Not too long ago I made this thread

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2348129

94EG8 definitely helped me out with diagnosing the car. I took a PVC pipe and whacked the pipes underside the car and found found one area that made a similar noise. That was this past weekend. I was planning on trying to get a jack + jack stands to get under there to find out more when this happened tonight on my way home...









That was what made the noise when I whacked it. I drove 1 block from my girlfriend's house when I notice this terrible metal scraping noise. I park, take a look and that thing is hang on by one bolt. The other 3 had rusted apart! I jack the car off and my friend and I tore it off. I took these pics with my cell phone so you guys at HT could tell me what fell off!

I wonder if thats the exhaust heatshield 94EG8 was talking about? Its nowhere near the exhaust however so I'm doubtful. It seems to protect whatever it covered from debris on the road? How much is this going to cost me? Can I find a replacement at a junkyard? To reinstall it myself, I'm definitely gonna have to get that trolley jack and jack stands. I need my car for work so I'll be driving it til the weekend at least. I hope I'll be ok without that thing.

EDIT: Google is my friend. It looks like that is the heatshield.


Modified by devi0us at 9:37 PM 7/30/2008

 

I wouldn't even bother putting it back on.

 

Yea its a heatshield. I took every one of them off of my EJ8 and havent had a problem. All they do is make annoying noises.

 

" I jack the car off and my friend and I tore it off" LOL!

Sorry dude that was hilarious..
About your question leave the heat shield off.

 

HAHA! I wish I could say that was intentional humor. It was late and I confused up with off.

Very good to know I can just leave it off. Thanks for the help guys!

 

It looks like that's the heat shield for your catalytic converter. If you lived somewhere warm I'd say leave it off. However since you appear to live in Philly, you probably get snow in the winter, and temps far below what you'll see down south. And everyone who's responded so far is from the south.

A heat shield is exactly what it sounds like - it traps & contains heat. Whether you're driving through rain, snow, ice, etc. it tries to insure that your catalytic converter stays hot (which it needs to do in order to work) and doesn't get exposed to massive quantities of cold (very hot part + very cold elements = bad). Obviously if you waded through something deep enough to completely submerge the cat & lower part of your car in water/slush, the shield isn't going to work, but I almost never see that and I've living in the rust belt for decades. Most of the time it just stops snow, water, & slush from directly splashing onto the hot cat.

That beings said, I wonder if you could use heat wrap on the cat. It's usually used on exhaust pipes & related components (turbo plumbing), so it should be able to handle the heat being generated. I'm just thinking that because the shields are generally kinda expensive (at least given that they're just stamped metal), and the wraps I've seen have been far less expensive.

You might be able to find a junkyard part, but it's basically an exhaust component, so it wears out frequently due to constant exposure to the elements... I wonder if you'd be able to find one in good enough shape that you could even get off the junkyard car in one piece. Unless, of course, you were visiting a junkyard outside the rust belt.

 

Damn, so right now I'm OK, but I'll be needing one in a few months. It does get cold here during the winters. I didn't know the heatshield kept heat in, I thought it was shielding from heat.

If one from a junkyard would be as in bad condition as the one that we tore off, then could I buy/order one online? How much is expensive?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by OMGWTFBBQ! &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldn't even bother putting it back on. </TD></TR></TABLE>
I am really starting to like this kid's attitude. Its like a reflection...

You dont need the shield...forget about it.
No, it certainly does not keep heat in.......

 

Right, I thought it protects stuff from heat of the cat.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What...hield

Don't know what to believe but I noticed in the picture there's a top half to the part that we took off. I guess the link holds some truth?

I just need to know what to do right now.

 

Leave it off! They are useless.

 

get new bolts and put it back on

 

You dont know what to do??
You are getting nothing but "leave it off" from (almost) everyone that's responded.

I have no heat shield on my cat. Its my daily driver, 75mi/day and has had no shield for the last 8 years that Ive owned the car.

It is not necessary.
Cats from 3rd party manufacturers dont even come with shielding...

 

ok to cover what MonkeyBoy668 said, I live in chicago also, I've puled that cover from every honda I've ever touched. Never had a single problem.

Yes it will shield the hot cat from what ever happens to press against it, but simply don't park in a pile of dead leaves and you'll be fine.
As far as winter time, my box stock 93 is still going strong with the original cat. It hasn't had a heat shield (top or bottom) since the previous owner got tired of the rattling in 99.

 

Hey, monkeyboy made a comprehensive post about how I need it for cold weather and I thought I'd get more opinions. A smart thing to do right?

Thanks for everyone's answers, I'm leaarning a lot. I'm gonna leave it off I guess. I'd bolt it on but the bolt areas are rusted off.

 

Like most everyone has said, you'll probably be ok leaving it off. But you do run a small risk of having problems with it, like others have said, starting a grass fire, you can get stuff burned onto it, snow and slush getting on it, stuff like that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by devi0us &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hey, monkeyboy made a comprehensive post about how I need it for cold weather and I thought I'd get more opinions. A smart thing to do right?

