Heat proofing bonnet

[Rich912]

Has anyone had any success with fitting heat proof material to the inside of the bonnet above the exhaust manifolds in order to protect the paint work. If so i would be interested in which material and adhesive you used.

[blueg33]

I have used a shield that clamps onto the manifold (thermotec I think)

This works

and I will be attaching something to the underside of the bonnet, so am interested in this

Edited by blueg33 on Tuesday 12th July 19:08

[Rich912]

That looks like a good idea to clamp onto the manifolds, i've heard it can be difficult to find a high temp adhesive to stick to the bonnet.

[nrick]

Mclaren did an ace job on the F1, the new one seems to use a sheet type material. Anyone used the one on the PH classifieds?

[Basil Brush]

I've got a piece of thermotec heat reflective mat on the underside of my bonnet. It was the self adhesive stuff but I used some high temp silicone where it wouldn't stay put, and to seal the edges.

[nrick]

Good point cockney.

I used to coat the WRC Fords with a similar product as Zircotec to stop the bonnets peeling and to keep under bonnet temps down. It is normally used on turbo charged cars as the underbonnet temps are so high. I have never been so worried on normally aspirated cars, but the Tuscan is a little different. The airflow from the fans is ducted away from the engine, so sat in traffic the air temps go sky high. The downside to coating or putting blankets on the exhaust is to increase the exhaust gas temp, this could have an effect on performance if the gasses get scavenged back in to the engine, the effect is hard to measure though without a lot of experimentation and simulation. One of the downsides to getting reliable and repeatable dyno results as the heat builds up and effects the results. This could be outweighed by lower inlet temperatures if the heat is not allowed to get into the engine bay by the insulator.
Interesting F1 manifolds aren't coated, if they stop on the track there is a good chance they suffer the same problems as the Tuscan.

My Decat Tuscan doesn't seem to get that hot but I don't do a lot of stop start traffic, joy of living in the country.....

[Rich912]

Thanks guys, some useful info there, i'll post up what i decide to do and put a couple of pics on in case anyone else is interested.