I made my own intake pipe out of PVC, and covered it in heat wrap to keep it cooler. My question is, do I need to insulate PVC, or can I uncover it because it'* kinda ugly?

I recommend covering it.
It looks much cooler.

.....and will run cooler as well.

Try fabbing up a heat shield or sealed cold air box out of the Plastic Reflectix insulation. It works just great. The trick is using some good quality aluminum tape. You can mold any shape you want.

I knocked about 70 deg F off of the inlet temps by doing this and it was worth about 15 hp

http://www.bonnevilleattitude.com/fo...asc&highlight=

I really don't think it looks that bad.

My setup is very similar to yours, but not near as pretty. I was just wondering if the pipe itself needed the insulation. I guess I will leave it.

The high heat inside the engine compartment can approach 200 degrees.
Most of the heat comes from the exhaust manifolds. I measure their temperature at 600 F and in the hot summer will get up to 700 F.

It doesn't take long to heat up the plastic and since it'* temp limit is about 200 F can be prone to melting. It has got to be transferring some heat into the intake charge.

You would be wise to leave the insulation on. No-one will know it is there except you and your mechanic.....probably the same person. .....oh and maybe that Rustang you leave in your dust.

Speaking of rustangs, my friend has a 97 with the ford version of the 3.8. He put on dual low restriction exhaust, catless offroad H-pipe, and headers. Lost a lot of low end torque, put pulls decent near the top end for an engine with 150 hp stock. Now his CES light is always on.

And I usually am my own mechanic.

speaking of mustangs...For my intake piping I used an 84 mustang dual snorkel ait cleaner pipe and added it on to the stock one to make it longer. Then I used aluminum foil to cover up the piping :? looks kinda wierd with the foil on there but I heard that it is supposed to keep heat away. oh well.