Heat shields or not you have to agree that the cats are still are right next to the starter jammed up between the engine and firewall and produce a ton of heat .........that is trapped under the hood

I think it depends on the header design as I have way more open clearance between the starter and the headers with my LG Super Pro's than I had with my stock system,

Plus the hot cats , that were next to the starter are now located down in the tunnel exposed to the airflow.

I also feel the driving style and mods have a lot to do with it, stock motors , driving it normally with the occasional sprint does not really produce any more heat than the stock exhaust manifolds ....

Supercharged, heavy cam, or turbo under heavy load will lite those headers up orange .... but it would do the same with exhaust manifolds right ...more power more heat

Plenty of folks report starter problems without headers, one member on this forum has a solenoid that looks just like the one pictured above ... but he does not have headers

People have starter issues and right away they say it's the headers , who is to say the starter would not have failed anyway with a stock system
Just my two cents but think about it.......

Dave

 

I ordered and am patiently waiting for delivery of my Kook's 1 7/8" plus catted x pipe coated. Maryland Speed is a great place to obtain such items and Brandon is good people. I like the idea you shared for shielding the starter from possible heat problems. Is there any type of shielding that could be obtained for this ?

 

You will get them, don't worry, took mine 5 weeks uncoated.
I have a photo in my emails (cant figure out how to post it from there) that shows the Kooks LT laying next to the OEM setup and for the life of me I don't see the heat shield Dano23 is talking about, maybe I'm missing it.
Other than that it looks to be that the tubes and of course the collectors are themselves farther down steam past the starter, so it appears to just be pipes which the stock set up has also right
I bought this stuff to do some insulation on the o2 connections & looms, is it necessary ?? I don't know but I did it, maybe it will work for you
NSF
http://www.thermotec.com/products/ad...t-barrier.html

 

Bobby , my LS3 and others i have worked on do not have shields either... i just did not want to start anything by pointing that out also in my post above ....

I would like to see some data points that headers make more ir less heat .....dont seem to see any where other that what people "think" or "feel" . I wish i took some heat measurements at the starter and the tunnel before I installed my headers ... maybe someone else can take some before install

 

LG Headers sound incredible with OPX mufflers. I got the 1 3/4 long tubes with x pipe. Ebay around 1400.00. 500 to install. Very Happy.

 

Not So Fast, my car also did not have heat shields! My thinking is that OE cast manifolds are much thicker and hold more heat. I was really shocked once I got the car in the air to see how close the manifolds sit next to the starter. I literally laughed to myself.

I went ahead and wrapped my headers and catted X-pipe. I know a lot of guys do not like doing this but I am a big fan of wrapped headers! I have them wrapped on my '69 vette and the headers on My Grand National....with that car they get hot due to the turbo.

I went with the 1 7/8" ARH headers and fit seemed great around the starter, lots of room plenty for air flow. If anything I would say there is now less heat on my starter (just a best guess) The only thing I had to do was trim bout 1/8" from the body on the pass side. The clearance of that header was about the thickness of the header wrap. So with the wrap on it would rub. I just trimmed a small strip about 10" long and its good.

 

I would also Dave, as you have said before its pipes, be it OEM or headers right. The cats are further away after headers so I just cant make the connection to them causing the starter problems

Amelio:
I have the Kooks 1 3/4" headers, there is lots of room between them and the starter, and the body for that matter.
Sometimes things just fail Maybe its because of hard use at the track or something or very spirited driving then the pipes get exceptionally hot ??
I'm good with what I got, not worried about it.
NSF

 

absolutely, anything can fail anytime! I would not worry about heat with sprinted driving, hell even drag racing...its only gonna see heat for 12 seconds or less...thats nothing! Really road racing is where the heat is really gonna soak in. I knew I was going to do a handful of track days a year so I wrapped mine. I honestly dont see any issues without wrapping them. I did it mostly out of habit because like I said I know it works and I did my other 2 cars. Plus if you ever need to get your hands in the engine compartment when its hot you wont leave skin on the header if you bump it