Matt Sheppard

Always up for a cheap HP mod that looks good too, I just finished wraping 1/2 my exhaust system in this stuff and I like the results aesthetically at least.






I bought a kit from Eastwood : (2) rolls of 2" x 50', 1 can of protective paint (black or silver), and a few stailnless-steel zip-ties. It came out to a little less than $90 shipped w/ a Xmas promotion they are having.

The wrap is real stiff and made of fiberglass of some sort so getting it to contour the way it needs to is a pain and it itches after the install if you dont wear gloves. I wrapped the headers with the heat shields attached which is a bit more difficult than just round tubes. The paint really sealed the wrap up well and is supposed to repel oil, definately worth the extra time and $$. It cures at 400 deg. so I just put them in my powdercoat oven for 1/2 hour and I really like the way it seals up the wrap.

I wrapped the turbo hot side and short down pipe as one piece and I will do the x-over pipe when back from the blasters. You could prob. do all 4 pieces (manifolds, x-over and exducer/downpipe) w/ one 50' roll, but you would have little material to spare. I like the idea of using extra to cover the piece like a sock and have no gaps. It takes some creativity w/ the headers, but it's achieveable - helps to have wraped ton of bicycle handle-bar tape.

Mike B

Great job! I plan on doing the same in the next couple of months.

Just so I understand, you painted the wrap after you installed it? Did you do any prep to the metal before the wrap?

Thanks for the thread and lowering underhood temps are guaranteed to reduce lag.

Alan C.

While the wrap keeps heat in it will also keep things like salt in as well. If you don't drive the car in areas where salt is used on the highways it may not be too big an issue. Hot salt compounds can be very corrosive.

A few years back mazda used a clam shell style exhaust header with insulation between the clam shell and the header tubes. The header tubes were made from 439SS. That is a stabilized 17 Cr grade/no Ni. They started getting warranty claims on cars with less than 5000 mi. Hot salt corrosion was found to be the problem.

Alan C.

Sach951

How do you think this would compare to hot coating?

Mike B

That's my concern as well. I was planning on ceramic coating the header first and then applying wrap. But then again that may be overkill.

Alan C.

Something like a Jet Hot coating would be much better.

Alan C.

Matt Sheppard

Well, salts are illegal for highway use in Big Bear at least. I think anywhere where they have a lake-type bio system they should be banned, but that's another matter. . .

As to comparason to coating, well it would cost me $600 to get these 5 pieces done through Swain (shipping back and forth would eat up at least $100) so it was more of an economic decision. I have no doubts to the superiority of a coated part; they are most certainly better at the "jet-hot" or other professional level. The stuff you can buy and apply yourself, I'd think wrap would be a far better performer. I'd guess I'm at leat 75% of the way to ceramic coating performance wise and I can do 2 cars for $100. This is just a stock engine and if I had $600 to invest in it, it still would have gone somewhere else.

BTW Alan, any idea what alloy stock 951 stainless is?

Oh, as to prep, I bead blasted all the parts except for the turbo and I want to sandblast the x-over (too big to fit into my cabinet and it has some corrosion INSIDE the exh. tube (blown headgasket?) I'd like to get rid of. Besides that, I cut and welded the crimped and cut test-bung w/ a stainless-mig so I am not cutting myself on it all the time

Alan C.

I'm not sure as to the exact alloy used on the stock 951. I've been trying to get a piece of one to take into the lab for an analysis. My guess is that it is a Cr/Ni alloy. However, that list is huge.

Alan C.