Well after 2 years and much heat under the bonnet, deciding to cut louvres into the bonnet was going to be the way to go to cool things down under the bonnet as I couldn't seem to get the OE manifold heat shield back on over the dBilas manifold. I tried a couple of times with no success and maybe just gave up too soon so I contacted Lightening Coupe (Adam) a few weeks back and he gave me the confidence to have another go as he had managed to carry out modifying the heat shield to fit his own dBilas on his Astra Coupe.
This morning I gave it another go. After a wrestle to get it down the back of the engine, I had a feel about and realised that there was some chopping in order. Out came my aircraft snips and cutting started. I had to remove a fair bit of the edges and then fold them back over on themselves as it appears that the shield has some sort of heat resistant stuff laminated into it?
Once all trimmed up, I gave it a trial fit and then cleaned up the shield with some wet & dry, then some wire wool and then rinsed with thinners ready for a few coats of high temp paint. All painted and fitted back to the car now and it works a treat.
Here's an OE shield...
My modified shield. Notice the material cut away particularly from the R/H edge...
Edges turned back over...
Painted...
Before & After...
:thumbup: