Thanks, Foreplay.
It's true, all of that infomation about which colors absorb, radiate, insulate and reflect is out there and easy to dig up. This is not new science. If we are going to pay $300 for a radiator, you think that it could be black anodized inexpensively over in China.
Auto Fashions do tend to bring out the challenge in reason in some people. Chrome/bright aluminum under the hood is one of them.
On the other hand, I'm glad my '88 All Trac's exterior paint job is white, except for the hood itself (flat black on both sides). That keeps the interior cooler in Oklahoma's hot summers. My wife's Merker Scorpio and Masda 929 were black. The AC barely kept up...what a waste of fuel. Our Lincoln Towncar is Forest Green. I wish it was white, too. It takes alot of fuel to run that AC.
Gasoline is just going to keep going up. I can easily see $10 a gallon. All of my cars will be parked most of the time. it's a darn good excuse for getting out the bicycle or putting some wear on the soles of your shoes.
Another significant benefit: anodizing make the radiator's surface much harder....Even though it is a very thin layer, it's harder than steel. Aluminum oxide is what a common grey grindstones are made of, be it a powered wheel or a rectangle block held in your hand.
It takes carbide or diamond to cut aluminum oxide.
Always give the Devil his due...86Turboswap did bring out the fact that we have to improve the airflow thru the engine compartment. The additional airflow will cause a little more drag, but is well worth it.
I'd like to put a couple of legitimate vents on the quarter panels near the doors. A couple of small scoops facing the rear should create a bit of negative pressure to pull some heat out. That's a project on down the road.
Talking about the heat retaining/heat reflecting properties of brite aluminum. At first, I put some aluminum foil under the turbo heat shield to reflect the heat back into the turbo. It did keep a minute amount of the underhood temps down. The best results is when I wraped the exhaust side of the turbo and the gutted cat with aluminum foil covered by insulated heat wrap. That keeps the heat out of the engine compartment and into the exhaust system.
I wrapped my house's hot water heater with aluminum foil covered by R-19 fiberglass insulation. That beats the devil out of a thin commercial hot water blanket; The leftover roll of R-19 and aluminum foil didn't coast squat. I judiciously used some duck tape to hold it in place.
You can wrap the rubber/black plastic of the air induction/air filter in aluminum foil to reduce hot engine temperature saturation into the cool air intake side. It would keep the incoming air to the intake side of the turbo a bit cooler. Just remember the point of diminishing returns.
I remember forty years ago when I put an carb spacer on my 1965 Gran Sport Buick. The spacer consisted of several plates of thin aluminum separated by fiber. It raised the Rochester Quadrajet up sevral inches above the intake on the 401ci. It insulated the fuel bowl from the intake's heat and allowed better atomization of the airfuel mixture by providing a longer path into the plenum. It was good for a few horsepower.
For the same above reasons, I wouldn't want the radiator to be brite aluminum. Flat black is the best color to radiate heat.
To clear up things, I wasn't calling 86turboswap a fool, but was pointing out that part of his particular statement on the subject did come across as foolhardy. That is a big difference and I think most reasonable people recognize the difference.
Don in Tulsa