Heat shield?, Do I really need it???? Options

[jhadler]

Title pretty much says it.

The heat shield over the muffler... Has anyone removed it? And is there any reason not to? This is primarilly a competition car, with occasional sunny day drives. I would think that would be an easy 5 or so lbs of steel I can delete from the back of the car.

Yes, the rules in my class allow for deletion of the heat shield...

Is there anything BAD that might occur, besides making the rear trunk warmer...

-Josh2

[dmenche914]

Interior heat padding my be cool, but any water leaks that get trapped under them usually result in RUST!!!! yikes, I have always removed any trunk insulation found in my 914's, treating the rust, and never putting them rust traps back aggain, same goes for that gawd awful pad found on the engine side of the firewall on later cars.

Needless to say the little weight of the stock metal heat shield is not much. Then again, line the trunk with a water trap, and soon you may have no trunk floor at all (problem is the tranny mounts to the trunk floor) a draggin' magnesium tail end of a tranny must really throw lots of sparks, they burn hot too.

If your building a light racer, you prabbly won't be using the trunk for luggage, hence don't add rust forming padding, if it is your driver then don't wory about the metal sheild adding extra wieght, it is not significant in a street car.
if you have heat sensitive luggage, use a temporary pad to protect it, then remove it when done, to assure the trunk can dry out.

Keep your trunks dry!