We all discuss cars from days past. What our favorite was and favorite memories from those vehciles were. In this weeks tech segment and answer segment we talk about why the exhaust heat shield, Heatshield Armor needs a gap on the pipe. We also discuss keeping air intakes cool, even so called cold air intake systems aren't always flowing cool air.
Episode Notes and Transcript Below:
Announcer:
Welcome to Hot Laps. Brought to you by Heatshield Products, Race tested.
Shane:
Welcome to Hot Laps.
Chris:
Sorry.
Shane:
I'm Shane.
Steve:
Steve.
Chris:
I'm Chris.
Shane:
Don't sound so excited.
Chris:
Okay. All right, so last time we talked about the early days of the company. We also talked about a new start with Steve, and how he ramped it all up and it is what it is today because of him. You know-
Steve:
No, no, no. It is because of the foundation grandpa and my dad laid. It's not only-
Chris:
Which is true, but you've got to give yourself some credit.
Steve:
I did give myself some credit, but they're there equal parts that wouldn't exist if it weren't for them.
Chris:
Okay. All right. So we talked about honesty policy, why in the US. Now I mean with number two, I think we probably should talk about why do we even have the need for a heat shield? I mean, we talk about customer questions and we'll get to a couple of those. But a heat shield one oh one, and why you need a heat shield. Can you talk to us a little about conductive heat, convective heat, radiant heat. Just quickly.
Steve:
Yeah. Okay. Conductive heat is when you have one hot surface transmitting heat to a another surface, that's directly contacting it. Radiant heat, it can also be called infrared heat sometimes. They're all under the same category. When you have a situation where you have a hot object and it's generating heat outward, and then it's generating in such a significant way that there's either, not enough air flow or airspace or breathability of the air, that in turn heats up component number two. That's the simplest way to explain it, I think.
Chris:
Yeah. I mean, when we make applications, what do you see the most of? Is it a radiant heat or...
Steve:
Automotively speaking, it's radiant heat. Absolutely. Even a lot of the industrial and and heavy duty stuff is radiant heat. Conductive heat is difficult to manage. You're always better if you can do it. This is always a strategy. If you're planning it, is to stop heat at the source, which would mean turbo heat shield, header heat shield, exhaust heat shield or an exhaust wrap. A lot of people don't want to wrap. So that's why we do the radium barriers. There's just some applications where you just can't. Then you have to use radiant heat like solar applications for fuel tanks, fuel towers, all those things. You have to use a solar heat shield because you can't stop heat at the source, because if you did, then we'd all be in an ice age.
Chris:
We are, we've been in. Yeah. Cool. So, he chose that we sell, you touched on automotive. Do you want to touch on anything else?
Steve:
Yeah. We do a lot. We obviously were born in the automotive, actually automotive and industrial. Turbo city did a lot of heavy duty truck type turbo heat shield. When my grandpa was pre-heat shield days, that was a lot of area that expertise was industrial insulation, oh I'm sorry, heavy duty installation. So we've since evolved. I think the first call we got for an industrial heat shield was the, "Insulate these oven doors." There really wasn't a good or clever solution to it. So we adapted a race car product for an industrial oven and it worked out great. Then it's grown from there. It's neat having those different marketplaces, because you can take your knowledge from a heavy duty thing and maybe help out a racer or take a racing.
Steve:
That's usually where it goes. It usually goes from racing to other sectors, but once in a while it goes the other way. Like the stele shield that's a welding an industrial product and turn that into an interior heat shield.
Chris:
So automotive, motorcycle done some Marine heavy duty-
Steve:
Heavy duty.
Chris:
Military?
Steve:
We do. We've done some military stuff before currently working on some things for some firearm applications. One's a DOD contractor, one is a regular... you'd be able to buy it on their website or whatever.
Chris:
Cool. Can you just briefly touch on what heat shields are made of , because I think people just think of they've got a heat shield and it's all fiberglass, and it's itchy and it's not going to be fun.
Steve:
Well they run the gamut. There's... Fiberglass used to be the staple for probably 15 or so years. Now, I'd say we do more of basalt and silica than we do in fiberglass. Although we still do fiberglass. Maybe it's not that the fiberglass level has dropped so much, it's just that, the other materials we use have grown that much. But there's all kinds of things. There's stuff that we don't make that you can use for a heat shield, that you can use... Aluminum foil can be a heat shield. I think we went over that briefly before, but everything we do is safe. One of the things you have to be careful about, and I know a lot of people are always looking to save a dollar. That's why, if we can help save a dollar, we'll do it. Just don't buy that crap on eBay. It's horrible. There's no regulation on those fibers and stuff. When they come in from overseas, china in particular, they're notorious for putting... They might say it's a ceramic exhaust wrap and while it might be a ceramic fiber, there's different grades of ceramic fiber.
