Anyone on here use header wrap on your exhaust? My 93 vette currently has it from the end of the header where the tubes are all collected to ~1ft past the cats from the PO. I am going to have to unwrap the drivers side to fix a leak betweent he header and cat and I am wondering if I should bother putting it back. It seems to me that it makes more sense to put the wrap up closer to the head to keep the engine compartment temps down if I wanted to use it at all, putting it where it is just seems to trap moisture and road crap up against my exhaust. Everytime I start it up during/after wet weather, there is so much vapor buring off this stuff that its like I am putting out a smoke screen. Any thoughts on this? Should I use header wrap and if so, where?

 

I can only guess someone put it on to reduce heat on the floorboards. I would take it off, like you said, it holds moisture and that speeds up corrosion. Plus, the burnoff odor is enough of a reason to ditch it IMO. If you experience additional heat after it is off then you can always do it right & insulate the floorboard area.

 

Do me a huge favor,, when you take it off please take some pics of the pipes,, because,,, everybody loves to debate about wrap causing rust and how it collects water etc, so it might have rust or it might not but I would love to see some pics.

Regarding the smoke screen, it is probably moisture in the wrap burning off

I agree, it is probably not necessary, but it does help muffle resonance sometimes,,, also can you estimate how long the wrap might have been on the car and was or is a a daily driver?

 

Enough debate that if you wrap new headers you will void the warranty on them. They also make a coating to apply to the wrap after you put it on to help with the moisture absorption IIRC. I definitely would not get the wrap soaked with any road salts because any time it gets wet again it may cause problems.

I am with LD tho I would love to see pics. I bought Hedman's for my fiberglass CJ project and wrapped them because of the heat issues thus voiding the warranty. I also coated them with something but forget what it was. I didnt keep it long enough to have any issues and as far as I know none have cropped up. The Jeep does reside in BFE Alabama where there are no road salt issues.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I will try to remember to take some pics, I am really bad at that. This car is a project that I picked up cheap. It has stainless works headers which from the website must have looked really nice when they were new, but they don't look that great now. They are pretty discolored. The valve covers leaked oil all over them, plus there is this wrap. I dont think they were ever coated. the car was hacked by some PO into a street/race car, it has a roll cage in it and a lot of the "free mods" as well as missing things to lose weight (A/C, power seats, spare tire, etc). Judging from the really good condition of the undercarriage and the fact that this car has been in New England almost its entire life, the terrible condition the motor was in when I got it, along with only 95kmi I dont think this was a daily driver, though I plan to turn it into my summer driver. Guessing the age of these things, I think the last owner bought it from the guy who made all these changes and then didnt know what to do with it and just drove it around for 5-6 years letting it go to hell. I would guess the headers are atleast 5-6 yrs and the wrap, while in general good condition, appears about that old as well. Hope to get to it this w/e, but with mothersday it may not happen.

 

This is absolutely none of my business but since someone has removed all the goodies and tried to make it a race car, why not sell it as such and go find a nice unmolested car that you can shine up & enjoy?

 

not a clear answer to that, but I used header wrap on my car for 2 years. I had hedman headers that were ceramic coated. I had the coating removed from the passenger side collector to have another o2 bung welded in. the shop spray painted it when done to seal it I guess.

After wrapping the headers I sprayed then with the protective coating. I used 2 large cans, and the wrap was black when I was done.

I ran it like this for 2 years. daily driver in So Cal. washed it every weekend. No road salts.

I removed the wrap when I developed a header leak. No rust. not even on the passeneger side collector without the coating. The ceramic coating flaked off as I unwrapped it.

I loved the wrap as far as heat was a concern. I liked that I could come home, pop the hood, and in 20 minutes, rest my hand on the headers.

when I dripped 2 drops of oil on the wrap... that was when it was clear this could be an issue. I had to sit there with it running, and slowly pour water on the oil to burn it off. The smell was nasty. I was 40 miles from home and in a parking lot. I purchased a fire extinguisher right after that and have it mounted to my passenger seat. I would rather have a halon system under the hood.

while the spray helps seal the wrap, it is not liquid proof, and still wicks in any liquid spilled on it. Fuel leak, and I would be running from the car. That wrap contains enough heat to cook off the ceramic coating, I am sure it would have no issues igniting fuel.

 

Not wrapped, but I did have my SW headers Jet Hot coated.
Under hood temps are remarkably low.

 

Well, that might be what a rational person would do, but I paid about half the cost of what good condition late model LT1 6spd C4 corvettes are going for around here. Also, it is really hard to find 6 spds on the cheap, they all seem to be auto. Finally, I wanted the challenge of bringing it back to life. The body is pretty good, the interior is decent except the seats which I hate and the rollcage which is kind of cool.

Now, whether or not I will end up paying the same as just buying a good one in the end remains to be seen, but right now I am ahead (if you put no value on time) and even if it is a wash, it will have been a great learning experience and I will know the car inside and out.

 

The guys can debate all they want about wrap and moisture,but years ago I used it on a 78 Trans Am with painted Hooker headers and within 2 years the Headers completely disintergrated into a pile of rust...I don't know if wrap would do the same thing on Ceramic headers but it sure didn't work on painted headers for very long....WW

 

my experience is that most exhaust systems rust from the inside out, not the outside in. The header pipes on my 85 c4 are a pipe within a pipe. I figure GM did this because of heat or noise. Header wrap solves both of these problems. I have header wrap on a 73 honda mc that I have. I mostly put it on to cover up the crappy welding job that I did.

 

I am debating this issue right now (for my SBC powered CJ7, not the C4)- I have a buddy who just put stainless headers on his C3 and has his old headers for cheap, but he already has one wrapped and the wrap to do the second. They are only a few years old but he got a great deal on some SS headers so I can get these cheap, BUT do I want to put wrap on the headers in a Jeep? May help with underhood temps as the SBC can get a bit warm in there when going slow...

 

I Forgot to take some pics, but the headers did not seem to be negatively impacted, there was some slight discoloring (probably dirt, worst case slight surface rust) but no corrosion. The pipe leading up to that on the other hand did not like the header tape. It had tape all the way from the collection tube on the header, almost to the resonator.