>From my Corvair days (air cooled engine) I recall all the sheet metal shrouds
were painted a satin black. From what I remember a polished surface is the
worst offender if you want to radiate heat. Rough pebbly grained surface
(more surface area) is bes Flat black (or black anodize) is best, where
gloss black is not so good. (lots of aftermarket valve covers & oil pans were
black anodized rough surface, with lots of internal fingers to carry the heat
to the outside). The worst thing Corvair owners could do is to put lots of
chrome parts on the engine. I actually saw a show car with every shroud
being polished chrome. Luckily the owner just moved it from trailer to
concours meets and back onto the trailer (the chrome was already starting to
get blue). Also, you'll notice transistor heat sinks are often flat black.
As someone mentioned earlier, the rough surface takes precedence over the
. Also, to retain heat (keep it from radiating back onto the hot
engine) I saw in "How to hot-rod Corvair engines" that to paint the exhaust
stacks/headers are painted gloss white. The thought is the heat stays internal
to the header until it can be released away from the engine (muffler). This
(along with wrapping the headers with heat insulation) was often used tretain
heto retain
heat energy up to the turbo on turbo 'vairs.
-Bob T.
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