I ordered some fiberglass header wrap off ebay for my Y pipe. $25 shipped, for 50ft 2" wide. Most people wrap their headers to keep heat outta the engine bay, well I'm wrapping my aftermarket Y pipe to keep the heat in lol. The stock Y has fiberglass insulation and metal sheilding, but the aftermarket has nothing. I want the exhaust gasses to stay nice and hot for the sake of 02 sensor operation. I've tested old 02 sensors in the past and found that the built-in heating element goes bad rather early, but the sensor itself still functions, oxygen won't diffuse through the ceramic portion of the sensor properly if its not blistering hot so it will reduce its accuracy and thereby affecting fuel economy. If you want to test the heating element in your 02 sensor just measure the resistance across the black and red wires, it should be like 2 ohms or something (can't recall).

So whatta ya guys think, waste of $$, or worthwhile venture. Anyone else do some wrapping

 

Sounds viable...It may help with coverter light off too.

 

its fine if your ypipe is stainless but if its mild steel the header rap will rust the pipe must faster because it will trap moister on the pipe

 

Good point, I think mine is the aluminized version, which will eventually rust. I'm going to try it anyway, the pipe will be hot enough to burn off any water/condensation. 50 feet sounds like a lot, but with 1/2 inch overlap I hope it makes it. I kinda doubt any significant effect on fuel economy, but I'll definitly post if I notice anything, I'm sure an increase of even just 1mpg would interest people.

 

I was thinking you may lower oil temps a little as you're keeping heat off the bottom of the pan. Post your results, I'd like to see what happens.

 

My Cattman pipe as the JetHot coating already

 

So I wrapped the pipe today, I should have wrapped my nuts with that stuff as well because it was damn cold out. Anyway, it looks like we only need about 30ft to do the whole job. I overlapped every 1" approximatley, I wasn't trying to be precise or anything like that. A couples tips: If you have to opportunity to wrap it prior to installing the Y-pipe then thats the best way to go, since the section of fiberglass is 50ft long, you have to constantly wrap the slack over the pipe, that part wasn't fun. Second tip would be to cut the fiberglass into 15-20ft sections, so that you don't have to wrap too much slack over the pipe after each revolution (with an installed pipe).

Note that if your car leaks any fluids onto the pipe it may catch fire (probably will). Fortunatly I have no leaks, but I will consider a thin metal wrap to go over the top half of the Y pipe.

Jeff's is the best way to go, as long as the coating is thick enough

 

was the flex section wrapped also? IIRC i believe I saw something about heat wrap not being good because it builds up the heat and shortens the lifespan of the flex section?

 

I would have just had it ceramic coated, costs a little more but works great, looks great, and protects the pipe aswell.



As long as it works though





( I will say you are crazy for installing it with the pipe still on the car though )

 

I skipped the flex section. Probably wouldn't matter since my flex section does not 'flex', I have the warpspeed Y that came about as a solution to their other F-up when their flex sections would shrink to the size of a pea.
BTW, all my welds are rusting on the Y pipe, but the pipping is in very good condition.

Yeah it was cold out. So check this out, Driving around the night I installed it, I pull up to a light and what do I see SMOKE lol haha. I'm like Fauk. Jump outta the car, tried to hit the hazard light, but hit the rear defoger instead LOL. I'm getting ready to urinate on my max to put the fire out, but then, no fire just some smoke. Turned out one of the turns of fiberglass rapping bowed up a bit and touched the oil pan (which was dirty and a bit of grease), stupid me didn't wash the area down with some solvent. I wrapped it as tight as I could, its just one of the wrapping turns was upside down. Our Y pipe gets pretty damn hot, there was a bit of an odor comming from the fiberglass for a while but its since then dissapated. I used another hose clamp to squish down that bulge, I tried to cut it off, but its quite hard to access. I went to the store today to pick up 3 SS hose clamps, so I'm going to replace the three I put in originally.

Yeah, I wonder if they sell any ceramic tape, that bakes itself on. Hell, I can get some ceramic material and roll it out myself and make a bunch of band aids.

Interestingly, the night that I saw smoke, when arrived at the gym, I had leather gloves on and probed the area and the bulge (a feeble attempt to extingush any possible flame), and it wasn't hot to the touch! so the shyte works!

 

I used a bunch of hose clamps to hold my wrap down when I was trying to fix my idiot flex section for the 10th time.

 

Just wanted to add an update. I eventually took the header wrap off. The fiberglass that I was using had a black dye in it, and it was slowly burning off, it had a rather unpleasant odor. I was also a little worried that it might catch fire since a chance of a slight oil leak is always there. Now that its off, I can tell that stuff was smoking pretty heavily since I can now breathe fresh air again . There were sections of the wrap that turned completely white.

Anyway a ceramic coating should be the best way to go, and if you wanted to wrap it I would go with un-dyed fiberglass.