how would you make an engine bay cover?

[trinistylez]

so just an idea.... a lot of the newer cars these days, especially the acuras that I have seen have the "plastic covers" that hide just about everything except intake, the head and some other minor stuff. how would you go about designing one for the cb7 chassis. I was thinking fibre glass but not too sure how well it would hold up. somethings to keep in mine... how would you go about keeping it secure, would it be made up of multiple pieces, or just one as a whole. this is something i feel like would be a fun experiment. your feedback would be appreciated and any thoughts too.

this is what some look like:










i like the look where some people have carbon fibre wrapped or dressed it up in various ways to personalize it.

[GhostAccord]

That is a great show piece but I don't see it being all that great for helping with under hood temps in a CB. If you are running this on a daily driver you want to make sure whatever material you use has a high flash point.

Fist step would be to make a cardboard/wooden template of what you want the piece to cover. Then once you have the template made you would go to the next step. Choosing your medium, steel or fibreglass/carbon fibre. After that you ether creating a mold for your fibre & resin product or make the piece out of sheet metal.

If I were to make one I would make it in multiple pieces. For ease of getting at certain areas of the bay if the need be. It would be held in place with some fancy bolt and washers and some of the stock trim clips. Depending on what area of the bay I am connecting it too.

[#1_M.I._CARLOS]

hmmm i don't know if i would wanna hide away my engine but i think its actually possible to do something like that it would just have to be custom made and it wouldn't be easy

[trinistylez]

That is a great show piece but I don't see it being all that great for helping with under hood temps in a CB. If you are running this on a daily driver you want to make sure whatever material you use has a high flash point.

Fist step would be to make a cardboard/wooden template of what you want the piece to cover. Then once you have the template made you would go to the next step. Choosing your medium, steel or fibreglass/carbon fibre. After that you ether creating a mold for your fibre & resin product or make the piece out of sheet metal.

If I were to make one I would make it in multiple pieces. For ease of getting at certain areas of the bay if the need be. It would be held in place with some fancy bolt and washers and some of the stock trim clips. Depending on what area of the bay I am connecting it too.

yeah, i forgot to mention that. All 3 cb's that I have owned tend to get a little warm under the hood, not to the point where they over heat, but enough that when the auto fan comes on while the car is off, it almost burns my leg when you feel the heat being blown at you. maybe some fancy vents to go with the interior? as far as getting it to stay in place. I am probably thinking of using the lip that sticks out on the inside of the hoods, they are part of the fender i think, i could be wrong

[alan lx]

This is a pretty neat idea. If you could fab it from a thin metal or aluminum would work for sure but any kind of small curve or bends maybe difficult. Do you have access to a metal brake?
Its been awhile since I worked with fiberglass but if you had a cardboard or wood model, you can pour the resin around it or into it, finishing fiberglass for prepping for primer can be a little difficult if I remember correctly. But I think it maybe worth a try. And yes you could design it with some venting maybe to assist with heat.
If you had a mold, to give to someone that does injection molding (this is one area I really don't know much about), that maybe a place to start.
You could really get creative with this. From different finishes, textures, you could possibly integrate some underwood lighting (I would keep it clean looking, no rice looking 5 shade blue and green xmas tree looking junk looking crap.)
A couple pointers I would say: 1- it needs to be easily removable (most of us are always under the hood adjusting something or whatever. 2- I would make it at least 2 price (most times we are only under the hood to fix something on 1the side of the engine bay).3- keep it looking like it was designed to be there (OEM look, no ricey). Best of luck.

[crazymikey]

I really like this idea, and it helps alot with making the bay look clean, neat and tidy.

You can obviously add in vent grilles or holes.

I would like to see this idea atleast reach an experimental template stage.

[schierholz]

I don't know about that but my brother in law mentioned to get some instillation on the hood to keep temps at a reasonable temp like cadillac's, dodge intrepid buicks
Is that worth any time?

[GhostAccord]

I don't know about that but my brother in law mentioned to get some instillation on the hood to keep temps at a reasonable temp like cadillac's, dodge intrepid buicks
Is that worth any time?

That insulation is there to keep the temperature of your hood down not as much for the engine bay temperatures. I know a lot of people who rip that off of brand new cars..... I have always removed it myself. Helps keep the snow off the hood in the winter time...lol

[dj_ender]

Do you have a bigger pic by chance? This is what it looks like on my phone:

[steelbluesleepR]

I think they look like crap, personally. If/when I get a car with one of those, it might very well be the first thing I remove. They are there to hide the ugliness of modern wiring harnesses and hoses, but our motors don't have nearly as much to hide.

They also have acoustic material underneath to kill nasty sounds that come from modern motors, but do absolutely nothing for heat. Even the under-hood blankets are for acoustics, not heat. If your engine bay is getting hot, find the cause of it rather than try and make something to just cover it up. Flush your radiator and heater cores out really well, check all your hoses, etc.

[cloudasc]

The only real benefit I see to the insulation they use on hoods, is it protects the paint on the hood from the heat emitted by the engine. 40k miles on a new hood, and the paint is already starting to lose its luster in the area between the radiator and the valve-cover.

[deevergote]

It'd be a cool thing to see, but remember... modern cars (and their engine bays) are designed for such things. Our cars aren't, so you could end up trapping heat where it doesn't belong, resulting in damage to the covers you make, or the components you set to baking under them.

[crazymikey]

This is why I suggested designing vents in them.

Personally, if you haven't wire tucked your CB7's bay, we have an ugly, unsightly rats nest of hoses and wires. To be able to cover it up with a nice looking cover or something and leave just the engine visible, would look quite nice IMO.

[trinistylez]

I really like this idea, and it helps alot with making the bay look clean, neat and tidy.

You can obviously add in vent grilles or holes.

I would like to see this idea atleast reach an experimental template stage.

yeah. I think i am actually going to attempt this. someone mentioned high flash points, so now im looking into that. I also dont know how well carbon fiber wrap will hold up against the heat, that is the finish I am looking to go for.

A couple pointers I would say: 1- it needs to be easily removable (most of us are always under the hood adjusting something or whatever. 2- I would make it at least 2 price (most times we are only under the hood to fix something on 1the side of the engine bay).3- keep it looking like it was designed to be there (OEM look, no ricey). Best of luck.

oem look is something i am going to go for. and yeah, i agree on the two pieces. im thinking one will slightly overlap each other. i have the idea in my head of how i want to go about this. i just need to decide on a material.

Do you have a bigger pic by chance? This is what it looks like on my phone:

lol. sorry man. i too posted this from my phone, it looked fine on mine. sorry for the large images.

It'd be a cool thing to see, but remember... modern cars (and their engine bays) are designed for such things. Our cars aren't, so you could end up trapping heat where it doesn't belong, resulting in damage to the covers you make, or the components you set to baking under them.

i agree, heat seams like it is going to be my biggest battle.

[crazymikey]

I think you'd be best using some thin sheetmetal or aluminum.

I'd suggest some sheet metal used for HVAC duct work. It's flexible, and easy to cut with tin snips, and cheap enough that you can experiment with it.