Quote:
Originally Posted by
opjohn
Any plans for additional shields for other turbos ? Hahn / garret etc ?
Not trying to take anything away from the vendors selling the SS heat shields they certainly are attractive but you may want to consider the following:
The stock GM heat shield is an aluminum sandwich design which means it has an air space between the bottom shield and top shield (two pieces stamped together) which allows for cooler temps on the top shield.
The SS design is one piece which means all the heat radiated from the turbo housing saturates the one piece shield.
I have not measured the difference between the underside and the top side of the GM shield but I believe the GM engineers would not go through the added cost of designing a two piece shield and stamping the two together if it did not offer a heat dissipation advantage.
Not withstanding the potential temp advantage the GM shield may offer, the other interesting point is the GM shield is aluminum and is very easy to polish to a high luster.
I polished mine starting with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper, took it up to 600 grit and then used 000 steel wool and then 0000 steel wool to get a mirror like finish.
I also found the stock GM heat shield to be a pain in the butt to remove and replace due to the lower bolt that goes into the turbo housing. To ease removal and installation of the heat shield I cut an elongated slot in the heat shield below the bolt hole so the bolt only has to be loosened instead of removed when you take the heat shield off. Upon reinstalling the heat shield just line up the slot with the bolt, push the heat shield down between the bolt head and the turbo housing, tighten the two top bolts, tighten the lower bolt and your done. This eliminates trying to reinstall the lower bolt through the shield and feeling for the hole in the housing which can be frustrating!
The polishing and cutting of the slot in the heat shield took a total of about 2 hours.
Again I'm not trying to take anything away from the heat shield vendors, their product looks GREAT and the price is low considering all the work that had to be done to make a polished and engraved SS Shield!!!!
Over the next few days I'll try and post pictures of the stock GM shield polished and slotted.
Hope this may be of some assistance to those "do it yourselfers."
Frank I