How important are the muffler heat shields?

[Challenger73318]

Subject says it all.  Why do I ask?  I was test fitting my Summit 3" exhaust kit tonight, and found that my car is missing the driver's side heat shield.  It has the passenger piece intact.  I was thinking that I could put Dynamat or similar in the trunk to make up for this shortcoming.  Any opinions on if this would work, even short term until I can find a decent replacement shield?

[Chryco Psycho]

the heat sheild keeps heat both out of the trunk & the gas tank as well , it would be ebtter to from a piece of steel to do the same thing 

[ted]

a 318 car only had single exhaust thus only 1 heat shield.

Subject says it all.  Why do I ask?  I was test fitting my Summit 3" exhaust kit tonight, and found that my car is missing the driver's side heat shield.  It has the passenger piece intact.  I was thinking that I could put Dynamat or similar in the trunk to make up for this shortcoming.  Any opinions on if this would work, even short term until I can find a decent replacement shield?

[Challenger73318]

That explains it...318 from the factory.  Somewhere along the line, flowmaster duals were put on.  Now I got it.

[torredcuda]

the factory exhaust used mufflers and resonators in the rear which are larger in dia and therefore closer to the floor/gas tank.If you run aftermarket exhaust with the mufflers under the rear floor you can eliminate the rear shields.Flowmaster recommneds heat shields over the mufflers but I don`t run any and no problems! 

[Challenger73318]

http://web.mac.com/khansen6/iWeb/Site/Exhaust.html

So the pipes are on.  Still not sure of the heat shield, but I think I'll look into some, err-ing on the side of caution.  Jegs has some that might work for $32 each.

[422STROKER]

How does the Summit system fit?  I've been looking at the 2.5" system for my car.

Tom
Any pictures?