idk if I'm late to this thread, but when I did get an aftermarket Cold air intake it did remove the stock heat shield. I did notice the car felt sluggish, and I was thinking that i installed the air intake wrong until the mechanics at Toyota mention im missing my heatshield. They basically explained to me the air intake was just soaking up the turbos heat, so my car was not getting its best performance.
If I knew better I would of just got the resonator delete for the stock air intake from Verus Engineering just for the whoosh noises. Soon as I bought the heatshield the car felt so much faster and responsive.
TL;DR if you just want whoosh sounds get the resonator delete from Verus Engineering as it keeps your stock heat shield. If don't mind spending the dough on a cool air intake and aftermarket heat shield by all means go for it and get the heat shield.
