Removing brake dust shields?

[EtherGhost]

While rotating my tires today, I noticed that we have dust shields on all four rotors. My old Civic never had these. What exactly do they do, keep brake dust from going all over the wheel well and confining it just to the wheel? I heard on Honda-Tech that removing them will improve air flow to the rotors and reduce brake fade. However, noone seems to know what the downside would be. Someone mentioned something about the dust shield possibly keeping heat away from the CV joint boot.

[oldschoolimport]

I was always told they were to keep water from splashing up on the hot rotor and warping them. I have removed many of them and did not notice any bad side-effects.

[cpu519]

Originally posted by EtherGhost
While rotating my tires today, I noticed that we have dust shields on all four rotors. My old Civic never had these. What exactly do they do, keep brake dust from going all over the wheel well and confining it just to the wheel? I heard on Honda-Tech that removing them will improve air flow to the rotors and reduce brake fade. However, noone seems to know what the downside would be. Someone mentioned something about the dust shield possibly keeping heat away from the CV joint boot.

You heard right-partially. The shields direct air to the cooling vents in the rotor. My friend races a Mazda RX7 and was constantly cracking rotors until he put the shields back on and ducted air to the brakes. Under racing use and even under open track use, the heat from the rotor will melt the grease out of the ball joints, that I've seen. It seems the shields should also protect the cv joints too. When I did my 5 lug swap, I left them off. That's fine for street use but I put them back on when I last disassembled my suspension. Some dust shields do restrict air though, those cars may benefit from modifying the shields. The Type S has large scoops in the shields for more cooling, and the Type R scoops are even larger. If I remember, I think the Si has small scoops also. The rear has no scoops. I think it's a good idea to leave them on our cars.

[cpu519]

Originally posted by blackdc5
cpu: I went from 10.8" rotors to 11.8" rotors on my RSX, but I left the dust shield for the 10.8" rotors thinking the smaller dust shield would help cool the rotors. Was I wrong? I was planning on setting up brake ducts down the road.

I think it would have been better to use the bigger dust shields. I would put those on if you still have them, might be hard now because the screws are inaccessible with a phillips screwdriver.

[cpu519]

On mine anyway, once you take off the rotor, the screws are behind the hub flange. There's no way to get a phillips screwdriver on the screws to take them out. Maybe a small visegrip can take them out. The hub goes through the center of the dust shield, you would have to cut the shield to remove it. Then you would need to cut a section out of the new dust shield in order to put it on. The alternative is remove the spindles and press the hub out of the spindle. Maybe this pic can help explain.



I had my front wheel bearings replaced, and since the hubs were pressed out, I left the dust shields off. To put them back on without disassembling everything and pressing the hubs off again, I cut a small section of the dust shield (the thin edge underneath the caliper). That allowed the shield to slide around the spindle. I used some hex head screws instead of the phillips and bolted them on with a wrench. You can install the larger dust shields the same way, you just need to get the phillips screws out first.