It depends on which hours you're talking about.
As a means to allow non-IA CFI's to give all the training for private, the hood time in 61.109 is not "instrument training" -- it's "flight training ... on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments." That means it doesn't count towards the 15 hours of instrument training from an instrument instructor (CFI-IA) required by 61.65(d)(2)(i) unless the instructor who gave you that training had an IA as well as ASE rating on his CFI ticket and he specifically wrote it up as "instrument training," not just "flight training ... on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments," which few if any CFI-IA's remember to do when dealing with students working on their Private.
However, regardless of CFI-ASE vs CFI-ASE-IA or how it was written up (as long as it was logged properly as "simulated instrument" time per 61.51(g)), this time DOES count towards the total of 40 hours of "instrument time" required by 61.65(d)(2).
