The fuel jug. Other than when you fill it up, how often do you think about it? Probably never, but consider this: Many folks have an open trailer and the fuel containers are in the bed of their pickup. That means the fuel jug is sitting in the sun, baking like roadkill on a Texas highway. The fuel gets hotter and more vaporous as it bakes, and, simply put, hot fuel hurts performance, while cool fuel helps performance.


The HP Cool Can Shields™ from Heatshield Performance are designed to fit around standard round and square fuel jugs. They significantly reduce the heating effect of solar energy on the jug and the fuel inside, and also protect the jug from UV rays, which can degrade the plastic material and shorten its lifespan by as much as 50 percent. The HP Cool Can Shields are easy to remove from the jug when it’s time to dispense the fuel inside or to fill it.


To see how effective HP Cool Can Shields are, we filled two fuel jugs with equal amounts of fuel, then installed an HP Cool Can Shield on only one of them. We kept both jugs in a cool, non-air-conditioned spot overnight, then set both on an asphalt surface in the sun from 3-5 p.m. on a 90-degree day. Periodically, we had to relieve the pressure from the unshielded jug when it would start to bulge from the fuel and air expanding inside as the heated increased. We did not have to relieve the pressure from the jug wearing the HP Cool Can Shield. After two hours, we measured the temp of the outside of the fuel containers and the fuel inside.


ABOVE: How effective is an HP Cool Can Shield at keeping a fuel jug and the fuel inside it cool against the radiant heat of the sun? This was halfway through our test. Notice how the unshielded jug is bulging noticeably because the pressure building inside from the heated fuel becoming more vaporous.


For the unshielded jug, the exterior temp was 116.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temp of the fuel was 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit. We removed the HP Cool Can Shield from the other jug in order to measure the surface temperature, which was 90.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fuel temp was 89.2 degrees Fahrenheit.


Unshielded

Shielded

Fuel temp

Jug Surface Temp

Fuel temp

Jug Surface Temp

Before

80.9

79.5

83.4

82.7

After

104.5

116.7

89.2

90.1


The HP Cool Can Shield kept the fuel inside the jug 15 degrees cooler, and the external temp of the fuel container was 27 degrees cooler.


ABOVE: After sitting in the sun for two hours on a 90-degree Florida day, the fuel inside the unshielded jug measured 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s up from 80.9 degrees Fahrenheit in just two hours of exposure, an increase of 23.6 degrees.


ABOVE: After the same exposure, the outside of the unprotected jug measured 116.7 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s an increase of 37.2 degrees from our starting point temperature of 79.5 degrees.


ABOVE: The fuel inside the jug with an HP Cool Can Shield measured just 89.2 degrees Fahrenheit after sitting in the sun for two hours, up only 5.8 degrees from the starting-point temperature of 83.4 degrees.


ABOVE: The external temp reading of the actual jug that was tested with an HP Cool Can Shield measured 90.1 degrees, with a starting-point temp of 82.7 degrees—a 7.4-degree difference. Overall, the HP Cool Can Shield kept the jug almost 30 degrees cooler, and the fuel inside 15.3 degrees cooler compared to the unshielded jug.