What's the purpose of an engine cover?

[justinfox]

Hi all,

What's the purpose of the big ugly plastic engine cover in the engine bay? Is it just to hide the even uglier engine underneath? Protect the spark plugs? Heat insulation? Would it be OK if I took it off?

[Pva_Glue]

IMHO

maily protect the heat from the engine on other components, also heat will discolour the bonnet as it gets older...

cehers

JHoe

[red900ss]

Ugly engine???? Things must have changed at Alfa. I used to spend ALOT of time looking at my Alfa engine....it was a bastard but I don't remember it being ugly. :bahaha:

[Kinks]

which car?

Generally yeah, plastic covers are there to make it look nice for joe bloggs. But they do also protect coil packs and stuff from water. If you're not regularly in the habit of giving your engine a shower with the hose then it's probably OK to remove it. It often does help remove a bit of heat from the upper engine. I'd check what's underneath though.

[Duncan]

I'm pretty sure they are there to keep millipedes out of the engine.

There was a thread on this recently, try a search.

[Guest RedLineGTR]

most tuning workshops take them off to get quick access to coils and plugs for chnage over and also release heat from around that area.