I want to start by saying that probably most of you or at least 4th gen people know that it gets pretty hot underneath the hood on the preludes, specially with H22s. My friend had an H23 and recently swapped to H22 and he also noticed the different with the heat under the hood...

So yesterday I was talking to my gfs brother and he has a Corvette V8 block in his 77 camara and he popped the hood of that sucker up and we were just checking it out and his wasn't hot it all....so now we go back to my prelude and we pop my hood and he noticed the heat too and he said me "Why does it get so hot? My car never gets that hot man."

That instantly got me thinking What the hell can I do to keep it cooler in there...?
I mean if his V8 can keep cool then I should be able to keep my engine bay cooler, before I never though of that because I thought of it as a normal thing, but now I certainly want to do something about it...

What can I do to help keep it cooler in there? I tried searching about this but I couldn't find anything of help related to this...

I used to have the Heat shield off the header but I think it gets hotter if I take it off, because I believe the heat shield absorbs some of the heat coming from the header...?

Well what alse can I do?
I am thinking about getting a CF hood with some type of scoop or something that lets the heat out too but as far as the car is right now what can be done to help???

 

Wrap your header with the heat resistant wrap. It works. I have mine wrapped with http://www.thermotec.com/ stuff.

 

Sounds like a plan, how much cooler does it get after that? Is it really noticeable?

And how about the heat shield.....Leave it on or off?

 

I left mine.
Is it cooler? What can I say... I tried to touch the header and I could. Of course not for a long time bu I did it. I will never do it on a bare pipe.

 

Perhaps a lower range thermostat might help a little by not allowing the water around the engine to get so hot before it opens giving way to cooler radiator water, watch out though cos vtec needs a certain temperature to work and not sure what the temp is ? Might help as well if you do a coolant flush and refill with fresh, new coolant always disperses heat more efficiently, and make sure your radiator is clear of bugs and debris. Failing that then air scoops are your only practical way to rid the bay of excess heat.

 

This one is kinda a lame suggestion, but it definatly worked on my 5th gen lude...if you havent yet, take your front licence plate off. It really restricted air flow when it was on to the radiator. It lowed the thermostat meter like a tick and a half.

and it is cheap and easy.

 

vented hoods help or raising the places of attachment of the hood to raise it up a bit. More air flow into the engine bay is the result of either.

 

reroute your AC vents to under the hood... lol

what i was seriously going to say was already covered tho

 

ya, geta thermostat and fan switch. i got the mugen ones. works very well so far hehe

oil cooler maybe/

 

good ideas, also vented engine bays (reverse hood scoop) will increase airflow and improve aerodynamics.

also, a radiator shroud will get more air onto the radiator.

 

one reason a V8 engine wont seem as hot is casue the header on those are under teh cylinder head, and there are different airflow dynamics in teh engine bay. in teh h22a engine bay you got the header up top and in front...lots of heat sits up top then...

 

Also most times the engine bays are huge and the motor does not take up the whole thing, and with the hug fan on the front of the motor and headers on bottem like v4lu3s said it probably makes a huge different. If you think about it in our ludes there really isnt anywhere for the heat to escape.

 

bottom line is if ur car isnt overheating, then why mess with it??? it may get hot in there but that is how honda designed it and produced it, the mugen switch/thermo isnt necessary unless ur running a turbo or something extreme, a cf hood and a scoop will help keep the engine cooler, but it does not need to be cool, just needs to stay at operating temp....and instead of spending $130 on mugen switch/thermo, take out the stock thermo and put a nut under the point to keep the thermo always open a little, much cheaper and does the same thing....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v4lu3s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">one reason a V8 engine wont seem as hot is casue the header on those are under teh cylinder head, and there are different airflow dynamics in teh engine bay. in teh h22a engine bay you got the header up top and in front...lots of heat sits up top then...</TD></TR></TABLE>

thats what i was going to say

 

[QUOTE=twistedbydezign]bottom line is if ur car isnt overheating, then why mess with it??? it may get hot in there but that is how honda designed it and produced it, [QUOTE]

Yea, but how about your Cold Air Intake.....have you touched that thing after your car been running for a while.....Let me tell you that the "Cold Air" is not cold Air anymore. Mainly because of the heat that's trapped underneath the hood...

I'm not trying to be an ***, but I'm just pointing out one of the main reasons why I want to keep it cooler....

Thanks for all you guys feedback so far

Air scoops....Where can you get some?
And what does the fan switch do exactly?

 

not to steal anyones thread, but how will a hood with vents in it for example lets say the cf one with the vent in the center facing the windshield affect a short ram intake?? wit it get wet when it rains?? mine is hidden rite behind the battery but i was just wondering ... thanks guys ... pece