Figures you would. We Mike's got to stick together!

 

I pulled all my heat shields off everything because i had to keep chasing rattles over and over. There were big hose clamps on my cats when I first crawled under there but they couldn't stop all the rattles. The cat shields and the y-pipe shields just kept falling apart little by little and you couldn't stop all the rattles with 10 clamps. I cut it all off and everything was fine. I wouldn't idle for hours in a field of tall dry grass though. I eventually replaced the y-pipe because it rusted out too and the aftermarket has no shield. I put HFCs on for fun and they have no heat shields. Even my muffler heat shield was rattling a couple of weeks ago. I just bent the offending piece away but maybe that's next.

 

I was without shields from the cats back for awhile prior to replacing the entire exhaust. I yanked'em while repairing the flange from the mid-pipe to muffler which had rotted through, but I hadn't decided on what exhaust to buy yet. The only shield I never pulled was the one for the muffler.
Prior to installing the invidia I have now, I was doing what I could for weight reduction. I pulled the spare + tools and replaced these with a mini air compressor with a cigarette plug and a can of slime (never had a flat tire in any car, ever). I wanted the oem exhaust tips to sit further up into the bumper and sit in their respective openings evenly. I used, wait for it...s.s. hose clamps to take up the slack from the oem exhaust hangers. It worked perfectly.
Jumper cables were laying on the trunk's floor, on top of what I believe to be sound deadening material where the tire used to be. Some of the sound deadening material ended up melting and sticking to the jumper cables. I'm positive this happened because the muffler was now 1 1/2 or so inches closer to the bottom of the hatch and again, this is with the shield in tact. The muffler gets extremely hot, so I'd advise keeping that shield. I did.

 

thanks for all the ideas guys, and yes i live in North NJ so everything rusts... i just need this to shut up for a couple months then getting my HFC's installed

 

I've had all my rattling shields off for ten years. Haven'y noticed any issues.