Heat Shields

[SaiyanFury]

OK to all those guys here who remove their heat shields from the exhaust and turbo sides of things, let me give you a piece of advice: DO NOT REMOVE HEAT SHIELDS just for looks! I did this and I payed dearly for it. I realize they aren't attractive under the hood, and detract from the representation value of your underhood ops, but those heat shields, AND READ THIS, are there for a reason! If you don't have them, you stand to ruin various underhood things such as your factory fans. And don't forget, the alternator. I am not speaking from assumptions. I melted my factory main fan by my lack of heat shields. Do yourselves a favour and invest in proper shields and save yourselves many headaches!

 

[420Adriver]

I took my heatshield off before i put my 4-1 headers on and i never had any problems. I guess it must be different with turbos or something.

 

[VicBoost]

Why dont' some people with like a aftermarket chrome finish or polish finish manifolds don't have heat shield?

 

[kenamond]

Define "enough". Is there such a thing as "too much insulation" or "too low of engine bay temp"?

I mean would it provide comparable insulation to the stock heat shields. In other words, would he be no worse off with no shield but with ceramic insulation? I agree that cooler is better, but I'm talking about good enough.

 

[MyBeatGSX]

Why dont' some people with like a aftermarket chrome finish or polish finish manifolds don't have heat shield?

Because they spent lots of money to get it polished and want to show it off. They didn't get it polished for performance reasons.

I love this topic. I've been telling all my friends to put there heat sheilds back on FOREVER, and no one listens. "Heat sheilds are for ####ies" then you "can't see the turbo"

I found some 2000* ceramic paint. I sanded and cleaned both my stock heat sheild and then put about 20 coats of paint on them. I let them dry for about 3 hours, then installed them. Let the car idle for about 10 minutes with the hood up to get hot then shut it off and let it sit with the hood closed until it cooled off. Then I went out and ripped on it down the highway. That paint smoked like a mother and smelled horrible but the finish came out perfect, I can't even scratch it off with a screwdriver and no bubbles whatsoever. Came out better and stronger than most powder coats I've seen.

 

[andymoraitis]

I pretty much swear by VHT Flameproof and always have a spare can laying around. I have the manifold, turbo hot side, O2 housing, wastegate recirc tube and downppie to the flex all painted and I noticed a huge difference from using a coating. Of course nothing's better than a real heat shield, but in the interim, VHT does a great job. Although it makes my wife pretty unhappy, I bake my parts in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, let them cool and then bake them on the motor like MyBeatGSX does. It comes out tough as nails.

Andy

 

[GVR4592]

I pretty much swear by VHT Flameproof and always have a spare can laying around. I have the manifold, turbo hot side, O2 housing, wastegate recirc tube and downppie to the flex all painted and I noticed a huge difference from using a coating. Of course nothing's better than a real heat shield, but in the interim, VHT does a great job. Although it makes my wife pretty unhappy, I bake my parts in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, let them cool and then bake them on the motor like MyBeatGSX does. It comes out tough as nails.

Andy

I use the same stuff. I used it on my heatshields too. It's definitely a noticeable improvement.

 

[Dream On]

I used the VHT stuff on my manifold, turbo, and o2 housing. It's currently turning gray (paint was black) and flaking off.

 

[MyBeatGSX]

You must have done something wrong or not have preped correctly. The VHT is what I used too. I have 20+ HEAVY coats on the heat sheilds, its been there for over a year with no issues at all. The manifold was coated about 9 months ago with 15-20 heavy coats and since then its seen some horrible winter heat cycles and I've had it glowing bright orange, also without a single bubble or flake. I've accidently hit the heat sheilds with hammers, they've been throw, stepped on, nicked with screwdrivers, dropped, etc. The coating isn't even scratched. I think Bomb Proof coating would be an equally appropriate name.

