I was looking at the Vortec Engine cover on my 2002 5.3 an noticed that it has about a half inch of foam rubber on the underside. It appears to be sounds suppression at the expense of trapping heat at the intake manifold. This is also additional weight.
What is the general thinking on this?

 

never noticed this. i'm sure it does trap heat. but don't expect to lose that much weight or get that much more power from removing it. i doubt its trapping that much heat.

 

I agree the weight and heat are probably unmeasureable differences. Weight reduction starts to add up though. I would be curious to see someone pull this off at the track. It would only take a minute.

 

You will not notice anything but an UGLY intake. The new composite intakes do not hold heat like the old aluminum ones do.

 

I was reading somewhere that the vette guys were seeing better e.t.'s by taking off their plastic covers. Personally I would rather take the cover off if it serves no other purpose than to lower intake tract noise.

 

The Vette guys have enough plastic under the hood to paint a mural on it. I can see a little heat trapping on those cars if they are hotlaping. I can't see how it would effect ET's to the point that they can claim gains of more than a few hundreths if that. As far as our truck go the weight of those is less than a pound and we have a lot more room under the hood than Vettes and F-bodies do.

Greg

 

Silverado sport truck, the 99s and 2000s had slightly smaller and lighter engine covers with a little less foam. Mine is a 2000. If you want to do a straight trade cover for cover let me know and I can email a pic if you want. Thanks.

 

Actually the "heat" issue with the covers in relation to the vette world is more so related to ignition. Many have found that the heat trapped by the covers and emmitted from the valve cover itself has degraded coil perfromance. Some have gone so far as puting nylon spacers and removing covers.

Does this still apply to the trucks?...probably not as much being the truck covers (unless were talking Escalade/Denali 6.0L)don't even get near the coil packs.

Richard

 

i would have to agree with big kid!

our intake manifolds are FUGLY <img border="0" alt="[barf]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_barf.gif" />

 

Hey, I never said the intake was pretty. But we are also the same bunch that will shorten an egr tube, bypass a throttle body, do a Free Ram air, all for dubious gains but you guys get sqeamish when it comes to how thing look? This is one mod that is easily reversed. If your trying to go faster, why drive around with a bicycle helmet on your intake?
Oxidizr, thanks for the informative response.

<small>[ August 25, 2002, 01:42 AM: Message edited by: silverado_sport_truck ]</small>