Starter motor protection

Hey guys hope youre well =)

Starter motor on the meglio has gone very lazy!especially when the car is hot, not too sure if the heat shield is there or not! never fails to start but its veeeery slow to turn over!

anyhoo, ive purchased a brand new one from RPD in the sale, along with a steering rack,so im having the subframe off over the xmas holidays and im going to fit both!

I want to give it some extra heat protection, if the heatshield is missing ill defo be getting another one of those, however is there anything else i could do?ive heard of people using heat reflective tape, and im not sure if i just dreamt it or not, but im sure i saw someone selling some sort of heat resistant blanket type heatshield that you wrap around the starter?

any help would be much appreciated =), i wanna go in prepared =)
 
Hot start has always been slow on mine. I asked mechanic to sort it but he said there’s not much to be done. Car has continued to start every time just with a lazy turnover