If you live in a coastal area, or especially if you live in an area that uses road salt, DO NOT use header wrapping. I sent mine out to repair to Brian and mine had shallow rust on it (yes even 304 stainless). Reason most likely being the roads around me are salted. Fortunately, the flex section was not wrapped, so it really was not an issue in this case. But let it be known that since the Y pipe is under the car it has a tendency to pick up alot of road grime. Even if you're in a place that does not use road salt, the road water can't be good for it. When the pipe comes back, I'm going to clean it off, polish it and possibly paint it with high temp clear coat.

 

You can get some water proofing spray for the header wrap to help prevent this, or just take it off during the winter. I wouldn't recommend painting the Y-pipe with anything, temps can reach in excess of 600 degrees celcuis, that's freakin hot! Good luck.

 

Why did you not wrap the flex? That was all I was going to wrap to stop the bees.

 

Was it rusting because of the wrap holding moisture or salt on it?

SuDZ

 

Didnt wrap the flex cause I ran outta wrap. I dont have a bees in the can sound.

 

Probably both. Salt water is extremely corrosive and once the stuff is in, it wont come out. Maybe it was fortunate that I had to loose the Y pipe so it would have salty header wrap for an extended period which would cause eventual failure of the metal/welds.

 

If you don't have the bees in the can sound, then why wrap it? I assume most people here like me use the wrapping because they got the bees in the can sound. If you don't have the sound, I don't know why you want to wrap it.

 

For the exhaust scavenging effect. Whether its real or not I dunno, but I'm not gonna do it again.

 

what is the 'exhaust scavenging effect'???