Winter Car Projects with Heatshield Products
Fall is here, and soon the cold months of winter—unless you live in Florida—will sentence your hobby car or truck to the garage for hibernation. It also means it’s time to plan out what fixes and upgrades you’re going to do before everything thaws out for the next spring and summer of fun. To help with that, we’re going to plant the idea seeds in your brain for car projects you can do using Heatshield Products that will improve the performance, reliability, and/or looks of your car or truck.
Improve Underhood Looks with Lava™ Hot Rod Sleeve
ABOVE: The newest addition to the Heatshield Products lineup is Lava™ Hot Rod Sleeve, combining the characteristics of Hot Rod Sleeve with the thermal barrier properties of Lava volcanic rock-based thermal barrier fibers. Besides the protection from heat and elements, Lava™ Hot Rod Sleeve is also a great way to make an eyesore wiring harness look good and compliment your engine and engine compartment.
You can have the best-looking and performing engine in the world, but if everything around it looks like a car you’re getting parts from at an LKQ yard, you’ve really dropped the ball. And reaching for that corrugated plastic wiring loom material is like wearing feathers to a minister’s funeral. The new Lava™ Hot Rod Sleeve can clean up the looks of an unruly wiring harness while also helping it to last longer and protect it from underhood heat exposure, the elements, and potentially corrosive materials. It will also add a protective barrier against rodents/vermin from chewing on your wiring and creating issues. The new Lava™ Hot Rod Sleeve kits come in six different diameters, and come with our heat shrink ends to seal the sleeve and prevent heat from getting inside the sleeve and creating an oven effect on the harness.
DIY Car Modifications to Increase Horsepower and Torque
ABOVE: The I-M Shield is the lowest cost, guaranteed way to increase horsepower and torque on an engine. Installing an I-M Shield is a great project to look at for the winter, done in well under a day with just hand tools.
If you ever meet someone that doesn’t want more horsepower and torque for less than $100, walk away immediately! Taking 2-3 hours on the weekend to remove your intake manifold, install I-M Shield, then reinstall the intake is one of the quickest and best winter car projects you can plan for. There are 14 different direct-fit I-M Shield part numbers and the universal I-M Shield that can be tailored to fit just about any intake manifold. And best of all, any one of them will only cost you less than $100 and doesn’t require any ECU tuning. Dyno-proven in multiple tests to increase horsepower and torque up to 20 points. And it’s a true DIY product if you have the skill to remove your intake manifold.
Spruce Up Your Firewall and Keep More Heat Out of Your Interior
ABOVE: Not only is a bare, faded, and nasty firewall an eyesore, but it also means it can transmit unwanted heat into your interior. Using Lava™ Shield, you can dress up a cruddy-looking firewall and help block heat from entering the interior through the firewall.
When you open the hood of your car or truck, is the first thing catching your eye a dirty, faded firewall that is like a giant wart on the face of your engine bay? Are you also tired of feeling a lot of heat coming through your firewall and heating up your interior? Solve both problems in one install by covering your firewall with some Lava™ Shield stick-on thermal barrier material. These car interior modifications can make your firewall look great and keep more heat out of your vehicle without having to do any cutting or welding of the firewall. Lava™ Shield’s high-temp adhesive backing will adhere to almost any clean surface, and the material easily bends and conforms to the varying contours of a firewall.
Truck and Car Improvements for Cooler Interiors
The inside of your classic car or truck should never feel like an oven, even if you don’t have air conditioning. The heat from underneath your vehicle coming from the exhaust system, drivetrain, and other external elements can heat the floor of your car or truck, which then radiates upward into the cabin, causing it to get hotter. If you don’t have the money to install an aftermarket A/C system, the much more cost-friendly alternative is installing insulation under your carpet or vinyl floor. Stealth™ Shield is only 1/8-inch thick and easily fits underneath factory carpet/vinyl, so you won’t have fitment issues. It is rated for 1800 degrees F constant heat, is flame resistant, easier to get dry if you have water intrusion, and will significantly reduce the amount of heat coming through the floor into your interior.
Give Yourself Some Extra Protection for Car Welding Projects
ABOVE: If you've got to do some welding near anything you're worried about welding splatter or sparks damaging, you need to pick up an HP Torch Blanket to make sure you can weld or grind without worrying about damaging something and creating more work for yourself.
If one of your winter car projects involves welding around anything you want to make sure doesn’t get damaged by welding sparks or splatter, then you need to grab an HP Torch Blanket™ before you fire up the MIG, TIG, or acetylene torch. Torch Blanket™ is made using our special Stealth material that is flame resistant and handles up to a constant 1800 degrees F. It will keep sparks and weld splatter from damaging anything near where you’re working on your car modifications, and it has built-in grommets or magnets to make mounting it for protection easy. It comes in four different sizes, and besides protection from welding hazards, it is also great to use for protection for working close to a hot surface, so you don’t burn yourself.
