DIY torque tunnel heat shield, been done?
 

in a few weeks im going to lift the corvette and change out the differential, the console gets warm enough that i would like to try putting some sort of heat shield since i will be right there.

i will not pay the $250 plus for a custom shield it does not get that bad for me to sink in so much $$$

was thinking of buying a roll of good material and just bolting it to the tunnel plate and maybe gluing/double taping some pieced around the exhaust.
can it go on the inside of the tunnel plate?

if its been done link is appreciated, i tried searching.

thanks for the help i will search around for some high heat shield/sound deadening material.

Back in Jan. when I did my XSPower headers and catback I elected to remove the tunnel plate. I made a template on another piece of thin steel I had and made another plate. I also had left over foil with bubble wrap in between from when I insulated the garage door. I was able to shove that up and over the torque tube and on top of the tunnel plate. Then I put a piece between the tunnel plates and bolted both of them back into place. Huge difference with heat coming up into the tunnel area. Insulation was less than $30 at home depot / lowes. It probably does not do a lot for noise but heat was an 80% or better improvement.
Chris

Very high quality product and uses both an adhesive as well as the OEM bolts to retain it. Does a good job of heat rejection. If you go to their website, type in "thermal abs" in the search box. It is their heat shielding product that is sold separately from their tunnel plate, which you can also buy the insulation attached if you choose.

http://www.eliteengineeringusa.com/p...77830_zoom.jpg



http://www.eliteengineeringusa.com/

Regardless of what you use for this project, be sure you take into consideration the fact that it is located under your car; a very dirty and WET place when driving out on the road, not to mention the product itself should not wind up melting/softening and sagging, etc.

HTH

i have a convertible, and am thinking of going withe a 3/8"s hear its great stiffening the frame ceramic coated version off fleabay, and purchasing a exhaust heat shield/sound deadener and making it myself. should be around 270 for everything

Since the C6 has a thicker plate than the C5 consider someone's C6 takeoff. I got a throw away C6 plate from my local speed shop. Direct bolt-on replacement and free. :rock:

I agree.
Throw a (self sticky) thermal shield, available from Jegs or Summit & you'll have an improved tunnel plate.

If you sandwitched two stock plates together (pop riveted) & add the heat shield, will work fine also, of course it would be heavier.

I made my own tunnel plate out of a piece of 1/4" aluminum. I bought the same stuff EE uses for heat shielding, and cut it to fit. Got it from summit racing. I have about $90 invested into this project, and 3 or 4 hours of time.

i will try to find a c6 tunnel plate if not im going to just install heat shield on the plate and some spots under the body were it might be getting hot.

i just stuck some thermal insulation on top of a c6 one. painted it with VHT paint intended for grills i think, to make it fire/heat proof moreso than it already is. tested it with open flame, and it didnt phase it. i actually took a lot of pics intended as a write up, but didnt bother cus it seemed pretty easy to explain (like i just did). works great ~3 years later.

Great info guys thanks,
bought some thermatec says it works great for high heat and sound and sticks very well, 60"x24 for under 50 bucks. will keep an eye out for a c6 plate, but if I can't I will just use the original

Use a C5 and go double. The screws are long enough.

ended up finding a nice deal on a3/8" ceramic coated tunnel plate plus i purchased 24"X36" of thermo tec.
grand total with shipping about $220

my plans are to put the shielding on both sides of the plate, and around the area were the exhaust goes though.
the 3/8" plate should improve my convertible in stiffness.

i havent done this, but if you wanted to improve stiffness you could theoretically create a pretty simple XXX pattern brace for that area. i dont think ive seen/heard of any race crews doing that, though. i tend to just 1:1 plagiarize real racers :willy:

Mostly want it for the heat shielding so a thicker plate will work better than XXX pattern.

And getting someone to make me that part will cost more than what I payed and won't help my 1st reason of heat reduction in the console area.
bottom line does sound like a good idea but i will never see a road course. and i dont have the resources to fabricate or have someone build it, or else i would have just cut my own plate lol

i read up on it and yeah wont really do much in the performance area, but i could not pass up 150 bucks for a 3/8" ceramic coated plate plus the tunnel plate is off so i just want to get it slap it on and finish my diff swap, and to take off that bit of creaking noise that the car makes up the driveway.