We offer an industry only option. Our composite heat barrier. Our composite heat barrier is part of the manifold (that part of the manifold is aluminum if the option is not taken). The manifold bolts directly to the cylinder heads. Cylinder heads are HOT. 200-235deg. Aluminum is a fantastic conductor of heat. The problem with bolting an aluminum intake manifold to 200+deg aluminum cylinder heads is that the intake manifold quickly heats up. That hot manifold in turn heats up the air inside it, which is your intake air…….that you want to keep cool. If at all possible, you want to keep your IAT’s down below 100deg. That is nearly impossible when the “box” (the manifold) you are running them through is anywhere from 180-200deg.

Our composite heat barrier is just that, a heat barrier. Heat has a very hard time passing through the composite material we chose. That means far far less heat is transferred to the body of the intake manifold, which means far far less heat is transferred to the intake air charge.

That is not the only advantage though. The intercooler (all intercoolers as far as we know) are attached directly to the intake manifold. The manifold is aluminum, the intercooler is aluminum. The intercooler has cool water running through it, the manifold is hot. What ends up happening is that the intercooler uses some of its ability to extract heat to cool the body of the intake manifold. That is not the intercoolers job, its job is to cool the air coming out of the blower. If the intercooler is using its LIMITED ability to extract heat to cool the intake manifold body it’s not doing a very good of a job at what it’s supposed to be doing, and that is cooling the air coming out of the blower.

Additionally, if the intercooler is cooling the body of the intake manifold there will be more heat in the water. More heat in the water means that it will not do as good of a job cooling the intake air temps. In short, cooler water is better. And with the composite barrier the water in the intercooler system will always be cooler.

We have had outstanding success with these barriers. A lot more than we expected when we initially started testing them. It’s hard to put a number on what they improve because they improve so many things at the same time in a “secondary” kind of way. To distill the performance gain into one number we have converted it into how it effects the gallons per minute (gpm) of water flow you need in the intercooler system. By our estimation the composite heat barrier “replaces” the need for about 4gpm of water flow. This will make more sense to you once you have read through the intercooler system options information.

At $275 the optional composite heat barrier is by far the best bang for your cooling buck you will ever spend. Period. You can’t spend $275 on your intercooler system anywhere and get the same performance advantage. Not even close.

If you want to add the composite barrier later down the road it is $675 and requires that the intake manifold be almost entirely disassembled. If you want the advantage of the composite heat barrier, you want it now.