Racer X Fabrication heat shield, help us to help you

[ATL BRZ]

Interesting. I see this being most effective for front mount turbo setups or NA manifolds that come up in front of the belts/block and back down. I'm not sure it would be very effective for a NA car without a header that occupies that space in front of the block unless theres additional shielding at the bottom to go across the top of the header and prevent that radiant heat from rising up and soaking the intake. I'd love to see IAT and coolant temp data before/after the shield installed on a stock car.

[charged86]

@racerx1715 do you think you could revise the stock lower pan to suck heat out of the bay would reverse louvers do this?

[mike the snake]

here's what I did to my skidplate. It seems to work very well.

Rubber strips trip the air causing a low pressure area behind thew hole in the skidplate, which helps pull hot air out of the engine bay.

[BadBRZ]

Originally Posted by mike the snake

here's what I did to my skidplate. It seems to work very well.

Rubber strips trip the air causing a low pressure area behind thew hole in the skidplate, which helps pull hot air out of the engine bay.

Write a how to please!

[mike the snake]

Pretty basic. I removed the skidplate and cut the hole with a grinder and cutting disk.

I used a pair of front rubber strips off my old BMW 135i that already had mounting tabs and mounted them to the front of the opening I had made.

I then reinstalled the skidplate.

When cutting the hole, i paid attention to where to cut so I retained all the OEM mounting holes, it's easy to cut the mounting holes out and then the skidplate won't mount solidly.

I'm pretty sure this works very well. With the car parked, running, fans on, a LOT of hot air can be felt coming out from under the car.

On the road, I assume it is working well. The rubber strips work as upside-down "gurney flaps" and trip the air away from the bottom of the car, which causes a low pressure area behind the opening, which helps pull hot air out of the engine bay.

[charged86]

Originally Posted by mike the snake

Pretty basic. I removed the skidplate and cut the hole with a grinder and cutting disk.

I used a pair of front rubber strips off my old BMW 135i that already had mounting tabs and mounted them to the front of the opening I had made.

I then reinstalled the skidplate.

When cutting the hole, i paid attention to where to cut so I retained all the OEM mounting holes, it's easy to cut the mounting holes out and then the skidplate won't mount solidly.

I'm pretty sure this works very well. With the car parked, running, fans on, a LOT of hot air can be felt coming out from under the car.

On the road, I assume it is working well. The rubber strips work as upside-down "gurney flaps" and trip the air away from the bottom of the car, which causes a low pressure area behind the opening, which helps pull hot air out of the engine bay.

this looks good i may try have some relief cut outs done in aluminum having them tig welded on the aluminum or making some myself and bolting them on. I like a clean engine bay. I did notice lots of dust in the bay when my belly pan was left off when i was fitting my header and custom overpipe but i forgot to log engine temps.

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by racerx1715

Currently we are thinking of making them out of brushed 304 stainless steel.

I'm not sure how "brushed" the ss is you are thinking of using but from a purely theoretical point of view I think it should be as shiny as possible to reflect radiant heat. I am not suggesting there would be a significant (or even measurable) difference between brushed and shiny, just that I like to squeeze every possible benefit out of a modification. This is why my headers have chrome finish and not black.

[Lavalover]

Polished aluminum would have even lower emissivity and would radiate less heat than SS.


http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/em...nts-d_447.html

[continuecrushing]

hmm..sub'd for more info and development

[mike the snake]

I might be wrong, but my mod should help keep the dust down in the engine bay, since the air hopefully is moving out the hole, not in.

Running with no skidplate, I suspect will invite a lot of road dust up into the engine bay.

I'd be interested to see how the heat shield works with my skidplate/trip strip mod works.

I'm interested in one of the skidplates if I can confirm it fits with the Full Blown turbo kit with V-bands.

Originally Posted by charged86

this looks good i may try have some relief cut outs done in aluminum having them tig welded on the aluminum or making some myself and bolting them on. I like a clean engine bay. I did notice lots of dust in the bay when my belly pan was left off when i was fitting my header and custom overpipe but i forgot to log engine temps.

