Supplemental Heat Shields

The Austin-Healey was designed with the exhaust pipes and silencers routed under the passenger seat. This is fine if you have a RHD car, but for those with a LHD car, this can lead to you sitting essentially in an oven! The exhaust system and engine heat up the frame rails and floorboards and all that heat radiates through the carpet and padding, making the car very uncomfortable on a warm day.

The factory was not unaware of the problem – the footwell and firewall insulation panels were fitted to all the big Healeys , and with the introduction of the MkII 3000 (BN7 & BT7 Tri-Carb) in April 1961, they added a sheet of insulating material under the driver’s floor board, right over the twin silencers. While that certainly helped, most Healey owners will tell you it is not enough.

Moss have developed two supplemental heat shields, one for the footwell (021-640), and one to go under the floorboard over the silencers (021-641). These heat shields start with substantial stainless steel plates, and we add aluminised ceramic fibre insulation. The footwell heat shield is secured using the same attachment points as the OE panels. The silencer heat shield extends down on each side, shielding the frame rails from the silencers. This heat shield fits the 3000 MkII & MkIII only (there is no easy way to secure the silencer heat shield to a MkI 3000 because they never had a factory heat shield over the silencers).