Looks like good stuff, but I'm not sure how you'd attach it to the firewall and trans tunnel. You're going to have to either mechanically attach it with hardware to the firewall, tunnel and under the floorboards or you're going to glue it, which means, you'll be sanitizing the bottom of a decades old car, of the grease, grunge and undercoating. It has to be able to hold up to the conditions of the car at let's say 75 mph and not come off, rattle around or be compromised.

Secondly, you've got the bare firewall thing going, and that's great, but most of the people here, their Corvettes are complete, which means, that I had to come up with a design that goes in, without a lot of major disassembly. You will probably have to loosen the exhaust pipe behind the collector to get the heat shield in, that I'm designing. Other than that, I'm using the factory mounts.

 

No AC and Alan, you're actually in on the design and fab process as it progresses. The mockup you saw on page 3, was actually done last night! This is my first summer in my C3 and I was amazed at the heat output out of the footwells. I have both a 'creative' and 'engineering' bent and being a gearhead, who's worked in Aerospace for 25 years, I got the feel of what might work.

I have to test it out and I anticipate the mockup of the driver's side, being done by the weekend and if it all goes well, two test shields for both sides by the end of next week, so that we can verify fit and most of all, function. Because if it doesn't work, I have no interest in releasing it.

 

I'm looking to start on the outside as well. My car still has the factory E69 shields that I'll keep afterwards.

So many choices out there but I'm looking for a stick on to cover the foot wells.

It's pricey but HP Sticky Shield from Heatshield Products looks like it would work as it got a 1/8" insulation as well as a aluminum cover.

Has anyone had some success with with something like this?

 

Exactly....


Regis-AKA F22-

Glad to see you experimenting....

Here's some of my thoughts-


Air IS a good insulator...but becomes a POOR insulator if it is in motion.

I keep going back to my original idea...

Lizard skin on the inside...Zero clearance on the outside...


And maybe a thin layer of Styrofoam on the inside-

Richard

 

Regarding the lizard skin, try it out and take some photo's, it'd be intriguing to see how it works! A lot of good ideas being put out here.

As far as air being an insulator, that's not necessary with the Kapton Film, because the radiant heat is being directly reflected and I'm not relying on the 'insulation' properties of air, to dissipate or slow down the heat before it gets to the floorboard.

You only have to look at the pics of the steel plate to see the incredible reflective quality of the Kapton film. From 444 degrees an inch away, to 173 degrees on the back of the plate. No air gap between the film and the plate, it's directly glued on.

 

What do you wear to the moon?

http://www2.dupont.com/Media_Center/..._FactSheet.pdf

http://www2.dupont.com/Kapton/en_US/...ce-H-78318.pdf

 

F22, wow this looks very promising. A couple questions, assuming the mock up works as expected
Do you plan to sell this as a kit?
Do you plan to sell the templates and instructions and have the user purchase the material? Is this material even commercially available?

Looking forward to your test drive results!

 

Driver Side Mockup.

Nearly complete, using the prior night's experience, this afternoon, I put the driver's side together and then trimmed to fit. It's just about there. I used the wrong side, so forgive the printing on the cardboard mockup.



Close up of Driver's side inside corner. You can see, where I tore a small piece out to accomodate the clutch linkage on the lower left corner. Naturally, this will be a nice square on the final product.



Side View, showing more than adequate clearance to exhaust



This is the bottom of the factory aluminum heat shield



Finally, one of the 375 yard rolls of Aluminized Kapton Film that I have. To answer Flivver's question, this stuff is very hard to get, I can't find anything of any decent quantity. They're selling it on ebay for $175 a pound and it's pretty pricey by the yard, and that's not even the aluminized Kapton, just the regular K for PC board, coil use, etc.



We're making progress and I want to get my hands on some metal tonight, so we may start fabbing up the prototypes. I want to keep the ball rolling on this, just to see if it works. If it does, yay! If it doesn't, then we'll figure out what we need to do, to make it work or else!



