i have a question regarding this. i would like to remove the black vent under my hood and leave only that screen on there. eventually i will get the silver ralliart vent but in the mean time is it cool to leave the vent off??? the screen is still there to keep things from falling into the engine compartment. its not winter so no snow will get on there. the only thing getting in there may be water but that gets in there anyway. just worrying about water on the ecu or other parts that water should not get on. anyone done this??? any suggestions????

 

leave it in..i had mine out...get into a good rain storm and you have to clean the whole engine bay...not worth it

 

yeah.. it goes on and off in like 45 seconds.....i had mine off the othere day.. looks kool but i can see how rain can f some **** up... especially the little connectors rhat plug into the block right there...

 

I remove mine for the summer time here in AZ to allow for the heat to vent out. The climate here during the summer is consistently 100 degrees out (sometimes hotter) and very dry. Once the monsoon season comes and it starts raining, I put it back on.

If I were you, I'd leave it on there.

 

i considered painting the vent silver to match my apex silver hood

 

It is my understanding that the louvers are there to keep rain off of the exhaust manifold to avoid heat stress to the metal. If your exhaust was hot and you shut the car down in pouring rain and didn’t have the louvers then it would rain and cool the top of the manifold quickly and the bottom would still be hot. This would be a BAD thing. This would be a perfect example of heat stress. And all this would shorten the life of your exhaust manifold.

Just my $.02

 

Water gets in the bay, but it's usually small amounts and in a mist form (after passing through the radiator/intercooler). Having water pour directly onto a hot engine wouldn't be good, as others said.

Why not just paint it for now?

 

I remove the lovures for summer driving and keep them in the trunk under the mat. If the weather starts to look questionable, I just pop the lovures back in. Keep in mind that my car doesn't end up sitting outside in the rain, though.

Be sure to put all the plastic clips and screws back into the hood with the lovures out, they are needed to help secure the heat shielding.

 

thanks for the comments guys. maybe i will just paint it silver for now. im sure i would have to find some spray with heat protectant eh??? haha. i love how you can see the heat waves coming through that thing when youre sitting in traffic. just dont need paint melting off it getting on the engine.

 

I have mine off and on. Trust me alot of water gets in through the vent with or without the cover on. The cover is slotted down, so any rain drop that hits it will slide down into the engine compartment anyway.

 

evilution8, I painted my vent with some duplicolor high heat silver paint and it looks WONDERFUL, looks as though you spent the cash to get it powder coated but at a fraction of the price, holds up perfectly to everything from water to bird crap, I applied 3 coats, let the vent dry to touch and reinstalled it, all the heat generated under hood really bakes the paint right in. I only did this because when I first purchased my evo over a year ago it was egged and I didn't get all of the egg off of the hood vent, the paint was really beginning to look bad. I've been running around with my hood painted like this for 4 months now and the hood vent still looks as though it was painted yesterday.

 

u think clearcoat is necessary on it? i mean its gonna be hit alot by the elements..

 

I had mine out almost a full year with no problems. But I live in the desert where it rains maybe 5 or 6 times a year and when it does, I drive my other car, so the Evo has never seen more than a slight drizzle. If I lived in a wetter climate, I would keep it in and paint it. But it looks cool as hell and seeing the red valve cover is bad ***. But I spend a lot of time keeping my engine bay sparkling just like the rest of the car.

 

I purchased some duplicolor engine enamel with ceramic rated at 500 degrees but never used it on the hood vent, to be frank after running around this long with no stains or anything I really see no need for it, also I don't like the tint the clear gives to colors, doesn't seem like it would hold up to sunlight without discoloring very well either, play with it yourself, see what you like, but I can tell you for sure that the Apex Evo's look damn good with that vent painted flat silver

edit: I'll take a pic for you as soon as my car gets back from www.proturbokits.com

 

yeah i think ill spray it myself it does look tight on apex silver. and christ sincityevo how did you get the engine bay that clean???? looks good.