Polishing Intercooler piping

[predator]

I have polished up the intake pipe to the plenum pretty well and its now nice and sparkling. I really want to do my intercooler piping too much and thing it will come up really nicely... just a quick question incase it is a bad idea..

My question is: its HKS piping and has this sparkly silver crap on the top. Does this form any sort of special heat protection or is it just a form of silver paint to make it look slightly better from the factory?? If its just sparkly crap and serves no useful function, i'll sand it off and buff it to a mirror finish.

Does this silver stuff has any special properties i don't know about?? is this a stupid move just for the sake of vanity??

To be honest, I'm just going to probably heat wrap the ****ers anyway because i'm getting a bit of heat soak across the piping from the engine (so i've been told).. so if i polish them and later on wrap them that all fine??

[Roy]

Sounds like you have the same pipes as me, and i think the material is actually painted mild steel.

Dont believe there is anything special about the paint, however you wont want to be polishing mild steel, the finish, durability and corrosion resistance of the piping will be compromised.

[predator]

hmm.. Part of it had worn down and I sanded back a small bit.. Seemed like it would come up quite nicely though? I'm not sure now - i am sure it couldn't suffer too much, you are only sanding off a tiny bit, its not like you're taking mm off the walls of the piping.

Maybe i should leave it then?

[browny]

I think what Roy is trying to say is that if its mild steel and you polish it, about a day later it will rust and look crap.

[whistla]

im planning on sanding mine back, polishing it and spraying some clear epoxy to stop it from rusting

i had polished of one side of the pipe and noticed some rusting to form

was told to either coat it with this epoxy stuff, or just get some anti rusting spray that they welders tend to use and just spray it over with gloss black paint

*shrugs*

well see when i get the change to do it

but yes, that cross over pipes gets a fair bit of heat soak, when i feel the outlet pipe from my intercooler it ice cold, yet my intake temps are registering (thermometer is just located before the throttle body) ~8-12degrees abover ambient