Why?

 

More noise, less heat under hood. Excess waste for the purpose of keeping quiet serves me no value.

 

From a P2R owner's perspective, I've removed the hood blanket on both of mine. I've removed the weather strip on an occasional "I want to hear the pssshhhhies moar" basis. I would not leave the strip off all the time.

 

No issues with hood paint for you then?

It's not really my primary daily anymore so I only drive it in good weather and for some trips. I use my P2 for daily. I park outside on the level so even when it's rained on I feel like I'll be okay as far as the seal goes. Probably not a bad idea to put it back if taking on a trip. I always want more pssshhhies noises.

 

My 05 had it's hood resprayed about 10 years ago. Paint's still going great. My 04 had faded paint when I bought it(still had it's hood blanket)

The hoods are aluminum, so they shouldn't really heat soak.

 

The red ventilation grid is the inlet for the cabin air (aircon). The green grid might be for cooling the 12v battery with ambient air (not sure). The OBD2 app shows the 12v battery remains at moderate temperatures, despite sitting in the hot engine bay.

 

I removed the rubber on all my cars and liftcthe back of the bonnet with a few washer so it tilts forward at the light you can see the heat pour out the 1 inch gap, done this to my c30 t5 witch own now, haven't had any issues running it daily but definitely sounds🤤

 

Your ECM is under the cowl in what is called the "cold zone". I don't think I'd want to remove that seal to remove heat from the engine bay and turn that into a "hot zone".

 

I would think the heat shield foam thing between the back of the motor and sheet metal would have more to do with keeping that cool than heat passing over the cowl, but good to know and worth considering. In my P1, the ECU is just sitting out free in the engine bay because of the intake kit I have on it, though I don't drive that car quite as hard.

 

Hood insulation no big deal but keep in mind the HVAC air intake is on the cowl.
If you remove the rubber seal there is a greater chance of noxious engine fumes entering the cabin.

 

Hood insulation no big deal but keep in mind the HVAC air intake is on the cowl.
If you remove the rubber seal there is a greater chance of noxious engine fumes entering the cabin.

IME it's not so much the fumes, but the heat coming out goes straight into the HVAC. Fine in the winter but otherwise you get a lot more hot air coming in the cabin. Whatever fraction of a HP you might gain is cancelled by having to use your AC more, especially when moving slowly. You've got the exhaust manifold, turbo, and downpipe cranking out BTU's just a few inches from the cowl.

I feel like the hood blanket is there primarily for NVH, with protecting the paint as an added bonus. Lots of P1 and P2 owners have ditched the blanket and I haven't heard any complaints. Fire suppression? Seems like a myth to me.
.

 

How about those soft foam inserts by the hood struts to the left of the red circle and to the right of the green circle in Peter's photo, above? On my V60, organic material like wet leaves accumulate under them fairly quickly.

 

They are absolutely, horribly awful ! Originally specified to be an integral skinned PU foam 20 + or so years ago I expect; which in those days meant a solid skin with integral foam underneath. Which should have done the job admirably Later incarnation, a PU open cell foam with an almost non existent porous skin, maybe just the paint layer. it loves to absorb water. I worked in the Automotive and PU industry, trust me, I am right !

Result;
They absorb water readily to the point of saturation and keep the alarm module in 100% humidity (===>failure). Mazda, faced with the same gap between the panels use a simple thermoplastic deflector.

 

Maybe Volvos have more layers I don't know, but from what I've learned on the internet over the years, the material inside the hood is supposed to act as a fire retardant blanket if the engine were to catch on fire, to help slow the fire. First, is this a myth or true? And if it is true, do Volvo's have a layer of sound deadening before the fire retardant material (more of fire choking function from what I remember reading somewhere in the past)

Edit: IIRC the plastic tabs that hold it up melt, allowing the blanket to fall on the engine, helping to choke the fire/fumes

 

Interesting concept. Because racecar = fire extinguisher. I keep one in my cars out of habit of driving old cars. Also some car shows require them, so good to keep handy.

But if the fire is big enough/hot enough for the plastic tabs to melt I'd think you're past the point of slowing it down with a blanket smaller than the hood.

 

This is awesome. I had seen this a lot when I was into Jeeps. Great for off-roaders.

@DFrantz if you are looking for noise because racecar I would pull the liner. It is entirely for noise suppression and your hood will be fine. It is a LOT easier to clean an engine bay with the liner removed. The seal is up to you. I highly doubt there would be any negative to pulling the weather stripping. It's not a sealed engine bay. There doesn't need to be a tight seal there specifically.

