OK, so I've been wondering, I know that on some vehicles their are heat shield under the car to protect the Catalytic Converter and to also prevent objects from touching the CAT (to prevent fires of course) while the car is parked for long periods of time with the engine running.
Now on the tC there is a heat shield right where the stock exhaust manifold meets the engine block. Is that shield even necessary or can I just take it off? What purpose does it have? Besides preventing you from getting burned, which by the way if you touch the shield your going to get burned?

Can anyone please answer this?

Thanks.

__________________

 

The heat shield isn't necessary to keep the car running. The reason that it is there though is because your header gets extremely hot after driving for a while and it is there to cool the air down inside your engin bay so that the air going into your intake is cooler. You might loose a little bit of performance but nuthing noticible.

 

y do u want to take it off?

 

Dude, the heat sheild is not there for your protection, its actually there to help reduce the amount of heat transfered under the hood. Run your car for about an hour then go touch it and you will find that its not exactly "cool" and no.. taking it off does you no good at all. The weight you save will only bite you on the A$$ after you take it off in heat soak effect to the motor..



sssooooo obuy a header.. and call it a day..

 

That would explain why there is a little hand with a "no touch" symbol there

 

paint it black. make it less noticeable. there was some cool cat on SL that did that. i like it. I'm gonna do it myself.