Quote:
Originally Posted by Blas
The plates should be Stainless Steel and not aluminum and polishing them increases their effectiveness.
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Not really- stainless steel is heavier, harder to work with and cost more. Polish them makes no difference because you handle heat radiation and not light radiation.
The aluminum cool down easier and they don't need to be very thick. All what a heat shield does is keep the heat directly from the surface.
With an 0.5 inch gap and a 18ga alu shield we talking about 250f (1 inch from the header) before and ambient temp after 0.5 inches.
What helps the most is to wrap the headers (150f one inch from header), in combination with the heat shields. That helps to lower the overall engine department temp.