2008 Pontiac G8 GT: Kick That Engine Cover To The Curb

oh that's *totally* what I'd do

always heard that gripe about the mazda rx-8 and had the same reaction--- if it was mine, I'd just hide it in the basement until I was ready to part with the thing

Several pics not showing....

No pics here either.

Are your servers built by Nissan?

Gotta figure it serves some inscrutable person. Suppose it could serve as a ad hoc frying pan when you inevitably run out of gas driving to Vegas.

Yes. Take the engine cover off!!

What's that a picture of that is plaguing the site? Must have my LTRTB fix : )

Not the prettiest engine is it.

arent you also the editor who removed the evo's wing??

keep it. Modern engines are not pretty with all the wires and sensors. I like to keep my engine compartment clean and it would be much easier to clean that cover than all the nooks and cranies below it.

i'd leave it on. having said that, the mustangs don't come with an engine cover (some have a smaller plenum cover) and i don't think i would want one on mine...

No idea why anyone would ever look at the engine. Keep the cover. The hood on my cars goes up to add oil. Otherwise there's really no reason to ever open the hood.

"The hood on my cars goes up to add oil. Otherwise there's really no reason to ever open the hood. "

Other reasons to raise the hood:
Washer/brake/clutch/radiator fluid checks/changes
Filter changes
Jump starts

It's not that pretty without the cover. I'd keep it.

Now the Yamaha V6 SHO... that was a beautiful engine. They should have molded a cover that looked like that for the new SHO

"Other reasons to raise the hood:
Washer/brake/clutch/radiator fluid checks/changes
Filter changes
Jump starts"

And how do those reasons merit removing the engine cover?

The only reason why you need to remove the engine cover is if you need to change the spark plugs, spark plug wires, or get at the fuel injection system. In today's engines, those should last more than 100,000 miles....far longer than most people on this site keep their cars.

So unless you want to see the spark plug wires and fuel injection system for your engine, and risk damage to them, for the five minutes you have your hood up....by all means, remove the cover.

The engine cover will never earn any design awards, but the engine below looks gross because the packaging guys knew their stuff would be hidden from view.

So we have wires, wires everywhere to the 8 individual coils and the injectors, a black plastic intake, non-descript valve covers and a bunch of other ugly plumbing.

Edelblech.

My Cobalt's engine bay is practically completely covered in plastic. I took the main engine cover off, and the 2.2L Ecotec actually looks pretty nice. There is even a nice "2.2L Ecotec" plaque on the valve cover. Why GM chose to cover it up is beyond me, because the engine bay still looks very clean and tidy. Since taking it off, I noticed everything is just as quiet, though despite claims on CobaltSS.net to the contrary, engine temps stayed the same as well.

One major thing that bugged me about the engine cover is that it put the engine oil filler cap and neck in a small depression. That makes it much easier for dirt and other junk to get in there. Without the cover, the neck and cap rise above the surrounding surfaces.

Nice image. I was in a Mazda dealership this weekend and popped the hood on an RX-8 to show the wife and kid a rotary engine. Major disappointment! :(

"And how do those reasons merit removing the engine cover?"

Those reasons don't merit removing an engine cover but they do merit designing something worth looking at after you pop the hood. An Alfa motor with polished intake runners and painted cam covers qualifies; a GM L76 motor, naked or covered, does not.

You guys complain about the covers a lot...but the peculiar things is it's usually cars from Detroit you complain about, not so much other makes. Coincidence?

As for the cover, if you're going to take it off, clean the engine bay! That's very dirty.

That engine is a mess. Keep the cover.

Yeeah, even the LS3 in the GXP is rather ugly without its cover. I was disappointed to find that the L76 and LS3 share a cover in this car!

Something like this is really what the engine needs.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/PerthPurplePenguin/car%20parts/Rad%20Covers/IMG_7362.jpg

Almost like asking would you rather wear underwear.

The best looking engine I ever say that didn't say Ferrari or Lamorghini on it was the V6 from the Alfa GTV V6. Beautiful polished intake runners

http://www.alfalegend.com/gtv6_engine.jpg

I removed the engine cover on my 2008 Subaru Legacy GT after about 8000 miles or so. I was changing the transmission fluid and I needed to re-fill from the dipstick hole, which was covered.

I realized that I much prefer to be able to inspect everything with no cover in the way. Besides which, on a Subaru it's just the cover, intercooler, and then about 6 feet of empty vertical space until you see that low mounted boxer engine :)

I have no use for engine covers! My '07 Civic didn't come with a cover, if it had, I would set it aside.

I'm one of those old nerds that checks under the hood every 7-10 days. I check everything & wipe down the engine bay with a hand held duster. I also detail the exterior, interior, check tire pressures and wash the windows at the same time. & yes I really do it all every 7-10 days.

I've been doing my own preventive maint. for more than 50 years & have found many potential problems before they became real problems.

brian55: Wow you're dedicated, and I thought I was bad.

I'd keep the engine cover on since I live in Seattle, where it rains 9 months of the year. You'd be amazed at all the sludge, gunk, animals, bugs and other crap that makes its way under the hood.

This isn't an Audi VX engine.. keep the covers on.

It doesn't really look like much either way, I couldn't claim to care about the plastic cover in this case. It's not a particularly large or intrusive engine cover and the engine doesn't look particularly nice without it, so I would probably just leave it on.

@altimadude00, he said "raise the hood" not "remove the engine cover.

