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Is the heat shield on my headers to protect me, or the headers? My common-sense thinking tells me that it's to protect me and that it would be beneficial for cooling purposes for me to remove my heat shield. I just want to make sure I'm right before I do so. So tell me, what's the purpose of the heat shield on my headers?

 
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it has nothing to do with you. you will still get severe burns if you touch the shield. its main purpose is to keep the exhaust gas in the header hot (for maximum engine efficiency) AND to keep the rest of the engine bay cooler (to protect wire harnesses and so the intake can suck in cooler air). taking it off is not recommended unless you have the header coated with a special heat insulation coating like www.jet-hot.com which will serve the same purpose as a heat shield. removing the shield and having the oem header exposed will do the complete opposite of what you were thinking. it will heat the engine bay and cool down exhaust gas which in turn will move slower and decrease engine performance. in addition, the downpipe (connected below the header) is actually a double walled pipe as a measure to keep heat in the exhaust gases so it will be hot enough for the catalytic converter to work properly. the cat also has a heat shield around it which should not be removed. now those large sheet metal shields above the exhaust pipes after the cat can be removed no problem. their main function is to prevent the car from catching fire if you park a hot car over dry grass or other flammable materials.

 
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Thank you for the information! Good thing I asked. So would removing the heat shields above the exhaust be beneficial in any way?

 
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i took mine off to save a few lbs of weight and to eliminate rattles. most of mine were rusted at the bolt holes and loose already so i would get metal tin sounds when closing doors or going over bumps.

 
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Eliminating rattles is always nice. Maybe I'll do the same. Thanks for the advice!

 
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Care to hit it it up with a flick/link/diagram of what your talk'n bouts?

 
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#29 for example

 
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the heat shield on the headers is to keep the exhaust heat inside the headers and keep it from soaking into the engine bay. it is basically the same concept as header wrap and is not necessary but can be beneficial. Cooler bay temps is always better.The stock cover does not make exponentially lower temps but it does help a little... plus stock headers look ugly haha

headers are supposed to stay heated if they cooled very quickly the exhaust temperature would be low and would not be able to heat up the catalytic converter, which requires a high temperature to operate correctly.

 
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Id like to take my header heat shield off and clean it up, add a coat of high heat paint, etc. Are those bolts easy to remove with a cold engine?