Anyone run header wrap? or is there any suggestions that i can do to reduce the temperature in my engine bay?

 

Get your headers coated. Wrap is flammable.

 

Headder wrap will hold water and help make your headders rust. The coating will help prevent it.

 

They do hold moisture and heat, causing the headers to rust very quickly. Not uncommon to pull a set of wrapped headers and find that the wrap is the only thing holding them together.

Go with a coating... it's cheaper in the long run.

-Mindgame

 

where is the best and cheapest and quickest place to get the coating done? i can't have much downtime with my car.

 

Header wrap is ok in small area if you feel the need but it will hold moisture and cause premature rusting. Best to just have the whole header coated then if you absolutey feel t he need just wrap the area you feel needs it if its still to hot there bt with the coating it should be fine without wrap of any kind.

 

First off, check locally. The coating business has really grown here in the last 10 years. There are a couple places here local to me that added thermal barrier coating capabilities to the powdercoating business. Diversification is always a good thing.

If you can't find anyone local then get to calling...

http://www.airborncoatings.com/
http://www.calicocoatings.com/
http://www.classiccoatings.com/
http://www.finishlinecoatings.com/
http://www.hpcoatings.com/
http://www.jet-hot.com/
http://www.sonic.net/~sc7500/
http://www.polydyn.com/
http://www.swaintech.com/

Contact these companies and see what kind of turnaround you're looking at. Some are much busier than others.

-Mindgame

 

check this by one of the biggest header makers in the business.
http://www.sandersonheaders.com/trou...otingtech7.htm

Scection at the bottom Thermal Tape On The Street

 

Just curious... how does header wrap, operating at about 1,000degF, "hold moisture"?

I think if you check, you will find that the header tubes "rust" because the elevated outer tube metal temperatures cause the elemental iron in the tubes to oxidize. Same end result... they "rust".... but its not from moisture, its from heat.

The elevated temperatures weaken the metal, lead to stress cracking, increased oxidation and shorten life. And, there's alway Tom Byrne's burned up LT1 4th Gen.......

 

Had wrap on SLP shorties for about two years. Drive the car daily. No problems. The "scoops" on the hood have been cut out to let air out. So when it rains it gets the wrap wet. The effect is that they are "steam cleaned" after a good rain, thus keeping them clean. Plus my engine is fairly clean to begin with.

Suggest only wrapping uncoated stainless steel. Mild steel with wrap will not last long (rust like crazy).

Bottom line, I love wrap. Works far better than any thin coating. The secret is to wrap them a little on the loose side and barely overlap each wrap. Plus I think it looks cool. Well, different anyways,...

Lance

 

Fred, Fred, Fred.... where did anyone make a case for header wraps holding moisture at operating temps???

Last time I looked at a steel yard there seemed to be some signs of oxidation even with the absence of excessive heat no?

Fair to say my car spends more time sitting in the garage than it does being driven. I'd bet money on this experiment....

We'll take 2 1lb blocks of low carbon steel. We're going to place them outside in my garage (it's been about 70% humidity here lately). I'm gonna wrap one with a thin cotton wrap and I'm gonna leave one unwrapped. Which one are we betting on to lose the most mass in a years time?

I'm betting it aint the unwrapped one and it doesn't have anything to do with heat.

Lab,

Spend some time learning why and how metals oxidize and you'll come to understand why that comment is completely wrong.

-Mindgame

 

Mindgame: I had some conerns about rust (even on stainless), but they seems to be holding up well. I deffinitaley would not wrap mild steel though.

I just like the way it works. After about 2 minutes of sitting the valve covers "feel" hotter than my headers.

Which does a better job at keeping the heat in the header pipe is what I prefer. Two years and no significant rust yet. And I dont see how its possible to keep too much heat in the pipe. It would seem that the the factory stock (thick, heavy, just too small and restrictive) manifolds keep a lot of heat in the pipe.

Lance

 

Don't know which stainless steel SLP uses but I do know that some of the cheaper grades like 409 will still rust... especially with enough heat and time. I'm not a metals guy but I suspect SLP may be using a more expensive grade.

Either way, they'll disipate the heat better if you will leave the surface open to the air. Just basic physics but the wrap acts an an insulator.

The factory cast manifolds? It'd take those anchors 200 years to lose enough mass to cause you problems. They were definitely built for endurance.

Seems the consensus leans to "No wrap on steel headers"..... guess that's the most important point here.

-Mindgame

 

well my headers are the edelbrock t.e.s. uncoated headers. I certainly did not expect to get as many comments on my question as i did. thanks guys! and mindgame, where are you located? i gather in va somewhere? i may not reply to this post for a while because my computer's hard drive crashed. using friends computer as we speak. :P