The purpose of these?

In my firewall there are these flat on the inside, and point in the engine bay, plugs kinda. I ripped out the old dampening and these were left in the car. I was wondering what is their purpose, they're black and made of metal. Can I rip em out? or cut em out? They're like nails, Flat and then skinny, I'm not sure how else to describe it.

Thanks, yah, I removed one, and it was kinda tough and to use a mess of tools and a pvc pipe cutter to get it out. I'll get some epoxy, Really? above the wheel wells? For some reason my passenger's side has rust on the inside. I dunno why, The drivers side isn't too bad, I checked for a cowl leak, by pouring water into the cowl and it was fine, nothing came it, but when I put my head under i can see that there is some surface rust.
View attachment 379285

haha no we're talking about the same thing, thats a pic of my cowl on the passenger side. There is no cowl leak according to the water pouring test i did.

haha yah, i wear a turbine (im indian) so my head's usually covered, i have a work turbine cause it gets really dusty there, the worst is sometimes i forget to change my clothes, i usually go to check somethin out and refer to some diagrams on the comp but i end up moving things around and get grease on my nice white shorts .

I guess I'll get a wire wheel, clean the bottom, and rustolem it along with the firewall, and install the new sound dampening, and finally fill in holes that are no longer being used.

There are two screws that are using the firewall as a ground correct? cause one on the passenger's side is extremely frayed and by extreme, its freakn bad I think its from the starter motor cause its next to the transmission and behind the engine.