" My charge pipe is not plastic. It's the BMS one (CP-E) and does not have the same heat retention/shedding properties as one made of plastic, nor the limitation in a hot dry climate that makes plastic/rubber turn to dust rather quickly. Shields are always good though for sure.

Thank you. I hope to have decent data that's actually useful for people to look at even if it's just small stuff. I put a lot of effort into minimizing or eliminating variables between the tests. I think real world differences are on the small side and very easy to get useful data (or lack thereof) lost in the multitude of variables typically present in non-laboratory conditions.

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" After installation of my VRSF 7" FMIC, I noticed that upon throttle dip in, my charge temps would drop several degrees. I figured this was indicative of heat soak through FMIC cold side piping/charge pipe, so I did some data logging at idle to find out.

I chose idle, in a garaged setting, because I can control nearly every variable rendering charge air temp differences to solely be attributed to the heat tape wrapping. I logged charge air temps vs. ambient every 30 seconds until the charge air temps no longer increased (heat soak). It took a little under an hour.

Car is a 2007 BMW 335i, brentuned E85 map, VSRF 7" FMIC, BMS DCI, BMS charge pipe, Forge DV's. The experiment was done in a garage (minimal circulating flow) under identical ambient temperatures, both times the car was cooled down for a minimum of 12 hours prior to commencing test. The heat tape was thermo-tec:

http://www.thermotec.com/products/14...mo-shield.html

The bottom line is that it does actually make a difference in charge air temps. You can see where the graphs diverge, the point at which radiant heat in the engine bay starts to effect charge air temps. It's not a huge difference, but since I live in the desert, and don't want to run meth I was looking for some easy ways to control temps. The next step for this will be to dive into the DCI vs. Cold Air intake experiments, which I believe a huge percentage of the data out there is either flawed or not applicable to very hot climates. "