legacycentral bbs

Hi there,

Does anyone know what purpose the fiberglass insulation under the hood
on a legacy Turbo serves? Our 2 other normally aspirated legacy's
don't have it. Why would the turbo version have it? Keep hot air in,
noise?

Thanks,
Mark

I have a '90 Legacy non-turbo and it has a large but thin insulation
pad (maybe fiberglass) that is formed to the underside of the hood.
I've seem this type of thing on a lot of other makes cars (all non-
turbo). I think it is to keep noise down and keep heat from possibly
damaging the hood paint.

Some dishonest car salesmen will tell you that it is
an innovative method to suppress engine fire. The
plastic pins that hold it in will melt in case of a
fire and the fiberglass will fall over the fire and
effectively smother it. Unfortunately, they actually
can convince some people of this. It's ONLY purpose
is to suppress noise. They put it on all of the cars
now but back in the early nineties they only put it in
the top model vehicles, such as the Turbo models. It
may actually help protect the paint from the heat
created from the turbo engine but I've never heard
that. One time after running a hard drive in a 92
Turbo sedan I spit on the metal shield that covers the
turbo to demonstrate how hot it gets and the sizzling
of it was pretty impressive. This would never work on
my NA Legacy, at least not that high in the engine
bay.
Grant

My 90 n/a legacy has the stuff......it's purely noise suppression.

Josh