plastic engine cover on MY10 sv6

[sv6newby]

hey
from another thread ive heard some advice on removing the plastic engine cover as apparently its a massive heat trap....
ive taken it off it seems pretty useless i dont know why manufactures put em on?
its quite heavy for something that has no use....
does any one think they actually have any benefits? why are they fitted with a engine cover?
should there be any reasons for keeping it on?

 

[kuzman89]

only reason I can tell is to keep some of the engine noise out of the cabin

 

[jasonsv6]

just make the engin bay look neat and clean

 

[SPack]

I believe that the main reasons are firstly noise reduction, and secondly as an "aesthetic enhancement". In general terms, the first reason is fairly well supported scientifically; but the second reason is clearly subjective...some people like their engine's bare some don't.

A couple of links supporting noise reduction:

http://www.plasticsportal.net/wa/plasticsEU~en_GB/function/conversions:/publish/upload/technical_resources/parts_testing/Reduction.pdf

Science Links Japan | Acoustic Analysis of Engine Covers as Sound Insulators.

 

[UFO]

i think they look crap... will be taking mine off the second its delivered. Noise reduction?!? We arent talking about a cluncky old diesel here! If you want no noise by an electric car or something! You get far more noise coming into the cabin from the tyres... maybe we should all put plastic **** all around the tyres too!

Once the fuel ignites and pushes the piston down, the only heat you want is in the exhaust pipe- the longer you can keep the exhaust gases hot, the faster it'll travel down to the other end of car, hence why exhaust wrap works so well on custom extractors (but 'looks' terrible).

Putting a plastic blanket overthe engine for asthetics is a stupid idea. Who the hell cares what it looks like under the bonnet once its out of the showroom?!? (mind you a perty supercharger is always nice to look at ).

I reckon the plastic makes it all look cheap and nasty anyway. My 2c.

 

[XST80]

They're just to keep the bay looking neat and tidy.

It's got nothing to do with noise, if engine covers were for noise then wtf are the covers on the Holden 304 5L's for? It's just decoration.

 

[kuzman89]

Speaking from experience, my MY09 alloytec 3.6 without engine covers sounds alot harsher, under heavy acceleration it sounds alot better with the plastic covers as it cuts out alot of the high frequencies.

V8's dont really need purty engine covers, as usually they sound awesome without one.

 

[Adameksv6]

i took my engine cover off this morning to see what it looked like without it, i think it looks better without one. I looked on the inside of the cover though and noticed the heat padding stuff, I was concerned that maybe the reason for the cover and heat proof padding was that the heat would damage the bonnet or something ????

 

[TinSnips]

+1 for a nicely machined harrop supercharger! The engine covers on recent commodores are acoustic suppressors as well as massive heat keeper-innerers! Plenty of people take them off with no problems. Should be enough air moving around in the bay to disperse the heat so it doesn't do any damage. The old 5L was just a nasty piece of decoration, as was the cover for the 3.8. I intend to spray the cover on my 6L but the sidi cover is very bulky!

 

[philsv6]

does the 2010 sidi have an alum intake manafold like the earlier models? cant tell because of the big engine cover