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I pulled them both. We'll see if the AC has trouble. I could always fab a cowl for that separate.

Now the problem is the bottom of the hood isn't body color... not sure what bad idea I'll do there. Volvo hoods open up so high it will be distracting. Or might just get some acrylic and cut a lower hood prop.

 

I pulled them both. We'll see if the AC has trouble. I could always fab a cowl for that separate.

Now the problem is the bottom of the hood isn't body color... not sure what bad idea I'll do there. Volvo hoods open up so high it will be distracting. Or might just get some acrylic and cut a lower hood prop.

Does it sound better with the soundending and fire blanket out

 

Curious how the AQS Air Quality System sensor reacts to these conditions. It will cut out outside air flow and turn on the recirculation if air pollution is detected. But to monitor the AQS sensor you need VIDA or CarScanner (with MS-CAN bluetooth dongle).

 

That's a really interesting thought. The CO concern wouldn't be changed by it directly, but if particulates were getting into the car it would switch to recirculate.

I did see a bunch of heat dumping out of the cowl this morning when I was waiting in the drive through which was fun. I am doing an oil change on the car tomorrow and think I'll keep the bottom cover off too. The P2 Rs didn't use that I don't believe, so why should mine. More air movement means more heat dissipation, but would also increase the percentage of fresh air moving at any given time.

 

I think the P2Rs didn't because they would overheat with the splashpan. heh

 

Considering the new S60’s used to come with the insulation pad but no longer do, removing it should be a non issue. It’s also easy to reinstall.

I just bought a pad for my 2023 S60.

 

I have a 2012 S60 T5 and I removed a 1 foot piece of the weather strip - in the middle of the strip.

I found if you remove the entire weather strip, under hood heat gets pulled into the HVAC vent on the passenger side cowel, heating up the cabin.

This one foot gap in the middle vents out a lot of excess heat and turbo noise, yet keeps HVAC intake temps more or less normal.

Heat kills everything faster, from engine components to engine performance. I do a lot of summer time city driving and have noticed a big difference (less timing pulled, etc) with the one foot piece removed.

 

I have a 2012 S60 T5 and I removed a 1 foot piece of the weather strip - in the middle of the strip.

I found if you remove the entire weather strip, under hood heat gets pulled into the HVAC vent on the passenger side cowel, heating up the cabin.

This one foot gap in the middle vents out a lot of excess heat and turbo noise, yet keeps HVAC intake temps more or less normal.

Heat kills everything faster, from engine components to engine performance. I do a lot of summer time city driving and have noticed a big difference (less timing pulled, etc) with the one foot piece removed.

Now that's some good thinking!

I don't care about the weather as it's a fair weather car. I have 10 cars/projects... I don't need them to stand up to daily driving requirements (as long as one is). I had switched to recirculate which seemed to be working fine, but I think the solution of partial seal might be the best of both worlds. Might experiment with that. What I probably need to do is get a remote temp probe and drop it in the HVAC duct and under hood and see how things change with various setups and then post that so we're not all just speculating.

 

Every car I've seen with the splash pan missing or removed has suffered from more maintenance issues to the rack, CV axles, ac compressor, etc. Really anything left expose to road grime and splash on the bottom of the car. Not to mention rustproofing on the P3 subframes is practically non existent

 

That is another thing to note, the P2Rs(no splashpan from the factory) utilize an aluminum subframe.

 

They use the same subframe as a regular P2.

 

Again... fair weather car. Comments about driving the car in bad weather are not relevant here. It'll be getting classic tags like my C70 in 2027 as soon as it's eligible. Summer tires only, not driving regularly in any rain.

 

Did the P2 Rs really come without a shield or is that just an old wives tale? I have definitely seen P2 Rs that had a shield.

 

I asked my service advisor who has one (after a friend of mine got one and questioned it), he told me thats how they came. Of course, everything is there to put one in.

 

They came without it.

 

Really? I thought they were aluminum. I guess the galvanization is really that good

 

They are not aluminum

 

As a follow up, not sure how much the heat had to do with this, but I replaced my wipers at 2 years old and the one on the side was pretty much fine, the one that rests in the middle was toast. Granted 2 years is not young for wipers, but it wouldn't surprise me if the heat over the past 6 months had something to do with it. Will keep monitoring now that I have new blades on. That's alot of heat leaving if that's the case, which means the idea is working!