This is the original older style heatsink from my Novarossi Legend 28-8RT in my Losi LST2. It suffered some road rash from a ridiculous wheelie endo. This heatsink has the cutouts on the side and was the blue color. The modern heads are round and smooth without the cutouts, AND it’s PURPLE! I had ordered a new heatsink from Nova Direct, but they didn’t tell me it was purple. The picture on their website was of the blue one, which is what I expected to get. I really don’t like purple.

So I decided to do something way off the wall with the blue head with road rash. Sand out the road rash, strip all of the anodizing, and polish the crap out of it to look like it’s chromed. This is what it looks like post-anodize stripping. I also am going to sand the dimpled as-case texture off and smooth it out. On a physics level, this will remove some surface area for cooling, but I don’t anticipate much. This engine never runs warmer than 240F as it is, so I’m not worried.

To strip the anodizing, I used a bath of drain cleaner. I forget the brand, but it came in a thick ziploc bag. It was a mix of sodium hydroxide (Lye) and potassium hydroxide. I wore rubber gloves - a MUST to do this part. Pour a little drain cleaner on and scrub with a toothbrush QUICKLY. The aluminum gets hot as the dickens real FAST. Scrub, rinse with water to cool off and repeat until the anodizing is gone. After you rinse the last time when your satisfied with the stripping, the aluminum will get a black oxide film on the surface. A quick scrub with Bar Keepers Friend kitchen cleanser removes the oxide layer. Rinse really well and dry. BKF is the only cleanser that works the best because it has oxalic acid in it. This is the key. Other cleansers may work, but will take longer.

Now I’ll sand the cast surfaces between fins and the cutouts to remove the factory CNC machine marks. with 220 grit abrasive and follow with finer grits until I can run a polishing wheel over the surfaces I want polished.

I’ve been working on it when I can find spare time. I have all of the casting texture sanded out between all of the fins. I need to custom make some polishing and ultra fine sanding discs for between the fins. Once I can do that, I can move on to the polishing part.