We're making progress

 

F22 This stuff in the link has PSA Glue on it rated to 450*F. In my case my floor is bare metal/freshly primed and my firewall is also bare and spotless! I do agree that most peoples cars are together and this wouldn't work for them.

 

F22, I just sent you a PM.

John

 

Update: I spec'd material. 5052 Aluminum (6061 cracks when you bend it!). Coming in Monday at a better price from my bud in the same Industrial Complex as our shop. Picked up 36" foam board last night, to make a really rigid mockup of the driver's side. I will make the driver's side first and not make the passenger side. Then will mount the heatshield and we'll start with testing. I anticipate by the end of next week, we should have a fab'd piece, ready to mount.

 

Not to play devils advocate, but since this stuff reflects the heat, will it make it harder to keep the motor cool, reflecting off of the firewall? Just trying to make sure this thought hasn't been skipped over.

 

Good question. No, first, because the heatshield only extends up to where the factory heatshield ends. Secondly, the motor is cooled by the radiator, versus an aircooled engine, it shouldn't be a problem.

In a sense, you're already getting heat soak from the firewall, as it is black in color and soaks up the radiant heat from the heads. If you had a kapton covered firewall, reflecting it back, it won't be a 'direct' reflection straight back into the head, but will radiate outwards in all directions (up, down, around) and willl actually disperse the heat! And because a kapton-covered firewall will be significantly cooler than a 'black' soak-up-the-whole-spectrum', it will probably help cool the engine compartment down.

For now, we're only going up to where the factory heat shield on the lower front of the firewall/footwell ends at the diagonal. So no change to the factory firewall (for now). I've already given thought to that, but it has to be a 'sanitary' install that's going to meet the requirements for what I'm doing with the lower part of the firewall, floorboards and trans tunnel.

 

a start would be a shutoff valve for the heater hoses, I don't have air in my '75, it really made a difference.

 

Passenger Side Mockup #2. Got the laminated cardboard template out of the car and started applying the pattern to a 36" piece of foam core poster board. To me, that would be the test because the stiffness of the board, replicates more closely, the metal that will ultimately be used. It's actually a pretty complex pattern, but it matched closely. The upper two tabs, lined right up on the 74's heat shield. The trans tunnel portion of the shield continues forward past the firewall, where it will wrap around the front, behind the firewall portion of the shield, creating an inner 'corner' that will protect the vulnerable inside corner of the footwell. So far, so good.

Today, the driver's side in foam board.

 

I had the some thought of shielding using aluminum.
The film you have is great, but how can we get some.
Looking forward to your test.

 

Final fit today, adjusting the foam board and the original template. Earlier this evening, working the sheet of 5052 aluminum and started the overall cuts to what's going to be the passenger side heat shield. Tommorow, is jig saw day to do the fine details.

GBC, regarding your question, the material is not easy to get and it is very expensive (as many of you found out). My plan is to do a limited 'introduction' of so many, after I test out the results, with pics and documentation, as you've seen in this thread.

If it does, what I think it's going to do, you'll have a whole lot less heat in the car. While laying under there, for the fifth day in a row, I believe I can also add another separate set of heat shields over the top of the lower horizontal half of the headers all the way to just past the bell housing and it'd be a bolt-on too.

 

Saturday and Sunday, I spent a lot of time on the first metal version of the Heat Shield for the passenger side (which was the most complex). A lot of drilling, cutting, trimming and finishing. It is now ready to get the bends and folds at lunch and tonight, I will be test fitting it to the Corvette and if it test fits well, it will get the Dupont Kapton applied to the whole surface and then be mounted on the car. Also, I started working on the driver's side and have the first template ready to transfer to metal, so I can begin cutting.

I anticipate testing my '74 with the mounted heat shields by the end of the week for testing and documenting the results. I already have a 'before' picture of 130 degrees and this weekend is going to be similar, with temps over 95 degrees and approaching 100 in some areas. Of course, pictures and test results will follow!

 

Looking forward to seeing the final result, it's been a great read.

 

I've found that Kapton for sale in rolls in 6" widths at Grainger. Is this the same stuff that you have?