I wrapped mine off the car and then a shop put them on, said they went in no problem and fit very well. ARH 1 7/8s

 

And this is exactly what I want to avoid. I want to wrap the headers before I install them only question is... Will the wrap snag or hang up during the install or even prevent the install? Does ANYONE know. Are the clearances that tight pushing them up at install time?

 

This is exactly the right way to do it. I wish I would have done it, but I did not realize the amount of heat it would put under the hood compared to stock. I almost wish I had taken them off, wrapped them, and put them back on. Could have done a much better job.

Nick

 

I had the headers on my C5 ceramic coated and wrapped the mid section to keep heat down in the tunnel. Works great! They have been this way for years now and still look good.

To make sure that they didn't come unwrapped I used stainless wrap bands on each end of the wrapped pipes and then spiral wound brass wire the length of the pipes to make sure that the wrap stayed in place. Looks neat and worked great! You can buy brass wire from any big box store.

 

I think it is high time for a new product from the space age materials science.

Why can't we come up with a paint on insulation that does this job well?

Something like foaming ceramic-epoxy bake power. It comes in two parts. once is a ceramic or high temperature liquid that turns rock hard, but does have some flexibility. The volatiles then come off when curing. The other is a slow reaction foaming agent that puts tiny air bubbles in the part-1 stuff. Like baking power or baking soda in a cake, but super small bubbles. Then you mix it up, paint it on, let the air or carbon-dioxide or nitrogen or hydrogen bubbles form from the reaction (super tiny) and in 24hours it is hard and ready for baking via use of the car. The mixture is calibrated to give 50% solid and 50% bubbles like shaving cream but harder and more dense.

It is time for the chemical engineers to get going and get this done.
We need it.

Then we just paint the stuff on, cure it, and boom, it is insulated.
and if we want more.
put on a second coat.

Dreaming? Maybe, but my god, this needs to be done.

 

If you have a set of long tube headers, you regret ever considering wrapping them, however the stock manifold isn't a problem. Buy 1" wide wrap for the primary's running to the collector & 2" wide wrap for the rest. Consider wrapping the plumbing in the back by the trans/dif as well. Also it's a lot easier to remove/wrap & reinstall than to install in place. Buy a box of Thickster latex gloves & bottle of baby powder. Use regular zips ties to hold the wrap in place temporarily while you fiddle with the SS clamps & get them in place. Use a bench vise to hold the exhaust plumbing in steady while you wrap it as tight as you possibly can, a second person is really handy for doing all this.

I've wrapped several exhaust systems, I hate doing it & I won't do it for someone else's car but I've never seen & any degradation of the plumbing because of the wrap being there. However I agree that it will accelerate the corrosion process but on a scale of 5-7 years instead of 10-15 years. I may not help too much with the heat in the engine compartment, simply because the ECU WANTS the engine that hot, but it will help with heat soak of the neighboring components that don't contribute to temps.

The best option is to have the plumbing coated inside & out then wrap it since the coating protects the base metal.

Wormwood

 

Would you please make a few supporting comments why you feel this way? Do you speak from direct experience and if so, tell!

 

Maybe just the cost and time involved due the additional lenght? Might be getting close to the cost of having them ceramic coated in materials for long tubes? Just guessing (and 1st post on forum...moving to Phx soon and looking to get a C7 )

 

Here is a good article with actual temperatures of various parts with and without header wrap on a Chevy race engine running on an engine dyno before and after using DEI's Titanium wrap (not made of titanium in any way, just the cooler of titanium). I have used this wrap on a turbo manifold and downpipes and it definitely works. I will be wrapping my ARP headers and pipes near the transmission with it.

Hot Rod magazine test (you need to click on the View all 19 photos to see the explanatory text): http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/...ap-wrap-it-up/

Header pipe near engine: 1156F before, 972F after, reduction of 184 degrees

Collector: 750F before, 552F after, reduction of 198 degrees

Valve cover near headers: 750F before, 619F after, reduction of 131 degrees










"It’s worth noting that wrapping the headers doesn’t get rid of the heat of engine combustion, it just holds it in the header pipes. As you can see, they are still glowing inside the wrap. We didn’t see any horsepower gain on the dyno, but that was because the engine is being fed temperature-controlled air into the carburetor. In a race car the wrap will significantly reduce under-hood temps, and if you don’t have a hood scoop it means the air going into the engine will be cooler. Using a wrap or some type of coating to keep heat inside the headers will keep components, oil and even the air/fuel charge cooler, which should make for a healthier, stronger racing engine."

They measured engine HP on the engine dyno at 620 HP before and found no difference after. Just debunking the constantly repeated old wife's tale that wrapping headers keeps the heat in the headers and by some miracle makes more power. It does not. Wrap does keep the temps down by almost 200 degrees, and that is a bonus.

 

DEI's Titanium wrap
This is exactly the product I used on my C5 headers. However I got much better temperature reductions. I think for a number of reasons, including (most important):

1. The engine is enclosed in an engine bay in the car, which captures the heat and reflects it back as well. The test engine is in an open room. This increases temperature in the engine area, and thus improves reduction potential by eliminating open-room cooling effects.

