I have Belanger headers jigh flow cats and 3 inch corsa. It does seem warm in the engine compartment without heat sheilds, but the tech at Apex Motorsports told me that the engine compartment would run cooler with the ceramic covered headers w/out shields than the stock headers with the shields. I did notice that one of my Mopar high performance race spark plug wires had a little plastic clip on it melt. It was a clip that holds the wire mesh onto the boot for the first 6 inches of wire. The wire mesh protected the spark plug wire, but why they put a plastic piece to hold the wire in place is beyond me. I have a super accurate digital temp gun, and I compared my hood temperatures with a Sapphire blue 2001 rt/10 the same as mine but it is bone stock, and we drove from point A to point B for 1/2 hour. My temp readings on the top of my hood while it was still closed was within 1-2 degrees of his. Mine was a little warmer, but I think I was revving it up a little more than him. But bottom line is that the temps were almost identical. My side sills were cooler by 20-30 degrees from running the high flow cats. I still think I am going to upgrade my water pump and radiator, because the viper seems to run so hot.