Steve:
The problem with some ceramic fibers is they're real short. They can get in your lungs. You just got to be real, real careful with stuff like that. Everything we do is safe. Safe to work around. It might make you itch, but it's not going to get in your lungs and cause you respiratory issues. Just don't go so cheap that you end up... It'll cost you a lot more in the long run.
Chris:
Buyer beware?
Steve:
Exactly.
Chris:
Make sure it has the heat shield seal of approval.
Steve:
Yep.
Chris:
Basalt. Can you touch on basalt real quick because I get a lot of questions on, "What is basalt?" Then people really start to trip out when you tell them exactly what it is.
Steve:
Yeah. It's... The Russians were the original ones who experimented with basalt. They were looking for a solution to... American's like Kevlar and Nomex, mostly Kavlar. They were looking for a ballistic fiber.
Steve:
Basalt is nowhere near as good as Kevlar when it comes to ballistic capacity, but it's way better thermally. It takes way higher temperatures. That's where it was born. The Russians did it like late 70's early 80's and then it died. The fad was over. Then probably about 10 years ago, it started to become popular in the textile business. As you know, more and more people started to make basalt fiber, so you could turn it into things like a cloth or a wrap or that type of thing. Then, it started to become more widely used.
Steve:
The nice thing about basalt versus a fiberglass, it takes a little bit higher temperature. Not much. I know there's guys out there saying it takes 1800 degrees. If it's truly made a volcanic rock like it is, it's a mineral, go ahead and Google, what temperature is magma or lava molten at and it's an 1800 degrees to 2200 degrees. So, when somebody tells you their lava product takes 1800 degrees I'll be real, real careful of it. We advertise ours is 1200 which is accurate. That's a temperature you can take before it starts to change chemically.
Steve:
The nice thing about the salt though is it's stronger, about 25% stronger. So, think of it a between between a fiberglass hood and a carbon fiber hood, right? It's in between there strength wise, but, it's a little more rugged and it's in between there cost-wise. It's not as expensive as if you were going to buy something made of carbon fiber, but it's stronger and a little more expensive than something made a fiberglass.
Chris:
Cool. Great answer on that. I think that's going to answer a lot of questions. Shane, jump in here on this one if you'd like. Shane does a lot of our installs and I think people-
Steve:
Pattern making. He's the King.
Chris:
Yeah. I think people look at what we do and they don't know where to start. They feel like this is something I can't do. But you know, when you're talking about heat shield insulation, what is the insulation like and how likely is somebody to be able to just do it for themselves?
Shane:
Oh, if I can do it, you can do it. I usually just start with a pattern and just go from there. But there's a little bit of trial and error. That's why you have your patterns so you can figure that out at that point. Yeah, that applies mainly to like our armor products...
Steve:
Sticky shields steel, right?
Shane:
Sticky shield yeah, sticky shield.
Steve:
It's a lot cheaper to waste poster board or like butcher paper.
Shane:
Yeah. That's what it usually is like a poster boarder or like if it's a small thing, cardstock if you can think it.
Chris:
We just did a video on lava boots. There's been a couple of videos. The ease of putting that on and off, is that-
Shane:
Oh yeah. That's a five minute job easy.
Chris:
It's as easy as it looks when you do it on the video.
Shane:
Unless your plugs are buried-
Chris:
Yeah, it's...
Shane:
... in your engine Bay.
Steve:
Yeah. It's easier than changing spark plugs. Right. If you've got one or two spark plugs that are a total [peta 00:10:45] then it's going to be a little more difficult to get the boot on there. The mission critical thing on there is the ring. There's companies that, there's different grades of boots. The original one which is ours, actually the original one was Sesame Tech way, way back in the day, but they have since bowed out of the automotive business. Has a metal ring in there and the reason the metal ring is there, is to lock the boot between the... am sorry, lock the spark plug heat shield in between the cylinder head and the tip of the boot. That way he doesn't go walking up to...
Steve:
I hate these... Guys, you see, well, it doesn't look pretty because it doesn't have that nice finished edge up on the top. Well, the problem is, when you put that ring on the other side of the boot, vibration and stuff, it's just going to walk up and your spark plug boot is exposed. You've got to have it in there so it stays secured. We try to accommodate looks as much as possible, but we're always a performance for each company. That's what we want to do. We always want to protect and perform first.
Chris:
I think that's what everybody would be.
Steve:
Prefer.
