I started working on a heat shield for my manifold/turbo. This started as a heat shield from a 96 Kia Sephia which had a BP 1.8 from the factory. Being a FWD car, the manifold it had pointed straight down, not down and back like a miata manifold.

So I cut it up trying to massage it to cover the manifold and turbo all in one piece. Gave up. So I started cutting till it fit right. Currently has 1/4" clearance anywhere on the manifold and wraps around it pretty good. I'm gonna build up a spot on top where it's missing. I'm unsure if this will be a manifold-only shield of if I'll try to make it cover part of the turbine as well.

Any ideas on where to go from here are appreciated. Got a bad headache while working on it and just gave up. Will probably work on it more tomorrow. I would love to make this look OEM, though it's hard. Perhaps There's some color that looks like metal that I could paint it.

 

I knew it was only a matter of time


next? weld nuts to the manifold so you can bolt this thing on like the stocker?

 

Yeah, I'm not having any good ideas so far. I can't weld anything to the manifold. Best I can come up with is to build a couple brackets that mount to the exhaust studs and let them come up to support the shield. But even these would need a nut welded to the brace so the shield could drop on and bolt down.

Also not sure how to bend the metal to cover the turbine. I can bend it one way, or the other, but not both ways. So I'm still powdering this part too.

I may stop on this shield and start on another tomorrow instead. I'm want to put a shield behind the air filter to keep heat from the manifold/turbo away. This will just be a piece of metal bent up to fit, with a hole for the air filter pipe to go through.

 

don't forget about your oil feed line, I did when I was messing around with heat shields and got pissed and stopped. I like the OEM look, when finished touch it up with some silver engine enamel

also while doing some searching, I ran across lazzer's heat shield and thought it looked dead sexy and might give you some inspiration

 

I wonder if the engine enamal would hold up?

Funny aside- I was showing my turbo setup to a friend that works at autozone today and some guy walked up and thought it was an OEM turbo setup.

 

lol If your setup came stock on miata's I'd be a fanboi for life

 

Thats pretty smart. I shoulda thought of that before tossing my heatshield, now I have to stare at an ugly manifold.

 

Just use the ceramic paint. It's held up great for 700 miles so far.
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Do you want to build one or buy one?

Buy: Xcessive T25/T3 Turbo : Heat Shield

Build: How-to: DIY turbo heat shield - HybridZ

That homemade one is cool as crap. I might leave the handles on it just to screw with people.

 

buy:

 

Ceramic-coat it. The heat reflectivity of ceramic coating will make a huge difference in its' effectiveness. For that matter, coat the manifold and the turbo too. Not only will the under-hood temps be lower, the performance will increase as well.

 

This is where I insert my argument that ceramic coating a turbine housing is purely for aesthetics.

 

I want that airbox sooooo bad.
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Consider your argument duly inserted, but not properly supported.


If ceramic coatings keep -in- the heat, how is it that they would not therefore increase power? A turbo is most efficient when it is red-hot, not when it is cold...

 

insert my rebuttal that the coating doesn't help keep any heat in.

 

rebutting your insertion...

Ceramics have insular qualities, however minor due to being applied so thinly.

 

You're kidding, right?

 

no, I'm not.

I'm not the only one who feels this way:

 

I deny your version of reality and substitute my own.

The best thing to do is to make like Linus and get a blanket.

 

Corky Bell is a smart fella, but he is wrong here... Mr. Bell believes that since the sucker still glows, the coating can't be insulating any better than without it? Is that even an argument, empirical, or otherwise?

It can't stop ALL the heat; if it could, entropy could be disproven, damn...


I'm looking for posted specifics on this online with little help, but I know for a fact that coated turbine housings and manifolds increase performance; this is how the coating industry got race teams of all flavors interested in the first place, some 30 years ago. Apparently the government was at the same Kool-Aid party, they've used it on all sorts of applications both public and secret for the same amount of time. Hell, IIRC the military pioneered the process for coating before the private sector got it; but what do I know?


I'll keep looking for something closer to this application and post up what I find.