To test how effective its heat holding ablities are, I coated my weekwacker's muffler with 20 coats of the stuff (yes I really have a highly modded weedwacker ). Without the coating, after doing the entire yard the muffler was torched, the heatsheild was torched, it was so hot I couldn't even touch the heat shield with a thick gardening glove without getting burnt.

20 coats of VHT later (on the muffler only). After doing my entire yard the heat shield is very close to ambient temperature, no hotter than the plastic air cleaner (the shield wasn't coated, the muffler is just radiating so little heat that it never gets hot). The muffler is hot, but cool enough that I can actually touch it and hold my finger there for any period of time without getting the slightest burn.

Obviously a turbo car's exhaust manifold is going to get quite a bit hotter. But it goes to show this stuff really does block a significant amount of heat if applied thick enough.

 

[me612]

When coating an exhaust manifold, is it not true that ideally you want to coat both the inside and outside? From what I've been reading on a lot of coating forums, it seems the coating prevents the heat from getting past it. So if you just coat the outside of your exhaust manifold, well the manifold is still getting hot under the coating, but the heat can not penetrate the coating very well, so the heat stays in that metal, and may speed up the degragation of the manifold.

So they say to do both the inside, and outside of the manifold. Because that way there is a heat barrier right off the bat, stopping some of the heat from ever having a chance to heat up the actual metal. Obviouslly the manifold will still heat up, but not quite as much since it has that first layer of protection. And that supposidely helps against cracking that is sometimes blammed on external coatings or wraps that cause the heat to not escape from the manifold. And then of coarse, you still have the outside layer of coating, to block a little more heat still.

Anyone have any opinions on that?

 

[me612]

Oh and I also use a JMF heatshield

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[SaiyanFury]

I agree with Andy there. He told me about VHT and I used it. I found it to be a nice supplement, but it didn't solve engine bay heat problems. Trust me, I MELTED my factory fan off because there were no heat shields there. Maybe it had been because my engine had been running for some time with no real time to cool off and the sheer amount of time had done it, but the underlying point, is that heat shield are there to save your engine bay, and surrounding parts from enduring excessive heat. You may not experience any ill effects in the short term (read: several months to upwards of a year), but you'll end up saving yourselves more costs in the long run. Factory DSM alternators are NOT cheap, nor are many other parts. Just take the advice with a grain of sand. If you melt parts, don't come complaining, because you heard proof otherwise here. And LISTEN to Andy, he knows what he's talking about. I've listened to him on many occasions, and he has never steered me wrong.

 

[merqury]

Is the SS shield better than the stock one? Does anyone sell a lower OEM shield anymore?

 

[nightspeed87]

I pretty much swear by VHT Flameproof and always have a spare can laying around. I have the manifold, turbo hot side, O2 housing, wastegate recirc tube and downppie to the flex all painted and I noticed a huge difference from using a coating. Of course nothing's better than a real heat shield, but in the interim, VHT does a great job. Although it makes my wife pretty unhappy, I bake my parts in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, let them cool and then bake them on the motor like MyBeatGSX does. It comes out tough as nails.

Andy

im going to have to get some of this... ( even though i already have a chrome sbr heat shield which looks nice ) the problem is i broke one of the bolts off the manifold with the screw still stick inside when i was trying to tighten it; an i cant get it out nor do i want to drill it out so i cant put my nice pretty heat shield back on till i get another manifold ( which i plan on getting a 2g manifold soon anyways since mines is all cracked up. )
Under hood temps are hotter, and I dont have a/c on a cooling fan and have that fan wired to stay on ALL the time soon as the ignition is on therefore it works in not damageing/ melting anything under the hood. Havent had any "too hot" problems yet...

 

[nightspeed87]

Oh and I also use a JMF heatshield

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that looks like my engine bay except a way smaller turbo/ no 2g mass, a chrome oil cap instea of blue, and I dont have cruise control,and my intercooler set up isnt like that otherwise looks the same ... ( no point of this really just thought id say . )

 

[mini zilo]

Does any company sell o2 housing heatshields? I had to cut mine off when putting my new exhaust on.