Photo from competitionproducts.com

Heat is a common monster every hot rodder has a tough time battling under their hood. The heat gremlin tries to burn spark plug wires, vacuum lines, or just decrease the performance of your vehicle. By adding insulators or heat barriers to different components under your hood to protect them from high temperatures will help increase the longevity and performance of your parts.

There are a few different materials and ways to protect different wires, hoses from melting, etc. Over on HeatShieldProducts.com there is a great article on the different types of heat shields out there.

After reading the article we found out that insulators are one way to keep heat out of places. These can be made from a handful of different materials, some able to resist more heat than others. Fiberglass is a very common insulator, because it is cheap and can withstand up to 1000ºF of direct heat for a long period of time. You can also add a special coating to fiberglass, called “Vermiculite”, which can hold up to 1200ºF.

If temperatures are going to reach an excess of 2000ºF, then the fiberglass insulators will fail because the actual glass starts to melt. There are other type of insulators that do work with this kind of heat though, and they are made form silica or ceramic. The silica works great up to 1800ºF and the ceramic can last all the way up to 2300ºF of continuous heat, making it worth the extra cost.

Photo from SEMA.org

Another option is using heat shields, or thermal barriers as they are formally known. Aluminum is the most common form of heat shields, but they can range from many different metals or alloys, like stainless steel and inconell. The aluminum heat shields can withstand up to 500ºF of direct heat, but over 1000ºF of radiant heat. Radiant meaning a heat source that is at least 1” away. The stainless steel and inconell are able to handle upwards of 1800ºF for stainless and 2200ºF for the inconell wraps.

Now that Heatshield Products took the time to explain the different ways to battle that heat gremlin underneath your hood, the only thing left to do is choose which one fits your needs.