Wrap on aftermarket headers, yay or nay?

manifold wrap does serve some good purposes ..... like help keep exhaust heat in the exhaust and reduce heat exposure to surrounding components ..... but like anything, there can be some downsides .... if the car is not in proper tune and the exhaust gets hotter than it should .... the wrap would magnify that problem and result in accelerated wear or damage to the tubing .... but overall, if your headers are of a heavy gauge, with engine in good tune ..... they should hold up well for some time ........

However if given the choice ..... as many peeps already know .... I would rather run metallic shields on or around an exhaust system .... of the chromium content variety .....

 

My recollection is that its bad. Do a search and you should find the arguements. From what i remember wrapping the tubes causes premature failure because the exhaust stays too hot and the pipes fail. Many racers i believe have said that. My guess is the factory shielding keeps it a little less hot or other aftermarket shields like cappristo, braden, and tubi work better.

 

I personally am against wrapping for a couple of reasons:

1. Too many high quality coatings are available for reasonable costs that perform significantly better than wraps. Remember; coating goes where wraps can not.

2. As a former motorcycle racer I watched a couple of race bikes burn to the ground because of wrapped headers. Those wraps soak up fuel like a sponge! If there is even a minor fire in the engine bay related to spilled fuel, the wraps become a 'super wic'. There are not enough fire extinguishers in the world to stop that fire. You will lose your car to it.

The thought of standing there watching my car burn because of wraps makes me cringe!

 

Did it once back in the 80s. While it did cool the engine compartment, it also corroded the headers way faster than I've ever seen. And this is in California where things just dont rust. I've used Jet Hot coating ever since.

 

I would have to further agree with the posts above ..... as well as clarify what I wrote above ....... heat wrap would indeed hasten wear on the manifold tubing ...... but some peeps would exchange the 'wrap' benefits for replacing the manifolds more often ....

 

I can't speak directly to the 355, but I had my headers and side pipes ceramic coated on my cobra build. Unbelievable how well the ceramic coating works. I just don't see how a wrap would have any advantages over ceramic coating.

 

Some sort of heat protection is definitely recommended when running aftermarket tubular headers on any F-Cars.

Ceramic coating or header blankets would be the best option, but wrap could work as well. Only downside to wrap is that it tends to hold moisture. Constant moisture on metal will eventually lead to corrosion.

 

Hate to be the only nay-sayer here but I'm an early Fabspeed header adopter (2007-8 or so) and I didn't know about ceramic coating back then.

Had my new Fabspeed headers wrapped by my shop at ~27k miles. 7 years and 28k miles later I see no problems or visible rust creeping out from the wrap. I have driven it in the rain a few times, however I do cover the engine with towels when washing the car.

Header blankets look sweet and I might get some to replace the wrap, or possibly rebuild my stocks at the next major which is due kinda soon. Might stop using the Fabspeeds only because they slightly deepen the shrieking wail of the F355, but do feel faster. The sound is the one and only very minor problem I have with the Fabspeed units, and if I used the stocks again I would definitely keep my Fabspeeds because they're awesome.

 

We used to do this on our Vette headers because they added heat to the engine compartment compared with the stock manifolds. Once coatings became available, we went there. Now if you have asbestos wrapping, that is another story.