Header Wraps:
I was watching a special on LeMan's race car prep on Speedvision and what they were doing was wrapping the headers of the engines with header wraps. This apparently insulates the headers and reduces heat in the engine bay by 70%, allowing for their intakes, specifically pop chargers which invariably suck most of their air fromt the engine bay, to utilize the cooler air, thus increasing the performance. Apparently, all the cars in that circuit use them.

People have used them on this forum to wrap their flex sections on their y-pipes to reduce noise, but has anybody tried this on their headers in their Maxima?

What do you guys think?

Just curious...

-str8

 

i think Kevin_________G in CA has his whole exhaust wrapped... i think.

 

Will the wrap speed up corrosion of the metal??? Race cars are often prepped and overhauled before each race, but street cars (especially mine) are driven daily. Are there any negative effects??? If not I'm gonna wrap my whole exhaust too!

 

got rice? says thats a ..

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....highlight=wrap

 

So in the long run it could cause more harm then good. Plus Ypipes are not that loud anymore so I thik people jumped off that bandwagon.

SuDZ

 

the idea for this is different than the y pipe. it is more for heat insulation. still might be a bad idea. what about designing headers made of something else that will insulate the heat?

 

Noooo, not insulating the Y-pipe, but insulating the Headers. Now, by insulating the headers, theoretically, you are pushing more heat through your other exhaust components (y, cat, b muffler etc) therefore adding more stress to them...at the bennefit of performance of course.

 

i.e.- Ceramic-coated headers.

 

I wrapped my y-pipe back to the main cat and checked it after a week (it hadn't rained the whole week). There was already some crystalization and rust/corrosion evenly spread all over the pipe. I doubt the pipe would have lasted more than a couple of months before cracking.

On the upside, I actually did feel a difference and noticed I could get up to speed, on the highway for example, quicker. I think this was due more to the scavenging effect of hotter pipes that the underhood heat reduction. I'd only recommend wrapping the pipe when going to the track then removing the wrap for everyday driving - should help ET's some.

 

One thought, on heat tranfer theory.

Wrapping the entire exhaust system keeps the exhaust stream itself as hot as possible. This keeps as much energy in the exhaust gasses as possible. More energy in the stream, the faster it will move, plus it will be less dense. As it starts to cool, the gasses get more dense and slow down. And we all know that maintaining exhaust stream velocity is a good thing.

But then, on an aftermarket exhaust system, the welds and such may not be able to handle the higher heat loads.

 

Well I completely wrapped my WS Y-pipe before I installed it last June for just the reasons mzmtg mentioned. I contaced Warp Speed before I did it and they told me that I shouldn't. They said that it would promote corrosion, heat stress the pipe and void the warranty; I did it anyway. I didn't want the buzz and was willing to take my chances.

Seven months later, no leaks, no bees, no complaints.

 

no trying to be a smart a** - but this is generally refered to as the better "scavenging" effect of header wrap.

 

Not sure about wrapping the y pipe, but by manufacturers of header wrap issue the warning that because the heat cannot be disipated, header wrap drastically reduces the life of the headers.