Last week I ordered a new 2" Cowl injunction hood for my camaro, but havent ordered the insulation yet. Just how important is this insulation and what disasters can I expect if I try to go without it?

God forbid you have a fire in the engine compartment, this will drop down and smother most of it. I think it also helps keep the heat down since the heat wouldn't rise to a bare sheet of metal. It becomes unsightly after a while and most disgard it and keep an extinguisher in the car for emergencies.

Dave

I think its helps with sound.

No real disasters await the uninsulated...

Are you putting in the flapper assembly at the rear of the hood? If not, I'm not sure insulation would cut the sound that much.

I've never had one

my neither!

Mine once had orginal in ...then it started to fall apart and look bad.
So pulled it out about 20yrs ago.
Never noticed any difference.

Here is what my hood insulation looked like after 38 years of use. I pulled it out and replaced it with one of the new moulded repop pads a couple of years ago. I keep most of the the old original parts I have replaced over the years but I tossed out this original pad. It was to hard to store and it was full of dirt.

http://geocities.com/sdampier@sbcglobal.net/Team_Camaro/insulation1.jpg

Here is the repop pad.

http://geocities.com/sdampier@sbcglobal.net/Team_Camaro/underhood.jpg

I just installed one on my 1968 with a 1969 cowl hood. It made a tremendous amount of difference in the noise levels coming from the engine compartment.

Also, be careful when buying... I originally wanted to go with one of those cool molded versions. Since the molded one cannot be rolled or folded it gets shipped OS (or double OS). The shipping would have worked out to be 80 bones to get it to Illinois. Considering the molded insulation cost 80 by itself, doubling this price for shipping was very unattractive.

I am very happy with the non-molded version and would do it again.