Colors under the hood, longish.

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <9804081628.AA10197@cary.eng.pko.dec.com> Don Hoefer writes:

> Matte black paint or lacquer has an emissivity of .97.  Gray paint has
> the lowest emissivity, .87.

During WWII, the Germans became convinced that their U-boats were being
detected by their infra-red emissions.  Infra-red, of course, has a spectrum
of its own from the short to the long - just like visible light.

They expended _enormous_ resources developing paint with the same
reflectivity as the sea across the infra-red spectrum - as I remember, a
grey base coat with two lacquers on top - one with fine iron particles
in suspension, one with tiny glass beads.

The British, of course, had invented centimetric RADAR.

Back on topic - the _major_ weakness of the I5 10V engine in turbo form
is that the bits that have to be cold and the bits that get hot are on
the same side of the engine block.  In my (not so humble) opinion,
the _major_ improvement in the 20V engine is not the over-complicated
valve gear or the Motronic controller - as good as both are.  It's the
fact that the hot bits and the cold bits are separated by the engine
block.

--
 Phil Payne
 Phone: 0385 302803   Fax: 01536 723021
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