besides making things look 'tidy' under hood, does the plastic engine cover serve any purpose?

 

Reduces engine noise and the chances of burning yourself.

This one's a personal take, but I think some people are not particularly reasonable with how close they use a pressure washer under the hood.

 

i understand it removes quite readily however it would be cool to actually see how to do it

 

oh it's trivial to remove, there's four (i think) 'posts' and if you gently pull directly up on the front left side front right side, back left side, back right side, it comes right off easy enough. to put back, put in place and gently push down.

 

I always think it looks far better on rather than off. Seems gone are the days when an engine "looked" like an engine. Nowadays, it is a mass of componentry and on some your doing well if you can even see the block! Always amuses me when Scotty Kilmer rips of "all this plastic crap", I don't think he is a fan :-)

 

yes, not exactly a beauty under the shroud. and this one's mine with the sound pipe 'snake' removed.

 

Most LC owners are old enough to remember when we would gather and watch the hood rise. We’d give oohs and ayhs and voice our approval of a fine motor. Everything was visible, everything simple and clean.

Nowadays the question is whether that’s real carbon fiber on the motor covers. It was particularly disappointing on our Bentley GT Speed. Awesome W12 motor, could barely see it. Had to help people even see how super wide and huge the heads are.

The suspension mounts are the eye candy under an LC’s bonnet.

 

can you describe how the sound is now different ?

 

sure, i felt the 'extra boost' in volume of engine noise that entered the cabin when the rpm's climb was sudden, unsubtle, over the top and unnecessary, for me (i realize most love it). Removing it in no way (again for me) detracts from the wonderful engine sound, i just don't need the extra sudden volume boost.

 

Reminds me of the scene from Alien where the "alien" was woven into the fabric of the Nostromo! Perhaps my imagination is running wild today, but that pic says it all. Mind you I'd still swap for an extra 2 cylinders :-)

 

Yikes. Amazing that they get any of these things properly assembled. 🤔👏

 

absolutely! it's another reason that internal combustion engines for new cars are on their way out. the reliability and fuel economy expectations (and regulations) are so high that these 'explosion machines' have no way of not being extremely complex.

i got the LC expecting that in a few years it won't be sold any longer and because it doesn't have turbos or hybrid gear to make the mess even more complicated.

 

Guess I've just gotten a lil bit more lazy in recent years....I've been a Lexus man since 1998. And I can probably
count the number of times that I've looked under my hood on one hand. I've got no business under my hood with technology in place today. But when I do go there, the plastic covering look nice & neat. Now that would be different if we were talking bout computers. I 'operate' on them whenever necessary.

 

FWIW on the Jaguar forums this comes up every so often. The 5.0 N/A and supercharged engines in many models have some weak plastic bits around the water pump and cooling system. The forum conclusion is that removing the plastic cover extends the life of the plastic because all it does is trap heat in the engine. One guy did his unscientific tests and said the engine bay on his 5.0 supercharged was running about 20 degrees cooler without the cover. No idea about lexus plumbing. ymmv.

 

Got to admit, I’m guilty of snatching this thing off. If a 40-year Mazda mechanic can break it, so can I. He mentions the hood struts are bad on this car, so I'm assuming it's been around for a while.
Next time, I’ll be more careful and take it off from the back and sides.


Back side showing the 4 mounting locations.