Chris:
Yeah. Performance over looks. So again, I think the bottom line is, if Shane can do it, anybody can do it. I'm not sure that, that's the case, but I mean all of our videos are up on YouTube. All of them are pretty piece of cake if you ask me. If you're working on something that needs to be covered, I think that's pretty smart. Is there anything you're working with the armor that are some don't do's when it comes to...
Shane:
Don't use a dull utility blade if you're going to cut it with a straight edge, You'll chew it all up. Same thing with scissors. If you're going to cut with scissors, you want to use some nice sharp scissors. Some good ones.
Chris:
I think we talked about exhaust wrap versus armor. We talked about that last time. But I think people get an idea that with an exhaust wrap you're completely covering it. Is that the same case with our heat shield armor? Should you completely cover the pipe?
Shane:
No. You want a, you want some type of air gap so that it can breathe.
Steve:
Depends on the application. On a car or motorcycle, gap absolutely. Just because it works so much better than an exhaust wrap, you want that pipe to breathe. Heavy duty truck, Marine application industrials they use a thicker wall of steel. So the metal can take it. In most of those applications they're looking to trap as much heat as they can. Not that you're not in a car because you absolutely are, but you have to consider the exhaust component you're putting it on. It's got to be able to take that extra retained heat in the system. That's why it's important. That's on an exhaust wrap on a car or a motorcycle, just do the quarter inch overlap. Don't go 50, 50. Same thing you've got to let it breathe. You've got to let the pipe breathe. That's a common mistake, is people over insulating stuff and that's why they get problems. Yeah.
Chris:
Moral of the story is, read the instructions because they've been agonized, just over and over about what to do, and changes that we've made and versions here and there.
Steve:
Trying to simplify them. I had a great comment from somebody on YouTube about one of the instruction sheets on the armor. We've actually since made a change to that, to make it a little clearer because it's hard here, because we all speak heat shield to a certain extent. It's hard to... it's always good to get a fresh set of eyes and have someone be critical, or at least give you a, "hey, could you do this, or hey could you do that?" And that really helps us.
Shane:
Yeah. We like suggestions.
Steve:
Yeah. One of the things I will say is this skill Shane has, especially when it comes to doing an installs. Patient., He's an extremely patient person and that definitely makes a difference. You're doing an install. That's why his always looked perfect.
Chris:
Cool. I think this one-
Steve:
That's why we let him do the installs because, I've a problem with a China shop.
Shane:
Yeah. We all know that.
Chris:
All right. So yeah, check out YouTube for those videos. I mean there's a ton of them on there. We try to put content on at least once if not twice a week, to give you guys an idea of what we do and how simple
Steve:
We do them on... I think we post the same video basically on Instagram and Facebook.
Chris:
Absolutely.
Announcer:
It's time to answer those burning questions. It's tech time here on Hot Laps.
Steve:
Tech question, tech time.
Chris:
Tech time. Yeah. Rock a questions here. We briefly discussed testing, but one of the questions that actually came in recently after we did the first version was, "Do you folks have real world testing on track days?" You already talked about the burning up of the turbo shield. What can you expand on that-
Steve:
We're real world testing. I think what this particular individual might have been asking for was hard numbers. There's certain applications where we can do that. There's certain times where we can do that. Usually when people are racing there is no time to collect that data. That's why like the turbo heat shield the first one and it failing and that kind of thing, that was great because that was just a test day. That was just Falcon out there, just pissing away a bunch of money on tires, but they're collecting data too. So we were able to collect data that day.
Steve:
Everything is race proven. Now, documenting data, that's extremely difficult to do. A lot of these racers are looking for what they consider their critical data, which is right because they're trying to win a race, not document for each your products. That's why we got to build our own car. It's so we can record that data. They're focused on tire pressure, tire performance, fuel mileage, shock tuning, those types of things. They're a little less interested in recording the thermal data. But again that's why we've got that one test vehicle. Hopefully picking that up today. Then, building the other one so we can actually get those hard numbers for you. But as far as track testing task, track proven, absolutely. Since day one, we've always put stuff.
Steve:
Out here since the early days, it's really the only consistent racing out here because, they've closed down. All the drag race tracks has been off road racing. Like I said before, off road racing is probably environment number one to test everything. Environment number two it serves extreme heat. Those would be drifting because they run the car like it's going 200 miles an hour, but it's going 30 so you get the extreme heat without the air flow. As long as you can manage in those two applications, you're totally fine.
Chris:
Sweet. I'm looking for a product to wrap my air intake. I'm getting confused what will be the best product to reduce the temperatures by shielding heat in the engine?
