I am planning to do some crude measurements of surface temperatures of the top of the DFIC, the DFIC diverter and the inside of the Alta CAI box. What inexpensive temperature gauge or thermometer would you recommend? I want something that I can place directly on the metal surface.

 

I would use a lazer temp guage cause it would be WAY faster then trying to get good readings using a analog guage.

 

But you wouldn't measure while driving. You'd stop, pop the hood, shoot the temps, take some notes.

There are surface mount thermocouples that use screws or adhesive pads as well.

Matt

 

Check out the PT-510 surface probes: http://www.pace-sci.com/temperature.htm An IR thermometer is cheaper, but as Matt points out, you can't take readings while you're driving along. Still, it should give you a good idea of what's getting hot, and what's not.
I have a pretty good idea where the air is getting hot, or not, these days in my engine bay based on the 4 temperature probes I have running now (airbox, pre-IC, post-IC and inlet manifold) and I'll say this: the airbox is not a major source of heat, and although it soaks a little, it quickly sheds any heat built up; the SC is *the* major source of heat, period. Coast down a hill at 60mph and your IATs will be close to ambient. The DFIC, or any other IC, does an amazingly good job of cooling the air so long as there's a lot of ambient air getting rammed through the IC cooling fins.
Matt has the right model for this problem: find out where the hot spots are in the engine bay, and see where the air flows while driving, then figure out how to manage the hot air, and direct the cold air (where's that friggin' EASY button...?)

 

I thought you guys knew where the easy button was.

An IAT is very handy. You can look at many more pieces than placing sensors unless you want to fill the car with gages. IMHO it's a valuable tool

The 2 doctors have many times more notes than I, but may not have had as much data loging equipment in a car or logged as much non repeatable data ( accurate but worthless ). This spring & summer was so unperdictable that collecting data was next to nill. This is a good reason for having an IRT, not as accurate, but if you can string a couple of good days together...........

Almost forgot. What was I thinking? Thank you Matt & Phil for a ton of solid numbers. Many of which I'v used to deal with under hood heat management.