out, using a screw driver doesnt work believe me i tried. later guys thanks for the replies

chris

 

Nice.
I did something similar to my brake calipers and found that it increased "RUST"- yuk. So watch out for corrosion and rust.
I would have left the fins alone.
The IC looks like chrome now- blinding!
Anything else in the engine bay that needs a shine?

 

well it not like i bent the fins on purpose. plus i getting a water IC soon any way so this was kind of a cool thing to do. i am hoping to do the engine mounts and make some covers for the big gaps up top. hopefully.


chris

 

pics are back for me again!

 

All of the pictures are showing for me.
Sometimes if you get the "red-x" just wait a bit longer to let the links connect and load.
Sometimes you may need to quit and restart your browser.
I wonder if clear laquer spray over the curved part of the intercooler won't keep it easy to clean and looking sharp.

Hey! You're missing one of the short IC cover bolts.
One of mine fell off, too. Tighten them well. (lock tite)

 

That's beautiful!
Technical question out of curiosity:
Doesn't polishing actually reduce metal's ability to transfer heat (less surface area or something)?
Anyhow, looks great.

 

Yes, that is true, but I am guessing that not all that much surface area has actually dissapeared in this case.

 

yea the surface of the intercooler that i polished was only between the fins were you could see them. i got a fin striaghter from the store yesterday, did fit the IC fins at all. used a flat head screw driver and bent them a little bit. nothing special. as for corrosion i have never heard of polishing going rusty, must be some sort of chemical that you were using. thanks for the replies.


chris

 

if there was some sort of anti-corrosion coating on the metal, you most likely polished it off... other than that, I wouldn't worry about it... you will know soon with the wet weather that has come through here though...

 

Polished aluminum is not difficult to keep clean, as long as you do it somewhat regularly. Simple mag wheel polish works. Waxing the aluminum helps keep it looking better longer.

 

Looks great, I did mine and I also did the engine bracket on the right side looking at the engine compartment. Have fun ,Tim

 

what is the WHITE rogue stuff that your talking about.. thanks

 

red and white rogue is are different kinds of compounds that are used of metal and other things to polished. white is a little more gritty then red. usually you go over with white and a high speed and again with the red to totally smooth it out. i am doing a intercooler pipe off a RB26 skyline motor soon. i will do some pics on that you show you guys how to do it. thank again

chris

 

ahem -
rouge
- as you were.

 

??? okay, sorry i didnt get any pics last night on the pipe we did for the skyline motor, but soon we are doing the intake manifold on it so i will take some pics there. sorry about that.


chris