Cold Air Heat Shield
Short ram was cooking IATs in Brampton traffic. Built a heat shield out of scrap so the intake stops eating bay heat. Now selling early kits for the 2009 TSX CU2.
Why
I was pissed. Heat, first gear, idling / barely rolling up the 410 North around the Steeles exit in Brampton. The car wasn’t overheating — it was just getting way too hot in the intake tract.
I wasn’t on some crazy tune sitting on the edge of knock. Hot intake air still sucks. If you are on the edge, it can hurt the motor. I wasn’t. Still didn’t want 60°C IATs cooking the charge while crawling uphill in traffic.
I’d already run a short ram for about a year. Sound was fine. Bay heat was not.
What I built
Garage junk that worked: Lexus RX350 undertray plastic, a Roma cookie tin lid for the face, Mercedes C300 battery foam, nuts and bolts into the OEM airbox mount points. About 10 hours to design from scratch. Free, basically — plus a ~$25 intake filter and a ~$20 3” MAF adapter. OEM piping stays. You don’t rip the whole intake path apart.
For customers I’m remaking it cleaner. Aluminum face instead of the cookie tin lady staring at your radiator. Same idea: block-off plates, brackets, instructions. Not a full intake kit.
Numbers
Measured over OBD2. Not same-day A/B — similar ambient (dash cluster), similar sun / no clouds, two different days.
- That 410 / Steeles crawl: ~60°C on the short ram
- Same kind of day after the shield: ~40–45°C when ambient was ~35°C
- In general: about 5°C over ambient on highway / normal traffic, about 10°C over in traffic
- Can creep higher if you’re basically idling in first, bumper to bumper
- Under a lot of testing it never got above 50°C — including a 35°C day in heavy traffic barely able to get into second
Sound
Quieter than an open short ram because it’s more blocked off. Louder than OEM. You still get cold-air intake noise. You still get the snap into VTEC on crossover.
Cons
Less overall noise than a loud CAI setup. After ~15 minutes of idle, heat soaks — that’s more of a Honda / Acura packaging thing. Hot air rises, intake sits high, these cars hold heat. This doesn’t really make that worse, but you notice it a bit more. Aluminum-only construction would help.
Tune note
If you run a higher-flow 3” filter like I did, you’ll want MAF scaled. Stock-style airflow filter, maybe not. I can share my KTuner calibration. Hondata / others — I can give you the curve to translate.
Selling it
Early kits. MVP. First buyers: I’m building it at home and working with you to get it right. Not a shop — just a guy in a garage.
2009 Acura TSX CU2 only. $70 GTA pickup / $100 + shipping otherwise.