Is it ok to have test pipes without the heat shield? My heat shield is rattling against the test pipe and i'm thinking about removing it

 

I've had mine off for about 40k miles with zero issues

 

You could always bend it up and out of the way, if you don't wanna take it off. I had mine off for 15k with no problems either.

 

I did bend it, and it was fine for about 3K miles, but just this week, it started having noise. I'm really crossing my fingers that i didn't crack anything or the inside of the pipes didn't get damaged...

Not sure why it would've been fine for 3K miles but suddenly causing noises...

Gonna have to jack up the car to see ...

 

What kind of test pipes do you have?