ENGINE COVER

TT RS Engine Cover

I no longer run an engine cover.  There are a few reasons for that.  Let me explain.

When I first got my car it was completely stock of course.  I did some racing, launching at various races and never had my engine cover get dislodged.  I heard stories from others who had their engine cover pop off so they removed it when racing.

When I started adding power the same things started happening to me.  I started having a cover that was coming off and coming towards the back of the engine bay.  I first noticed it at some of the events I went to.  It was several months into owning the car, maybe even a year or so.

These engine covers also tend to hold in some heat onto the engine.  There is a thin layer of padding probably for some sound deadening and maybe to protect anyone's hands from being burnt on a cover that is too hot.  Without that engine cover in place the heat is then allowed to escape more readily than with it on.  The hood is far enough away from any hot spots like the turbo that it doesn't have any heat damage.

In addition I was continually removing the engine cover to get to parts of the engine that it covered especially the spark plugs and the coil packs.  While it isn't hard to remove, it is still an added step to getting work done on the car.  In addition when it is removed you have to set it somewhere try to keep it clean and remember to put it back on after.

Many people complained about their engine cover coming off on launches.  I never experienced that, my engine cover always stayed on.  Now I know why.  After pulling the engine cover off one of the times I noticed my oil filler cap was loose. There was no way it could be tightened.  So getting my head down in close to see and some light on the subject revealed that the tabs which held the cap on had broken. You can see where some of the tabs are missing on the pictures below.  I had to order another oil filler neck to put on so that the cap could be tightened again.  Looking at how the engine cover goes so closely around the cap it's easy to see how it could have grabbed ahold of the oil cap and broken those small tabs off.  I felt it was better to keep it off to avoid that issue happening again.

These are the reasons I no longer run an engine cover.  To me it doesn't add anything to aesthetics and it doesn't do anything positive for the engine.  It keeps more heat in the engine bay and can in fact cause other damage that I wasn't intending to fix.  So the engine cover stays in my parts bin under the house.

Thanks for visiting and remember to always Strive to Arrive!