Quote:
Originally Posted by NoD~
^^^agreed. I noticed 5-10* increase over a 1-2 hour period with my little bubblefoil/cardboard contraption. Plus, I could drive for hours, stop and feel the hood after 5 minutes and it didn't feel warm. It's doing some insulating, one way or another. Of course, completely sealing the engine bay would be the right start, but this was cheap and easy.
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The issue is, and the reality is, that the insulating effect is darn near not scientifically measurable to any meaningful value.
The bubble foil has nearly zero insulating value on the underside of the hood when trying to keep heat in, and that is when you don't include all the other avenues of heat loss.
If you were to do accurate A-B-A testing you would see no difference.
There are other methods that do work, but they have limitations to:
-like The coolant heat retention method used by the prius; surely they would just line the hood for a $1 in bubble wrap if it actually worked.
-or frost heater type fittings plugged in to electrical source.
The engine is designed to shed heat fast; you can't alter that with a little cardboard.