Not sure if this is a daft question but thought I would ask anyway.
What use is the heatshield that many tuning companies offer including AEM with their intake?

I would have thought that the turbo/exhaust downpipe area woud possibly be the hottest area going. With heat rising, melting scoops etc is this the only reason people fit a heatshield, to protect the scoop?

Doesn't fitment then keep the heat in that area cooking the turbo more?

Seems with the challenge scoop they allow more heat to escape?

Possibly daft question but never got my head around this.

 

I can't speak intelligently to the Challenge hood scoop, which as you mentioned is vented. I however had to replace my hood scoop because it had caved due to heat and now use both the factory hood insulator that was installed on late-model cars, and also installed the NM Titanium Heat Shield over the turbo. As for the heat concern with the turbo, I'd say that the engine bay still gets enough air flow through the scoop to cool that area, and the hot air is pulled out the bottom of the car via low-pressure areas underneath the car. Just my guess though.

 

Sadly I cannot find the picture that MTR posted after a track day of their engine bay so I have poorly edited this pic to show the issue:



The circled area melts after a serious workout on track, the UK challenge cars run an extra heat shield just in front of the circled area to protect it.

I guess if you had your exhaust manifold, turbo and downpipe all zircotec coated then a lot less heat would be stuck in the area you mention but whether it would be enough to justify removing the heat shields is another matter.

minigarage.it sell bonnet vents for the R56, sadly they are not cheap but if positioned in the correct place I can see them being quite effective and removing some of the hot air in the engine bay.

I will be buying one of the challenge air diverters for the summer as then it will actually utilise some of the air coming through the scoop.