Steve:
This is one that is... it haunts me. There's another company out there that's very good at marketing but not so great at insulation. They were encouraging people to use their version of a lava wrap on the intake, and that's the absolute wrong thing to use. You do not put any kind of exhaust wrap on an intake. It's going to end up trapping heat in there. It's not going to shield, it's going to, let's put it...
Shane:
It's great if you want to raise your intake at once.
Steve:
That's it. That's what it does.
Shane:
If you're looking to lower efficiency then [crosstalk 00:18:53] gap.
Steve:
If you're looking to lower it and then you need to have something reflective. Again, same thing, you could use tin foil if you had to. I mean if you're on a budget but you need it in a pitch, dude use aluminum foil. But something, the Thermoflect cloth or the Thermo-Flex sleeve, that's the number one choice. I know it's not pretty, it's not the gold, but as far as reflectivity goes, there's nothing better than. Real gold might be better reflectivity wise, but no one except for maybe the military has the budget to go in, and I doubt the military would do that to their intakes.
Steve:
Real gold is very, very reflective. It's actually better than aluminum. But again, who's got the budget for... The cold gold shield, that's another one. But if it were me, I always go performance and capability over looks. I liked the way the Thermaflect cloth looks and the Thermaflex sleeve. It's got a high mirror finish. If you need to get some cheaper grade of cloth because your budget doesn't allow it, then like the heat shield mat, or something that looks like the heat shield mat that one of the other guys makes, that that would work as well.
Steve:
Sticky shield usually run the ear boxes, that's a flap. Sticky shield is great. It can bend. It's actually the best reflected heat shield we have. It just doesn't like going around tubes like that a lot. It wants to fight itself flat. Go back more to its natural state. It can bend and go around a corner like that, but it's really better for panels or gentle curves. The Thermoflect cloth, that changes, do your bitching in a NASCAR air cleaner with a Thermaflect cloth that you'll see it, semen PRI in it. It looks awesome.
Chris:
Cool. All right. Just to circle back on that Thermoflex sleeve to cover the pipe.
Steve:
Yeah, the tube or whatever, yeah.
Chris:
When you're talking about air boxes and stuff, you're also looking at a radiant heat shield as well-
Steve:
For sure. Yeah.
Chris:
... you're not trying to insulate that, you're trying to...
Steve:
A lot of times, it's funny. I was having this conversation with Gale Banks and we were both had come to the same conclusion. If you shield a factory intake, in a lot of cases it'll outperform an aftermarket quote unquote cold air intake, because a lot of these cold air intakes, all they do is they pick up from the engine bay and they don't grab it from the stock location.
Steve:
That's one thing OEMs do very well because they're looking for fuel, mileage and emissions. So getting as cold of a charge as possible and well, what's the cheapest way for them to do that without using a bunch of exotic materials, is to pull in cold air from the front of the car. So a lot of times if you're looking for a cold air intake, if you're trying to consider that, make sure it's picking up from the stock location, not picking up out of your engine Bay and pulling in hot air, because flowing more hot air does nothing for you.
Steve:
In a lot of cases, you'd be much better off just shielding the factory intake and not spending a bunch of money on something to flow more hot air because that'll just Rob your performance.
Chris:
Cool. So we're talking about engine, we're talking about radiant temperatures in our engine bay. We get questions about, "Do we make a product that reduces our engine operating temperatures?"
Steve:
No. That's, strictly part of the cooling system. Well, we have the race cool and I'm coming out with a new version of that. That could reduce engine temperature. But that's radiator water pump, better cooling fan, that type of thing. A caveat to that, a lot of people say, well, God if I wrap my head, or it's like with that armor, on it, in a small block Chevy on that head or arm or kid, or it's just going to push it in the engine. That's not what it's there to do. It's there to be push the heat through the exhaust system. It doesn't push it back into the motor. If you're pushing heat and gases back into the motor, you got a bigger problem than putting a head or armor kit on your head because it just doesn't work that way.
Chris:
What do we got? One or two more?
Steve:
Let's do one more.
Chris:
All right, cool. So people always call, they've got an off size requests for heat shields that we don't physically offer, or you can see on the website. What can they do to get something that they need the fit? I want you to talk about the Velcro closure is bigger, better when you're looking at that kind of stuff. Also touch on the hot rod sleeve and the expansion that we see in the-
Steve:
That's one I think we need to do a quick product demo video on [crosstalk 00:23:50] shrink at the hot rod sleeve. Like shrinking it.
Shane:
Yeah,
Steve:
I think you did one for a brake line, but maybe we had to try to get like one of those, and fuel lines we have and do that [crosstalk 00:24:02] So bigger or better. It just depends on how far off you are from the size you want.
