Heat shields
 

Just wanted to show you guys what I've done with Morpheus.
I know everyone has their own idea what's good, here's another option that I expect would be very effective.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1a85715e76.jpg

This was originally sitting under the trunk of a Mazda 3 shielding the heat from the muffler.
It is VERY light and rather rigid, maintaining it's shape beautifully once beat into submission.
The shape on the 3 was obviously nothing like the Miata tunnel and I had to completely redesign it, but this can be done by hand (with select touches using a dead blow hammer).
I installed it with a small air gap which is always a good idea.

Available at your local junk yard, go hunting :)

VERY cool. kudos

YAS

Talking about heat shields...
 

;)

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3f68d16982.png

Great idea ... heat shielding is on the list for my V8 next winter. I hadn't considered this material. Thanks!

Great looking shield. Much prettier than my shielding with DEI trans tunnel shielding, which tended to fray as it was cut due to the adhesive sticking to the fibers. Although I took my material all the way from the firewall to the very back of the trans tunnel.

In the cabin I've also got thermotec suppressor (dynamat type material), thermotec cool it matt (foil-fiberglass-mylar matt) on top, and carpet. I've got a heatshield on my turbo, a wrap on my downpipe, and clamp-on shields all the way down the exhaust. Heat is well suppressed in my car. It is much cooler than the car was naturally aspirated, and my A/C actually functions well now (no hot air blowing in along with the cooled air causing a net warm air)

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ade29107aa.jpg

I should've known this last year. Looks so much better than the sticky DEI stuff we used. Trying to properly degrease the tunnel, cut the mats and having to try them follow the contours of the tunnel was a pain in the dickhole. Props.

Really like the air gap aspect of that. Very OEMish. Someone needs to cut out a section of tunnel out of a crashed miata, set it in concrete or some crap like that, and then spend all their free time hammering out metal heatshields that are form fitted for my tunnel that I can just pay for........

Are NA and NB tunnels identical?

There's a second heat shield further back, I'll take a pic of it once I hang it back on the car.
For now the underside needs to dry.. just put a 3 tone paint job on this baby today so I can start putting it together for MRLS.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0a8a7bd591.jpgPearl White engine bay, Aqua Blue underside and new undercoating in the areas that typically get sand blasted

Absolutely beautiful. I hope to build a track care starting from a bare tub some day. Looks absolutely glorious and a hell of a lot of fun.

Thanks!
There are a bunch more things you can see in the pic - note the front sway bar mounts.
I designed a set of sheet metal gussets that completely box the factory mounts (both at the front and rear side of the mount) but still allow you to pull the long bolt of the UCA through.
We're considering putting together a small batch of these for sale as a U-weld kit.

It's also pretty easy to see how much wider the floor is on the driver side :)

Is that just the standard sort of tunnel surgery, or more than normal?

Fairly typical to the ones that we do.

Both heat shields installed -

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c7440f8d57.jpg

Wow. That is absolutely beautiful. No love for the passenger I see ;-)

I'd love the passengers more if the exh ran on their side... guess the PPF can be considered a heat shield? ;)

Standard for BFW :ne: standard for most shops ;)

Yeah, but it's not the new hotness thing some of the Spec Miata guys are doing dropping the seat more too. Was never sure what that looked like from under-car before I started digging. As I'm way too big (and don't care) to fit in a Miata well, all of that's relevant to my interests. ;)

We've done drop floors before, years before this was SM legal :)
For my own car, I don't want to drop the floor because I won't be able to see where I'm going...

are those just self tappers into the floor, or something else to hold the heat shield in place?

None of them are self tappers, because that's for steel stud construction and A/C ducting.
All are M6 bolts to weld nuts or chassis tabs.

Happy to report that the heat shield worked like a champ and the tunnel had ZERO heat transfer into it, almost cold to touch in the cooler MRLS weather.

Bump because I'm 99% sure I found the OEM heat shield part number. Hopefully Moti can jump in and confirm.

BP4K-56-441F, a whopping $32 locally or $44 shipped brand new from a Mazda dealer on eBay.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...516fc613ea.jpg

Here's the shield I got from eBay. About 27" long, and the wide end would measure about 22" if flattened out. All the stamped ridges, indents, and edge contours match Moti's pictures as far as I can tell.

Amazon has them for 44 + free shipping. I'll order one and see how it is.

