I read online at various sites that it is beneficial to wrap a Y Pipe with an exhaust wrapping like header wrap of some sort to cool it off and create more horsepower...this true???

 

How will header wrap "cool" the Y-pipe when it keeps the hot exhaust temperatures from escaping the surface?

 

adn why woudl you want to cool exhaust fumes...??

you only want to cool as much as possible the intake air.....
-J

 

In theory, wraping headers will improve exhaust scavenging from the cylinders and keep the exhaust speed high. This will provide minimal but measurable gains in horsepower at the expense of creating very high temps around the headers and causing premature failure of the gaskets and the headers themselves.

Just guessing here, but I would imagine that wrapping the y-pipe (and the rest of the exhaust for that matter) would do much the same as wrapping the headers... improve exhaust scavenging from the cylinders (to a much lesser extent) and keep the exhaust speed high and someone is trying to use this idea to further increase horsepower. Also, the idea may have been to keep the heat away from the floorpan as it will also do that.

And yes, this is my first post here on this car forum. I have read most, if not all, of the stickies regarding all things Maxima. Let's hope I don't get a nice "Needs to read the Stickies" under my name!

 

Read this before you wrap.

http://www.centuryperformance.com/heatwraps.asp