got a 2003 civic ex with the 1.7 SOHC Vtec and drive 75 miles one way to work everyday. The rattle, vibration, general noise from the heat shield on the cat is annoying to say the least. Will it hurt anything to take the heat shield off?

Thanks.

 

Buy a couple of giant hose clamps and tighten them around the entire heat shield / converter assembly. If you take the shield off it's a potential fire hazard and also the cat won't work as well so you'll be making more pollution.

 

Take them off, just don't park in a grassy field on a 90* day

 

is this true?

 

No

In fact, the chemical process that is performed in a catalytic converter, has a higher efficiency at higher temperatures...

Pre-heating a catalytic converter makes it more efficient.

The purpose of the heat shields is to keep radiant heat from getting as far in the environment, or into the car...

Hence why you find them between your exhaust pipes and the car body, and between the catalytic converter and the radiator and motor on the DX/LX all in one header/catalytic converter setup.

Really the ideal solution is to beat on the piece of crap until it stop rattling, or bend it away from pieces of metal...

 

So a standard ford repair.... I like it.

 

rip it off. it won't hurt.

lots of honda and acura owners do it. honda heat shields on previous generation cars were notoriously cheap and rusted through pretty fast.

honda has posted several technical bulletins on them, but they usually rust so bad that there's no saving them. you can only replace them.

so grab some pliers and rip away...

 

a main reason the under car heat sheilds are there is so you dont catch your carpet on fire... taking the exhaust shield off isnt gonna hurt anything or make your car run any different

 

I have a 2003 Accord, I recently went to the dealer to have that rattling noise addressed. They assured me it was the heat shields on the Cat Converter so they replaced it. However I'm still getting that same noise, I took it back & was told that there were 6 different heat shields & that to check them all would be $400 for the shields, & $600 for the labor. I know that there's one for the cat converter, one for the battery, one for the starter. Does anyone know where the other 3 are?

 

I don't recommend removing it especially if you live somewhere with a hot weather. It's there to keep your engine cooler.