"Other reasons to raise the hood:
Washer/brake/clutch/radiator fluid checks/changes
Filter changes
Jump starts"

"And how do those reasons merit removing the engine cover?"

keep it off. The hood is the engine cover.

it's an engine, functionality is king. I like seeing the coilpacks and all the wires and hoses for easy inspection.

Gharry-- The whole point of this entry was to point out that the engine cover was ugly and should be removed. There were examples of what kinds of maintenance someone might do under the hood.

My argument was, does the frequency of one conducting this maintenance merit disposing the engine cover because it's ugly. My argument is no, because the person who will spend the most time under the hood of your car, is a mechanic (nods to DIYers)...and he/she won't care. You also risk damage from dust, water, and carelessness with exposed fuel rails and spark plug wires with the cover off.

Also, may I point out that even with the cover removed, you can't see any more of the engine than you could with the cover on beyond the coils of wire and fuel rails.

Engine covers are designed for NVH dampening, heat control(from the ambient underhood temmperatures) not to make them look purdy

"Engine covers are designed for NVH dampening, heat control(from the ambient underhood temmperatures) not to make them look purdy"

Someone forgot to say PUNK'D when they told you that.

"Engine covers are designed for NVH dampening, heat control(from the ambient underhood temmperatures) not to make them look purdy"

Someone forgot to say PUNK'D when they told you that.

Engine covers are pointless. The hood is the cover, if you don't want to look at an engine don't pop the hood. Protect from dust and water? It's not air/water tight so the dust and water will still get on everything, it just isn't visible. I guess I just like to see my engine, and actually like the looks of the small block.

Aesthetics do matter these days. I find it disappointing though that so many manufacturers have resorted to broad, molded plastic covers to avoid having to make their wiring and hose routing clean and tidy.

My favorite used to be Honda's I4 engines. Even the basic Civics had black crackle finished valve covers with neat plug wire separators, hose brackets, etc. Step up the Type-R, or the S2000 and you'd get a hot red crackle finish, perhaps with a nice solid metal plug wire cover that attached with hex head bolts. The intake runners were all cast aluminum with a really nice fine grain casting pattern, and the headers, if you were willing to take off the heat shield looked good (if they weren't the cast iron manifolds as the lesser engines had).

These days though, Honda (like most others save Ferrari, Maserati, etc.) has resorted to plastic valve covers, plastic intake runners and big plastic engine covers. Makes opening the hood far less appealing.

Engine covers are designed for NVH dampening, heat control(from the ambient underhood temperatures) not to make them look purdy"

Someone forgot to say PUNK'D when they told you that.

Plastic intakes have a lot of air-rush noise, injectors are loud(especially DI systems).
So, get over worrying about plastic covers and buy stock in companies that make thermo-plastics

Oh, there's about 25 SAE papers about under hood temperature control, the use of plastic components etc.. It maybe more boring reading about how surface transportation works than saying PUNK'D though.. haha..

Check this out for starters
http://www.plasticsportal.net/wa/plasticsEU~en_GB/function/conversions:/publish/upload/technical_resources/parts_testing/Reduction.pdf

"My favorite used to be Honda's I4 engines."

Mine too Shawn. That red crinkled B18C5 (Integra R for those who don't know) valve cover was simple yet really clean, neat and attractive. I guess cost (and weight) were the main factors in the switch to plastic.

I haven't liked this trend since it started in the '90s. I want to see the motor.

I suspect that it's cheaper to make a cover and get people conditioned that it needs to be there, instead of neatly laying out the components and designing the motor to look neat and organized. By the mid to late '80s, most manufacturers' engine compartments looked pretty good, but they later decided to lamely just cover them up.

And I think it also discourages the casual owner from doing much poking around, like the automakers want to send you a subtle message, "Don't touch. Servicing should be done by qualified personnel only."

A couple things:

1. removing the engine cover should not affect NVH at all. If it does, things were simply designed poorly. As I noted above, I took the engine cover off my Cobalt, and there is absolutely no difference in NVH. Nadda. Zip. None. Zero.

2. They also don't protect against dirt or moisture. Again, after I removed the engine cover, the Ecotec was completely coated in dust and grime. I cleaned that off, and lo and behold the Ecotec 2.2L, believe it or not, is actually a kinda nice looking engine. It has a nice little name plate on the top, and everything is put together fairly neatly.

I'd have to say that since the IL people send their cars to the dealer for maintenance then its doesn't really matter much in the long run.

Personally I'd keep the cover on just because it makes the engine look for a brief moment like its higher end then what it really is.

Looks way better with the cover off. While it's not quite Audi V8 level of engine aesthetics, the LS isn't a bad looking mill.

I guess everyone else is right on this, there is absolutely not one legitimate purpose for these things. As a matter of fact, all the belly pans, shields and covers should be removed in the future.

You guys should keep it off and also take that intake manifold cover as well. There are two covers; the engine cover and intake manifold cover. The intake cover can be removed by disconnecting the plastic black tube that goes over the rear valve cover, removing the 4 long bolts (8mm) and 4 studs (10mm) that hold the fuel rail, and lifting the fuel rail just enough to slide the cover out the front. Reinstall fuel rail making sure all injectors are in their holes before pressing down, torque all bolts to 44in lb. from center out and repeat at 89in lb, and put the black tube back in its place.

I've taken both covers off my car along with removing the rubber inserts and plastic backings from the hood vents to help with heat release. It seems to have helped quite a bit with the warm weather.

btw, it looks like part of the plastic back on the engine cover had melted onto the heater hose.