2. I used at least 3 thicknesses in all locations, not the one thickness used in the test. I wrapped it so that only 1/2 inch of tape shows at any single place. This gave me no less than 3 thicknesses and in many areas 4 thicknesses.

I did not do temperature measurements (dang, I have a temperature gun just like the one they have) but I did notice very substantial temperature drops) when I went into the bay and did my maintenance work.

I would hope that they would do a "real-world" test of their product.
Including:

1. do it in an engine bay at 85+ degrees outside temperature with a large test fan blowing at 50 MPH into the grill and under the car, so that it acts as if it is under a wind-load moving conditions.
2. do it in staged wrapping approaches (1/4 inch overlap - 1/2 inch overlap - 1 inch overlap) so that there is one layer, two layers, three layers and even 4 layers).
3. do it on a dyno so that it has the typical rear wheel load at, say 65 MPH, so that fuel use per minute is about what it would be under a road condition.
4. Do it at standing still condition under a 1,000 RPM load to act as a running car not moving (when temperatures under the hood sore up).

I think they would find much larger differences with 2 or 3 thicknesses, under real world load and at speed and no speed. But this is a guess on my part.

 

In my research, I found there is a reason they highly recommend one layer and only want 1/4 inch overlap. Two or more layers holds in too much heat for the mild steel tubes. These are not 1/2 inch thick iron. My TSP headers are 1/16 inch mild stainless and the heat held in with multiple layers will break down that steel and in a race application will likely not last many seasons. Perhaps you were lucky to have yours live long but I'm wrapping mine once with 1/4 inch overlap. I may squeeze it to 1/2 inch on the collector and around the trans.

 

Good point. I know mine were not mild steel, but were a stronger Borla steel with ceramic coatings. I think the ceramic coating was on the inside, but not sure. It was many years ago that I did this. Early 1990s. I never drove the car on a track and actually never had it much over 5 MPH over the posted speed limits. So high heat production was not an issue. I had it to 140 MPH once for about a mile, but backed down to speed limits for fear of a ticket. I have not had one in over 15 years. I guess that is why my C7 insurance is $340 a year. Being 66 years old also helps and never turning in a claim in over 20 years probably helped as well.

I am very glad I did it because I had Lingenfelter design the engine in the 1988 and it did have some grunt. But never had a header problem. I did smoke a couple after market large-flow converters. But it did indeed help keep the engine bay not so hot as when the headers were not coated.

 

The Hot Rod test is much more like you would get on a road racing track. They are running the engine flat out on a dyno until the headers are glowing red hot, which will never happen on a normal road, unless you are on it for a very long time at full throttle. My application is for using the car under road racing conditions, with 30 minute sessions. That is like doing over 100-200 dyno pulls in 30 minutes depending on the track as you run the engine to red line and shift up 10 times or more a lap for 10 or more laps. Then things get seriously hot. Have a look at the picture from their test. You are not going to see a red hot header like that except on a road racing track. So their test is just right for my application. I have heard from other manufacturers of heat shielding wrap that a 200 degree reduction is what you can expect with the recommended wrap overlap.


I have never seen a similar test on ceramic coated headers with the engine running flat out on a dyno. I have just seen many unsubstantiated claims about the benefits, as found in sales and marketing literature and internet forums. I once had a turbo manifold ceramic coated by Swaintech, and their coating all flaked off after many track days. They would not honour any warranty or pay to have manifold re-coated by them, so I gave up on ceramic coatings and moved on to header wrap.

 

[QUOTE=descartesfool

The Hot Rod test is much more like you would get on a road racing track..except an actual engine is enclosed in a heat trapping engine bay[/QUOTE]

Agree, except I was looking for heat reduction under "normal" road conditions and at highway speeds. That is the test test that I want to see. I will never ever be on a track with any of my Vettes, not ever. But I still want to reduce the heat in the engine bay area so that the other components do not heat up. For example, fried a Curb Alert on my C7 because of heat in the engine bay. Three layers of wrap on the Borla ceramic headers worked great and had no issues for 24 years.

I know the temp was much more reduced that in this test.

It worked for my C5 Lingenfelter with Borla very well.

 

I once call LG Motorsports and asked about wrapping my 1 7/8" long tubes. I was told by them not to do it and that it was bad for them and would void the warranty. I know when we heat treat (stress relief) 300 series stainless, we often make sure we cool rapidly until we dip below 700 degF. There is a sensitization range where you do not want the metal to dwell.

 

So to expand, it is possible that a wrapped header would spend more time in the approx. 800-1500degF sensitization range and be more prone to intergranular corrosion, especially in an environment where the wrap tended to see/hold moisture. This applies to chromium alloys that also have a decent amount of carbon, like 304 stainless. This is why 304L (low carbon) was created. To have a less corrosion prone material when welding and brazing is required.