Steve:
Any of the Velcro sleeves have an adjustment. That's the great thing about the Velcro. Now the nominal ID is the Velcro is shielded. That's the ideal way, right? We have a flap that protects the Velcro from heat. So that's like if it's a three quarter inch ID. Because this is a common one. I get a dash, get this one a lot. "Hey I've got a dash shakes and fuel line. What size sleeve do I need?" The problem is, is there's a general guide for and is all done on the inside diameter. Something that I don't think people realize it's.. Actually I think it's actually the fittings. Really is what it comes down to. So some manufacturers, they vary the outside like how they really beef the thing up. Then that outside diameter, that one is bigger than a dash sits and from another manufacturer. Doesn't mean that it's necessarily better or stronger. It just means they make them differently.
Steve:
So the cheater way to do it if you want to find what size line you need, you grab an open end ranch. It's a lot easier to do the math on a caliper. Just go grab a three quarter inch or a half inch or you know 14 millimeter, whatever you got. Slide it over. Use a standard though because we do everything in standard, because we're not Jimmy Carter guys here. We think America, everybody should be on the standard system, not metric system. Thanks to Jimmy Carter. That'll change.
Steve:
So, him and fuel line. So a lot of it's just a click or two over a half inch. Most manufacturers on an a and the outside diameter is just to click or two over the half inch. Why get to half inch if I'm doing the Velcro? If I was going to do the hot rod sleeve where it expands and contracts, I'd go bigger because I want to be able to get it over the fittings. If the fuel lines already assembled, I'd go a little bit bigger. Is what I do is maybe cut the sleeve actually about a half inch shorter than it needs to be. So once you compress the sleeve, so that increases the diameter. Compress the length of the sleeve, increase the diameter. Pop it up over the fitting. Then I would stretch it out and that would shrink the diameter and then, you use the heat shrinks on the end. That's the real trick to all this stuff.
Steve:
It doesn't necessarily matter for performance wise if the sleeve is super tight on the line or the hose, but getting those ends nice and tight. So no heat is going in back there. Cause a lot of times if you have it real sloppy and you've got a big gap on the end of the sleeve, heat can actually work its way in there, and you'll be worse off than if you didn't have it in it, because you got... It's just holding the heat. So that way when you park your car, and the air quits flowing, you still got this hot line tube on a fuel line, what's really a vapor lock. So it's critical to make sure that end is not. Ways to do that is that, we keep, we heat shrink in with a hot rod kids, electrical tape, zip ties, stainless steel locking ties. There's all kinds of ways you can just snug it up with the Velcro.
Steve:
A lot of times, you can just snug it up.
Chris:
I'm glad you touched-
Steve:
Over compensate.
Chris:
I'm glad you touched on that because, I do think, a lot of people just put it on and they're basically creating an oven.
Steve:
Yeah. In some cases. Absolutely. Yeah. Some cases it helps, but there are times when it just camps out there and you're done. It's Like [Kurt's 00:27:41] in the bathroom. It just camps.
Chris:
Hey Zach, I'm sure you'll be listening on these hatter. That's all we got.
Steve:
That's it.
Chris:
Am in a
Steve:
That's it through episode two. Please subscribe, like, send us comments, leave us comments. If you're on YouTube, leave them down below. If you're listening on a podcast, shoot us an email, [email protected]. Send us your tech questions. It can be about your oven at home. It could be about your tractor, trailer, your Tacoma, your barbecue.
Chris:
Your barbecue. Yeah. We'll have to do one of those and maybe have some barbecue.
Steve:
Yeah. Bring the smoker in and get some business done.
Chris:
The other thing is, we absolutely answer all direct messages on Instagram and so-
Steve:
And YouTube we'll reply to comments and questions there. If we get a lot of haters, we always try to give the heaters one or two chances to reply. If you're just going to continue to hate, we'll just block you. That's just how it goes. If he can't be objective about it... we try to be objective. Like I said, there was a great comment from somebody. Called us out on something on the instruction sheet. That was very helpful. That was a helpful comment and stuff like that. But long and short of it is subscribed, like, sign up for notifications so you know when there's a new episode,.
Chris:
That's it.
Steve: (29:06) Right. [crosstalk 00:29:07] all right guys have a bitchen and week.
Chris:
See you.
Steve:
See you.
Announcer:
From everyone at Heatshield Products, we thank you for listening to Hot Laps. Leave that review, subscribe, tell a friend and most of all, stay cool. We'll see you next time. Right here on Hot Laps.
