Manifold & Rocker Cover Chromed, Effect Performance?

[Steve Storm 0]

I've had a spare set of VR6 Manifold and Rocker Cover chromed and was looking at fitting them on the car. I'm now in two minds to get it fitted as I heard that it will retain a lot of heat and reduce the performance of the engine.

 

Since I've got a lightened pulley set, Mocal oil cooler, performance exhaust and filter installed on the car and I've got my car booked in to have Schimmel 263 cams installed together with a remap, the last thing that I would like is for the performance of the car to be reduced with these chromed parts installed.

 

Does anyone have any experience with this and know what performance impact it will have on the car or am I worrying unnecessarily?

[boost monkey 0]

The chromium will reflect a lot more heat and suffer less heat absorption from radiation. But as the manifold is just plated with it, it still has the OEM material for the main structure of the manifold and cover so to speak, so the heat conduction properties will remain the same.

 

So it should perform slightly better than OEM... I think.

[coolrado 0]

add a phenolic (or whatever they are called) insulator gasket and it should improve even more, less conducted heat, and better heat reflection because of the chrome.

[Steve Storm 0]

add a phenolic (or whatever they are called) insulator gasket and it should improve even more, less conducted heat, and better heat reflection because of the chrome.

 

phenolic gasket, where would I be able to get one of those and is that for the rocker cover? I've seen a NewSouth VR6 PowerGasket to go on the intake manifold but I've been a bit suspicious about its performance claims and if it even works.

[coolrado 0]

would just be for the manifold, it just stops most of the heat being conducted from the head to the manifold so should lower the intake temps a bit, i know g-werks do them for the G60 but not sure where you would get one for a VR, although i have heard of people using them so they must be available.

[Steve Storm 0]

would just be for the manifold, it just stops most of the heat being conducted from the head to the manifold so should lower the intake temps a bit, i know g-werks do them for the G60 but not sure where you would get one for a VR, although i have heard of people using them so they must be available.

 

I've seen the VR gasket available from AwesomeGTI for around £45. Wouldn't this gasket be more applicable on a supercharged/turbo engine?

[coolrado 0]

yeah the effect may be minimal on a N/A car, but anything that drops intake temps has got to help a bit, just depends if you are that worried about 1or 2 bhp, i wouldnt bother though.

[Steve Storm 0]

True, 1-2 HP is not a worry for me if I had to spend £45 on a gasket to recover that. I'm just worried that the Chromed parts may remove 5-10 HP which would possibly cancel out any gains of the Cams and remap.