Question about 348 Exhaust Shield???

I thought a Tubi was to be heard, but not seen?

 

That would be a yes. I don't recomend it, unless you want melted tail lights.

You can make a different heat shield out of pollished stainless, but make sure you glue heat sheild material on the bottom of it.

 

Keep the heat shield intact as it is.

If you were to be able to look down and see the Tubi, then you would not have protection from the extreme heat of the muffler, which would cause melted taillights among other problems.

 

I ran my 348ss without the shields for 7 years and nothin' melted on the car. this was the single factory piece not the older twin silencers. It looked great and it wasn't a shiny tubi.

 

I wouldn't jack with that heat shield on a bet. When you want to show off your Tubi, carry around a big mirror in your passenger seat and just slide it under the engine bay. You might rig up a couple of halogen lights for better effect.

 

You simply lucked out. Typically, the taillights melt even with the heat shields in place.

 

I have a tubi with no cats on the car and track my car more than enough and have no heat shield on my car. Not a single issue in three years of driving and 10000 fast miles.

 

I have a Tubi with no rear heatshield. The Tubi box is a good deal smaller than the stock box, hence its not necessary to have the rear shield. This was confirmed by my Ferrari independent specialist - its just common sense!!

 

My dad's been running his for 1000 miles w/o the heat shield & Tubi w/ no problems at all. I've run the car very hard so if it was going to melt the tail lights, it would have done it already.

 

Well my 348 didn't have the upper rear heat sheild, and my lights DID melt. It doesn't happen right away. It took a several months and well OVER 1000 miles of driving. First the rear light cover starts to get disfigured. It gets so hot that it becomes soft and starts to droop. The plastic will cool and it keeps the droopy shape. This continues and eventually the cover is no good. Then the tailghts themselves start to do the same thing. Then the connectors that hold the light bulbs get brittle and start to crack and break. Why do you think that there was an upgrade to the rear tail lights, by adding a heat sheild to the bottom of them? Think I'm making this up? Then go have a look at the tail lights of a '94 348 and you'll see the heat sheild around the tailings, not just the muffler. Which is why your dad has been lucky so far. But hey, who am I to question your genius.

 

U GO GQ!

 

Erine - Dont want to argue with you and was just pointing out what happened with my car. I have no disfiguring of the tail light mechanism or tail lights themselves. As I said its been 10000 miles, 3000+ on the track, two trips to the USGP, and numerious rush hour traffic sessions. If mine were going to melt they would have.

Thus the lession GQ Image it worked for one and didnt for the other. Play at your own risk.

Erine do you have cats on your car or not? I dont which might be making the difference.

 

I have a '94 spider - my taillights were buggered when I got the car and I had to jack around with a couple of the lamp housings to change lamps. I put the Tubi and Hyperflows on it but put the heatshield back on. Yeah, you can't see the Tubi but you can bloody well hear it so I'm happy enough.

I reckon I'm with ernie on this one but make a new shield if you like. Price the taillights and plan accordingly - if the exhaust runs cooler than stock then perhaps no worries or worst case is you buy new lamp housings and replace or upgrade an exhaust shield.

Cheers
Kevin

 

Yeah I have the cats. They do make alot of heat, that may be why you are not getting the melted lights.

 

Look at his username. Nuff said.

 

Take it easy there stud, I was only saying what MY experience was, not what possibly COULD happen in the future nor what anyone else should do. Take a chill pill and loosen up a little, life will be much easier.

 

Well today I got caught up in a huge delay on our M4 motorway. What should have been a 1 hour 30 journey became 4+ hours. So there I am thinking, ****, my Tubi with decat pipes has no rear heat shield and I've done about 5 miles in 1hour 30mins, in other words the car was cooking - I mean seriously cooking, no rain, quite hot, and I could see the rear heat fumes waving all around my tail. Then I remembered this post, oh god, what if my plastic rear light casings melt - it would be the natural time to collapse - guess what - they were perfect - I am sure it has something to do with having straight through pipes and not cats!

 

I got ANSA pipes ,pig ugly, no cats,took the shield off last week as it was rattling! 200 klm run in 80 degrees of Italian sunshine........dunno if the lights melted as i only just read this thread so never thought to look! Hope they haven't as i'm jobless at the end of this month and i can't afford to replace them!

 

TOMMO348

Your experiences could be the answer I'm looking for... the lower half of my heatshield has broken/torn and has slipped down slightly... so, the question is, as I have a Tubi and no cats, if I simply take the bottom section of heat shield out all together (what bit is that protecting? - bumper I assume?) and leave the top section in place are the odds in my favour of things being ok.

I would have thought it took a lot more heat to melt the bumper than the lights.

The other question - I am taking the car down to Spain in August, and will have a 10 hour run from North to South. I would have thought however that with the heat generated from the exhaust anyway the outside temperature would have relatively little effect - am I right or wrong?

As a safe option, any idea of the cost of a new bottom half heat shield?

 

Al - the reason my rear heatshield was removed had nothing to do with aesthetics. The car was having the Tubi fitted with the decat pipes - I'll avoid discussing the cock up which resulted in the wrong pipes being fitted, but because of the non standard Tubi decat pipes, the back Tubi box was forced forward, meaning we had to put on 355 exhaust brackets to support the box. This in turn required the rear heat shield to be removed - cause it wouldn't fit over the 355 brackets. I was told that the rear heatshield was not required because the Tubi Box is a good deal smaller than the stock box.

After about 3 weeks of my pipes fouling the rear bumper section, I took the car to my local F specialist to have the real Tubi decat pipes fitted. The specialist confirmed that the rear heat shield would not be required.

If you look at a Tubi back box, it sits lower and is a lot smaller than the stock box. I just can't see how it would melt the light casing anyway.

As for the external temperature, the point I was making was that if the car can withstand 5 hours of very slow traffic with no rear heatshield, then surely the car does not need one with a Tubi box - you'll be fine on a 10 hour trip to Spain.

I did remember a post recently about stainless steel heatshields - good looking bit of kit - keep an eye out on ebay - but go to www.eurospares.co.uk for originals they've got some spare (says £0 cost) - probably £25 notes should suffice plus packing. Anyhows - here's a few pics to put things in perspective
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Thanks for that Julian, may well have a tinker this weekend!

 

AL,

The inner surface of the bumper is fitted with a reflective heat shield (Foil covering a type of matting).

The foil on mine was peeling away - to correct it, it was a quick trip to TESCO for the strongest baking foil, and I glued it back onto the matting - worked great. Use TESCO finest range only