headers heat guard

is it ok to take that guard off? Will it really do some damage to some of the tubbing or not? thx for help

first it its stock it is not a header it would be a exhaust manifold. and you can take it off but remember that the heat guard it a heat guard which is used for keeping the heat off the plastic fans and keep the heat off the bottom of the hood and so on so if you put a header on i believe that they dont put heat shealds on them unless you wrap it with header tape and you dont want to do that because i have heard that they rust so much faster an that but i dont exactly know all that becasue i am not running one and all my friends run just the header. but if you are running stock manifold then leave the sheald on them because it ant going to help anything and they are ugly. but good luck with what you are trying to do.