What is the greatest temperature a figerglass piece would stand up to w/o warping? I was interested in building a engine bay cover and was wonder would it would be worth building one that will be there doing day to day driving.
fiberglass isnt really effected by heat...if it is too close to the engine or the exhaust manifold it may blister the paint but once cured fiberglass isnt affected by heat..at least not the kind that would build up in an engine bay...
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Fiberglass Guru.
Yeah boat engine covers are all fiberglass, inboards anyway. With a gel coat that never has any problems.
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Learning the trade one fiberglass creation at a time!
It also depends on what kind of fiberglass you are using too.
FG high in silica can take up to about 1000* F consistantly.
Fine needle FG can usually take up to 800* F consistantly
Your AVERAGE FG will take about 500* F consistantly.
We hope this helps. Ganbatte ne. (Good luck)
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Also, being the heat is a concern, you can wrap your headers/exhaust manifold with "Header Wrap" which can be bought from places like SummitRacing.com or Jegs.com. This wrap, when applied correctly to the headers/manifolds can lessen the engine compartment heat substantially. Especially because this is where most of the heat comes from. Also, Dynamat makes "Hoodliner", when your final bay cover is finished, adding Hoodliner underneath will also help. By the way, like REALITYCHECK mentioned, if you use gelcoat instead of paint it will not fade/discolor for a long time. I made a fiberglass valve cover for a Toyota R-22(I think) 4-Cyl engine that was used in a "Dwarf-Midget" race car for lightweight purposes. We used gel coat on the fiberglass to inslulate the paint job that was actually visible.