I love this. I pulled my engine yesterday for a rebuild and I was going to order the stuff that you stick on the sheetmetal. This looks much better (and is cheaper)

Looks like you found the right one, afm.
Super light, huh? :)

Yup, and pleasantly WAY less sharp than similar heat shields on my Volvo :)

The view under an ND without engine/trans in it shows heat shielding quite similar to Morpheus.

http://www.mazdatalkforum.com/downlo...hp?id=4440&t=1

http://www.mazdatalkforum.com/downlo...hp?id=4439&t=1

Nice find, Ryan!
This one might be even easier to work with if the dimensions are close enough.
Any idea about part number / cost?
Won't be needing it for my stuff, but if someone is just starting....

I wish mazda motorsports website was updated so I could just find the part number for that shielding and order it.

Been looking into this for mine, I think its N247-56-410A

I use partsouq for my part # searches.

https://partsouq.com/en/catalog/genuine/unit?c=Mazda&ssd=%24HAxLcgINAQRNV1kPADlrAUpcXlVYdl orTAt2YwdMWllaKwwVUE1SR3JVSmkrCh1oB3xRWQcMc1tE%24& vid=1421292233&cid=3457&uid=44277&q=

I was going to dig around for the PN today but, well, Monday. Will try to look into it tomorrow.

Mazda PN: N247-56-410A or N247-56-410B
Best we can tell the difference between the two part numbers is auto vs. manual and that just changes the hole for the shifter a bit.
List price is $244 and there's only one showing in the country. There will be more eventually, just not yet.

do you leave an air gap between the heat shield and the body? Or do you bolt it directly onto the body? I'm concerned about vibration and rattle noise in my daily driver. I had the OEM heat shields on my NA exhaust downpipe drive me nuts

I was concerned about that too. I used some left over reflectix to create an air gap and some cushioning against rattles. I don't have the motor back in the car yet for results, but it seems to be noise free, and if temps get high enough behind the heat shield to melt it I probably have more problems than a weird smell.

Btw, these threads are fantastic, but if I keep reading them and trying to replicate, I'll never get my car finished to drive it.

From the OP -

I probably shouldn't have spent those reading comprehension tests smoking weed behind our school.

Inspired by Moti's great idea in this thread. Picked up an ND tunnel heat shield from Mazda to play with. It arrives with an insulation layer stapled to the back side. The insulation can't be re-shaped so it's removed by pulling the staples out. Despite being tunnel-shaped there's still a good bit of shaping needed to fit it to an NA/NB as the ND's has large humps for cats that need to be hammered out:

https://photos.smugmug.com/20152017-...MG_7011-XL.jpg

There's also an insulated pad on the underside up against the top of the shield. You can see that in my pics earlier in this thread of the one installed in an ND. Drill out the aluminum rivets to remove that.

Here's my tunnel before adding this new shield. I already had one layer of shielding in the tunnel - this is the stuff with fiberglass center and reflective outer layers. I chose to leave this in the tunnel to help as insulation:

https://photos.smugmug.com/20152017-...MG_7036-XL.jpg

For the ND shield, altering the shape was done mostly with a mallet, using the tunnel as the mold of course. Excess is trimmed rather easily with just scissors:

https://photos.smugmug.com/20152017-...MG_7034-XL.jpg

Then installed with a ~1/4" air gap between the shield and the surface behind it:

https://photos.smugmug.com/20152017-...MG_7040-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/20152017-...MG_7041-XL.jpg

Wow, that looks great. Solid info, will be using this in the future.

I installed the one AFM mentioned in post #23 from a Mazda dealer. Very easy to do even with the engine/exhaust/transmission all in the car. And it works quite well. No more having to shield my right leg from the trans tunnel with my windshield visor! on long trips. Sorry I don't have pics but I don't have the car right now.

I'm jealous of you guys and your cars that keep oil/trans fluid on the inside.

Bump to add more pics of possible uses.
I posted all these in the "This one goes to 11" - a BFW LS3 swap build thread already, but for future searching purposes, here they are again.
We used the same part number to create different heat shields, we bought 2 pieces to make all of the parts shown and the heat shields in the tunnel and over the alternator (not shown).

Heat shield for oil lines -
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e54bffa8da.jpg

Air box -
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...03cc1bef06.jpg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cdbbd8fdc6.jpg

Headers -
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c3188c1b31.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ff20f5bed1.jpg