[Dephective]

Running with no skid plate causes turbulence in the bay and reduces the effectiveness of the airflow coming in through the front air dam over the radiator. This swirling effect inside the bay actually will reduce heat dissipation in the bay allowing for increased temps, because the air isn't leaving like it should. Mike's mod theoretically is sound engineering, although there could be a more eloquent way of tackling it. Overall, I'll probably do something like this myself after I finally get a garage again (buying my new home in a few days)

As for the OP, I love you guys. I have one of your first ever sets of LCA's ( the custom powdercoated purple ones from the group buy) and quality is top notch. I see this working very well to reduce heat on the accessory drives, but I feel stainless is too heavy. I think aluminum would be okay, assuming it holds up to heat cycling. I plan on running the Rev Works turbo kit here pretty soon and I'm not sure how fitment would be since there's only 2 kits in existence currently, but I would probably use gold reflector tape to further decrease heat transfer, which would give the aluminum a leg up.
As for the crank pulley bolt, do you think you could get away with a dimple on the sheet rather than a hole? Just spit balling ideas here. Definitely interested though.

[ichitaka05]

Interesting.

It works nicely for FI... but only for turbo. Maybe look into design #2 for sc FRS/BRZ guys.

Just my 2 cents

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by Dephective

gold reflector tape

Gold foil ftw! http://store.bimmerworld.com/gold-fo...film-p841.aspx
Yep, I will have a shield!

[Jeff@Racer X Fab]

Originally Posted by charged86

@racerx1715 do you think you could revise the stock lower pan to suck heat out of the bay would reverse louvers do this?

I'm sure we could look into making a complete replacement with louvers if we have enough interest to build one.

Originally Posted by Lavalover

Polished aluminum would have even lower emissivity and would radiate less heat than SS.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/em...nts-d_447.html

The emissivity is lower, but the thermal conductivity is higher. Really torn on this one, three kinds of heat transfer conduction, convection, and radiation. We have to start with what we are trying to protect and and prevent heat from transferring to. For the turbo kits stainless may be the better choice and would protect the accessories, but for NA aluminum might be the way to go. We can always offer both choices and let the end user decide.

The aluminum may be more of a heat sink than a heat shield.

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

I'm not sure how "brushed" the ss is you are thinking of using but from a purely theoretical point of view I think it should be as shiny as possible to reflect radiant heat. I am not suggesting there would be a significant (or even measurable) difference between brushed and shiny, just that I like to squeeze every possible benefit out of a modification. This is why my headers have chrome finish and not black.

The brushed was more appearance in this case than functionality, as the difference between then would be slight. We would much rather offer the flat finish than the brushed.

Originally Posted by Dephective

Running with no skid plate causes turbulence in the bay and reduces the effectiveness of the airflow coming in through the front air dam over the radiator. This swirling effect inside the bay actually will reduce heat dissipation in the bay allowing for increased temps, because the air isn't leaving like it should. Mike's mod theoretically is sound engineering, although there could be a more eloquent way of tackling it. Overall, I'll probably do something like this myself after I finally get a garage again (buying my new home in a few days)

As for the OP, I love you guys. I have one of your first ever sets of LCA's ( the custom powdercoated purple ones from the group buy) and quality is top notch. I see this working very well to reduce heat on the accessory drives, but I feel stainless is too heavy. I think aluminum would be okay, assuming it holds up to heat cycling. I plan on running the Rev Works turbo kit here pretty soon and I'm not sure how fitment would be since there's only 2 kits in existence currently, but I would probably use gold reflector tape to further decrease heat transfer, which would give the aluminum a leg up.
As for the crank pulley bolt, do you think you could get away with a dimple on the sheet rather than a hole? Just spit balling ideas here. Definitely interested though.

The bolt sits about 3/8" away from the shield currently, we could put a dimple in this location without much trouble.

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Interesting.

It works nicely for FI... but only for turbo. Maybe look into design #2 for sc FRS/BRZ guys.

Just my 2 cents

I'm sure we can look into a design for the SC guys as well.