something flew out....

[Ross16V]

...from under my car earlier. Car is a Ph2 Valver. I was travelling along a duel carriage way at about 40mph, when i hear a sort of metallic tapping, which was obviously something under my car comnig in contact with the ground. I looked in my rear view mirror and i saw something fly out, quite large. It looked like it could have been a heat shield or something. The car carried on running as per normal, and still does. Once i had stopped i inspected underneath the car as i was not sure whether the offending object came off my car or whether i ran over it. This is what i saw... (apologies for the picture, it came out very dark so i lightened it on photoshop, you should be able to make out what it is)
[img=http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/1412/thing2xo.th.jpg]
I dont know much about this but i think thats the catylitic converter, and it looks as if the object could have come off of it. the wheels in the picture are the front wheels. Does the caylitic converter (or whatever this is) have a heat shield or some sort of shielding, and is it very important or have i just saved me a bit of extra weight? :boring:

thanks very much guys

Ross

 

[Ross16V]

anyone got any clue?

 

[tidyclio]

pretty hard to see mate but looks like their could be a heatsheild missing as i can see part of one covering about an inch of the cat on the left but none after that.if its the heatshield of your cat i'd ideally get another one they give of some amount of heat.whats all the stuff over the cat looks kind of like foam in the pic but hard to make it out?

 

[Ross16V]

i know its a rubbish pic, but the best i could do im afraid. can anyone shed some light on what has happened here?

 

[BenR]

just part of the cats heat skin, its got antibribration bonding between skins to stop noise.

wont make much difference, might affect cats efficiency if it doesnt get hot enough, but not likely.