While planning some tasks for "restoring" my engine bay, I noticed one of the things that significantly affect the way it looks is the heat shield. It's rusty, since the corrosion was probably much more accelerated by the heat it's insulating.
My idea was to remove the heat shield, remove the exhaust manifold, clean the rust on both with a steel brush (being careful not to touch the side that makes contact with the cylinder head), clear carbon deposits with a decarbonizer on the exhaust manifold, paint both with black high temperature spray paint and reassembly them with new screws (there's even one missing) and a new gasket.
The first doubt is whether painting the heat shield black (or any other color) could affect its function. The second doubt is if the temperatures usually get over 600ºC in those parts, and if so, do you think a 1000ºC paint would cover the temperature range?
The engine is a GM 1.0 MPFI 8V.