Thanks for everyone's answers, I'm leaarning a lot. I'm gonna leave it off I guess. I'd bolt it on but the bolt areas are rusted off.</TD></TR></TABLE>
a very smart move considering this is the internet.

what monkeyboy said is 100% true, but only really a concern if you're trying to keep the cat working at 100% like it was intended to be. Dropping the temp on the cat causes it to work less efficiently, but you'll never notice the difference. Plus it heats back up quickly...

 

So my only consideration is the snow/slush in the coming winter. It gets nasty here in the winter, especially with the plowed snow in the streets, I know that the cat would be in slush and snow constantly.

However Relic, you live in Chicago and seem to be ok. Grass wouldn't be a worry since I live in the city.

Lets say I want to take the safe route and put it back on. What do you guys think of using band clamps? As you can see in the pics, the bolt areas rusted off, so I'd need to find/buy a new one if I wanted to bolt it back.

http://autorepair.about.com/li...b.htm

I think the heatshield isn't supposed to come into contact with the cat, just surround it.

Again, sorry for being a nanny about this seemingly simple issue, just wanna be safe and minimize future damages (and cost) in the future. Thanks to all, and I'm really enjoying HT.

 

How it's held on isn't all that important, so long as it's held on tightly (if it's loose it'll drive you nuts with buzzing & rattling, though it'd otherwise still work). The more I think about it, the more I think exhaust/heat wrap would accomplish much the same thing as the shield, but you'd probably need to unbolt the cat to wrap it. And exhaust bolts generally don't come off without a major fight (torch + impact wrench + prayer).

When hot metal gets quenched it doesn't just rapidly cool down, it can also change the properties of the metal (e.g. become brittle). This is what I'd be worried about. And even if it never leads to (early) failure of the cat, I'd be pissed if I took time off to get an emissions check and failed it because the cat was too cool. Though with 96+ IL doesn't sniff tailpipes anymore, they just trust what the OBD-2 system tells them, but I like the idea of having my daily driver's tailpipe emissions being within design tolerances.

However, don't put any extra weight on what I say due to the length of my responses, I'm really just a verbose SOB.

 

The heat shield uses an air gap to prevent the shield itself from actually getting as hot as the cat. Or as cooled down when it hits snow/slush.
With a clamp type setup it wouldn't have that air gap.

header wrap may be an alternative, all though being where it is compared to where the oil filter drips... I'd be worried about a fire after a messy oil change. It's not in direct line with the drip, but we all know that oil gets places where it shouldn't when doing changes in a honda. Any type of cloth in that area just doesn't seem safe to me.

My advice, if you want the shield, an exhaust shop should be able to weld it back into place.

 

Good stuff guys. Upon weighing the pros and cons, I believe I will pursue getting the shield re-attached properly, or getting a new heat shield altogether. Just to be on the safe side.

I'm remember seeing some online retailers in the FAQ. I'm going to check out what prices I'm looking at. Thanks for all the helpful posts guys!

 

leave it off... seriously they dont do ****.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Relic1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I live in chicago also, I've puled that cover from every honda I've ever touched. Never had a single problem.

Yes it will shield the hot cat from what ever happens to press against it, but simply don't park in a pile of dead leaves and you'll be fine.
As far as winter time, my box stock 93 is still going strong with the original cat. It hasn't had a heat shield (top or bottom) since the previous owner got tired of the rattling in 99.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i live in the boonies... we get snow drifts out here. i have had three civics now... every one of those stupid *** heat shields got ripped off the second they started making noise. hell even on my non-Honda cars like my escort and my woody wagon they got ripped off.

and honestly... your cats what like 18" to 2 feet long max... you would have to like drive up on a cardboard box to start a fire or like Relic said park on a pile of dead leaves, honestly they would probally have to be soaked in some sort of combustible liquid for them to even catch fire.

now why do you want to go spend money to get a new cat or to have your rusted *** rattly heat shield put back on... AHH its not even like theres a heat shield along the entire exhaust... there are all sorts of "exposed" piping. i doubt that the cat gets any hotter then the b-pipe...

my opinion waste of money... leave it how it is, and dont listen to these clowns that make it sound like the heat shield is a vital part to your exhaust.

oh and to add to all this... YES my new cars cat has a heat shield on it... but thats coz the previous owner decided it would be a good idea to weld a piece of straight pipe right up to the cat , so rather then cutting grinding and dealing with the headaches i out right replaced the cat. the cat that was on there didnt have a shield tho and like all these chicagoians are tellin ya stock cats no heat shields... still no problems. and we get snow like a mother [freak]er

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by devi0us &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So my only consideration is the snow/slush in the coming winter. It gets nasty here in the winter, especially with the plowed snow in the streets, I know that the cat would be in slush and snow constantly.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I live in michigan, I guarantee the winter weather here is more severe than what you will ever deal with...

Im done saying you dont need it. If you want to reattach it and waste time money in the process, thats your thing
Good luck, hope it works out for you

 

Okay, you guys convinced me. I'm leaving it off!

Thanks for the help! :D