Mine covers most of the hood. This is the best picture I have:

 

^^^ What my 2wd '03 looked like. Until rats/mice made a home in it and scared the crap out of my when I was under the hood one day. Ripped that **** right out and never looked back.

 

never had rats/mine in there, but when i had my stock air box in there squirrels were putting there nuts in the box. I kept cleaning it out then finally put some mesh over the opening.

 

My friend's 06 GTO doesn't have one. I'm sure his 6.0 V8 puts out more heat than a V6.

 

It's actually mostly for fire suppression. If you engine catches fire, it'll melt off the hood, drape the engine and possibly put out the flames. Your engine won't melt your paint unless it catches on fire.

 

its for noise. the hood doesnt melt. well, not the metal ones. the fiberglass ones will melt........ but the insulation is fiberglass too.

paint wont cook from engine heat alone and as was said, not all cars have them anyway. I bet different engines have different pads. Ill check my 4.0 right now as a matter of fact.

 

No, the hood doesn't melt, the tabs that hold the insulation on melt. So the insulation melts OFF the hood. Noise suppression is just a side effect. They started using insulation in the early 70s or late 60s (don't remember exactly when) as a "safety feature".


But then again, different sources will give you different reasons. this is just the one I've seen.

 

partial hood blanket. second pic you can see the holes for the blanket clips. Looks like the hood can take a larger blanket as well.

 

I wouldnt count on it melting off and draping the engine though. In the pic i put up, you can see where it slides into tabs as well. So it wont just fall out. Several GM cars also use a padding that slides into the recesses of the hood and uses no clips at all. Im not saying it doesnt supress fire to some extent, but its like a plastic engine cover , its meant to dress up a bit, and supress noise.

 

engine fire blanket

 

Sound dampining, :

 

mine does, but my truck is an 05 also

 

I think if it had to do anything with safety it would be mandatory on all cars like seat belts and air bags. Maybe when paint sucked it was used to protect the hood but with modern paints its not needed.

 

most people dont realize OEM paints are baked at 300 degrees at the factory. a warm engine that gets to only 200 degrees water temp wont hurt it.

 

no duh, I know how they paint the cars on the line, it isn't mandatory, cause like I said it's for the extra protection just incase the engine did get too hot, never heard of beeing safe istead of sorry?

 

I have heard both sides. It is for fire protection and to help with the engine noise. But I dont know what good itll do for fire protection because the flames will get proper air from below anyhow, plus the fire wall at the front of the cab is more designed for protection from heat. At the same point who really cares if you can hear the motor on the outside...what good is that, and it doesnt work all that well on my '02 anyways.
Having said that I do think the main reason would be to protect the hood paint and clear coat from the heat of the motor. Sorry Im thinking and typing and am way off the OP's post

 

I am not going to get into what the insulation is used for. I have noticed though that the fiberglass power dome hoods have a near full insulation pad and the metal hood have a partial insulation pad like shown in the original post. Mine has the large insulation pad and it is on a fiberglass power dome hood.

 

I took off my original and custom cur dynamat under the hood. stay a hell of a lot cooler.......... and may i say it looks great....... better than stock.

 

Mines the exact same as that.