DIY Heatshields In Progress
 

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.

Attachment 208857

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Attachment 208859

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Attachment 208861

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

Attachment 208856

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. :cool:

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

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:


Attachment 208825

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.

Really? How thick does it have to be to demonstrate an improvement?

Coating may work slightly, but not much. The shit's too thin to do anything meaningful. If you put 1/2" of the coating on, it would help. But .006" worth ain't shit.

+1

Again, you aren't (nor can you) stop -all- the heat from radiating, only some of it.

yeah but a trivial amount is a trivial amount...

Yeah, but how much do you think a .006" coating stops? .03%? Maybe? Negligible.

Com'on, you've got better fallacies to offer than a circular argument, don't you?

If it helps you spool faster, then it will keep you at speed more effectively, right?


If it lowers your under-hood temps more effectively than a heat shield, and extends manifold life, then why not do it to a car that often suffers from an overheat condition in stock form vs. one with a turbo? (Keep in mind, I would suggest doing the manifold, the and the downpipe as well)


Sorry to the OP, I didn't mean to take us so far OT.

Without empirical evidence in either direction, how much water do you believe that argument to hold?

I don't care what the material is, .00X inches of it isn't much. Think about it. Granted I don't have any numbers on ceramic though.

And I'm pretty sure a shield is better than a coating for several reasons.

Feel free to start your own thread on coatings though. ;)

Build:

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/...em_6418bd8.jpg

This heatshield is sprayed with DupliColor DH 1606 High Heat Aluminum paint. It proved to be worthless on downpipes, but holds up very nicely on surfaces that don't actually have exhaust gas coursing directly through them. It yields a nice sort of matte finish that has proven to be reasonably durable.

Blanket>shield>ceramic coating>bare

a blanket is great until your turbine housing sloops; which leaves the shield as the wiener.

While Mr. Perez's shield is pretty, it illustrates what I'm trying to avoid.

I'm thinking it would be better to have a shield that better "wraps" around the entire manifold rather than just building a 3 sided box above, beside, and behind most of it. His still lets air blow right on the manifold toward the #1 cylinder. And if any water dripped down, it could contact the manifold there too.

With mine, (whenever I finish it) it will wrap around the top and sides of the manifold completely, which should better protect the manifold from the elements and, I would think, result in less heat transfer out of the manifold.

To me it seems it's better to shield the hot stuff rather than try to cover up the stuff you want to stay cool. I mean, what keeps the master cylinder from getting hot? Cool air moving by it. So wrapping it up might help keep heat away, but it also keeps cool air away too. Where putting shields on just the parts that get hot will result in less heat period.

Sloops?

Search yields nothing.

I don't know that ceramic coating works here, but it is worth it for aesthetics:
http://i36.tinypic.com/aebebn.jpg

becomes mailable, alters shape, seizes turbine.

You spent all that money on your car to make it a track machine and you don't have a cold air box for your intake? Seriously man what gives?

+1

And you still have the cruise control operational... along with EGR Canister... and OBD bracket and connection box still in sight.

Beautiful car tho....built right.

Sorry about the thread jack.

Don't get me wrong- I love your idea of the OEM-style full shield. I was posting mine to illustrate the paint I used to cover it.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna try that on my shield. I searched one of your old threads where you made that shield and I thought it was aluminum till you said it's painted just now. :)

http://i43.tinypic.com/10i5d13.jpg
I need cruise because of my popping-knee, the carbon can is coming out, the diagnotic box is nice to have for troubleshooting.


back to the DIY heatsheild thread please.

Word

I'm going to try that license plate heat shield I saw a while back.

Swain Tech White-Lighting ftw

White Lightning Exhaust by Swain Tech for Automotive Coatings including engine piston coatings, ceramic coating services engine, automotive ceramic coating, ceramic header coating, dry film lubricant, race engine coatings, exhaust header coating

The only "ceramic" coating that will have a measureable effect. I plan on one day getting my turbine housing, manifold and downpipe all coated by Swain Tech.

I've got one I will sell you for $20 plus freight.

Hustler gave me a good idea. I'm putting one of my mt.net stickers on my box when it's finished. :)

Getting back ON TOPIC...

Should I build two layers of steel over the turbine? The OEM part is two layers of steel, but they're pretty much touching each other. I could build the part that goes around the turbine say 1/4" clearance around the turbo, then a second layer riveted over it with a 1/8" air gap or something like that. Would an air gap make much difference between the two shields? I would think so.

definitely incorporate a gap between the 2 shields. As I am sure you know air is not a favorite medium of energy. I think closing it off would make it even better..... Just strap about 5 flasks together and call it done

Better yet layer a thin blanket of fiberglass between the two. You could use the sheet version of the exhaust wrap tape.

Attachment 208764

It's a good thing my turbo has hot water running through it, or it would ice up with my shield.

seal up the two pieces of metal on the outside, and create a vacuum on the inside, like a thermos.

Looking at various people's setups the question arose in my mind, does the length of tubing pre-turbo to the filter matter at all? SamS's for example is very long whereas some have but a few inches..

I'm gonna say the length doesn't matter much. I'm not even sure that the temperature matters. Again, I'm just doing all this to keep it cool so I can fill this box with foam to make it quieter. :cool:

Two layers is always going to be better for insulating because air is the insulator.
You stop the radiant heat with the shield, and the convective heat with the air gap. Double win. Most people don't spend the time/money/effort to do a second layer, but it will help.

Yeah, air gap FTW. I need to learn more about heat transfer. Like how shields reflect heat and all is news to me. Never saw it that way. Taking Thermo II now and heat transfer next semester though. :)

lol at your sig....

I made mine using aluminum sheeting and aluminum bars from home depot. stuck it together with rivets and bent the bar by hand. everything is cool to the touch around it so it's stopping all the radiant heat beautifully.

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Mine is a single-layer steel construction, with the whole inner surface (top, side, rear) lined in Thermo Tec aluminized fiberglass blanket (this is why there are so many rivets; some of them are holding trim strips that retain the blanket). After a long drive, the outer surface of the shield, while warm, is cool enough to lay your hand on. If you really want to keep the heat in, but can't quite manage fully dual-layer construction, just line the inside with this stuff.

Here's the one that I built tonight. It's not perfect and the 1,200* paint didn't lay down that well, but it will work.

^^ Hey I like that. Any chance I could get a drawing for the sheet patterns?

EDIT: Never mind, wrong manifold. Looks easy enough to pattern up though.

My pattern was a Busch Light box (24 pack, of course) and duct tape. And, yeah, nobody has that mani except me. It's a DIY job.

That's a very nice looking cover, Stein. I really wish I could have figured out a way to mount mine to the body rather than the engine, as it would have saved a lot of frustration with the early versions failing due to vibration. It took several tries to come up with a design that wouldn't crack in short order. With the placement of the turbo on the Greddy manifold however, there was nothing for it.