Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance Graphite foam...kind of long as well......

a little while ago i read this article about a material called graphite foam...it was discovered by accident in Oak ridge, tn....go figure!? anyways...they said something along the lines of having the same properties as aluminum with it also being lighter and it cooling faster than aluminum does....here is the kicker...an undislcosed race in the busch races (the races prior to Daytona that week) was running with a radiator made out of graphite foam....this stuff has already been signed to be used as computer chips in supercomputers used by the national security dept....anyways, they say that with the graphite foam radiators you could even relocate teh radiator, if testing goes as planned and hoped...which would lighten up the front end allowing race cars to travel a full 4mph faster. if this happens, do you know what this would do to the aftermarket industry? also with the zetecs.....our engines run so hot anyways....you think it would be possible to run a graphite foam radiator, relocate it to allow a little more ar flow to actually hit the engine and the rest of the engine bay which might help with the temp that our engines run!?

whew.....i am out of breath now....

Do our zetecs run aluminum or copper core radiators?

For those that want to read a little about it.
Pocofoam

I think it has tremendous potential and we will probably be seeing it soon. Probably for computers and big corporation (funding) products first. You could conceivably make hoods and parts of cars out of it to act as heat sinks. Pots and pans, A/C components, the possibilities are endless. I don't know if this would work, but just think how cool the space shuttle would look in black. Hmm, what if they riced it out with flames on the nose and big American Flags on the wings?

But how much does it cost?!?!

I bet you're looking at $1,000 for a radiator...unless for some reason the foam is extremely easy to manufacter....which I doubt.

About the cooling though...I think the biggest benefit for our cars would be that cools better than aluminum and weighs much less than the stock part. The potential for relocation wouldn't really be all that beneficial for our cars. The air needs to flow directly through it and the best way to do that is to put it in the front of the car. The radiator is what keeps the engine at a cetain temp...not the air rushing around it.

I'm not saying the air doesn't help just that this isn't an aircooled engine...its a water cooled engine. And as we all know water has infinitly more cooling/heat transfer potential than air. Why do you think HPP is using a water to air intercooler for the Turbo setup??

Great find by the way!!

Consider this, what if you made the radiator HOSES out of it and made the actual radiator smaller? The heat would dissipate a lot by the time it got to the radiator so the radiator could be smaller and still do the same job. That would lighten the load (some) amd be far less expensive and easier to make. You could also do the water pump hoses as well. That would cool the engine down even more.
But you're right, it's still probably out of our league.

From the Pocofoam site:

PocoFoam is produced through a patented foaming process that creates a structure of highly graphitic aligned ligaments within the foam's cell walls. These ligaments are the key to the material's high thermal conductivity.

Yeah, that sounds cheap......

here is something else to consider........that pocofoam....it might be the same material but it isnt the same stuff i was talking about......at least not the same manufacturer.......the stuff i read about had not been even named much less made into a company.....they are still testing this stuff over at oak ridge....what does this mean to me? we already have 2 manufacturers.....can we say a market? larger market of manufacturers, competitive prices....<:homer:> WOO-HOO! <:homer:>

The shuttle already uses graphite on the nose and the front edges of the wings. For the rest, it doesn't need conduction, it needs insulation. That's why they make those tiles so insulative that you can pick them up by the corners when they're glowing yellow.