Gary R.

This would be on an air cooled 911 with SS headers. The positives are less heat transfer to the engine but will holding the heat on the SS instead of letting them cool in the open air negatively impact the steel or even the exhaust ports of the heads? Just curious, haven't seen any 911's done but it's common on other race cars.

Professor Helmüt Tester

If you like regularly buying headers, heat tape is great.

Gary R.

Is that the engineering explanation?

kurt M

Stainless has a low thermal transfer in the first place. Rather than wrap can you install thin sheetmetal shields between the headers and the things you don't want cooked? this way the header can shed heat but not into the other stuff. I added metal shields between the headers and the bottom of the motor on my 95 3.6. header right next to a plastic valve cover did not seem right to me for some reason.

Gary R.

Anything can be done with a welder, drill, hammer, and sheet metal! Is the problem with wrapping that the SS will overheat and crack? Will the welds crack? It's certainly not a critical issue in my case, been racing like this for years, but I figure the less heat down there the better. Does ceramic coating work on SS? I had steel headers done (on a TR6) and it held up great.

Bill Verburg

The most common reason to wrap headers is too keep heat in and as a result gas flow rate is kept high for better exhaust scavanging.

The down side is more rapid deterioration of the steel. Even ss is not immune to this, different grades are better for heat and moisture induced corrosion resistamce.

924RACR

What Bill said. While my experience is with mild steel on a water-pumper, high temps/revs lead to cracking - without even worrying about moisture.

Next header for that car will be a custom stainless stepped header, and I intend to have it ceramic-coated on the inside of the pipes to protect the metal and keep the heat away from my starter (which is next to the header, and is a consumable at this point).

I'll never wrap another header again.

Gary R.

Thanks. So ceramic coating SS isn't a bad thing? Only issue, I would think, is a welding repair should it crack after being coated.

Sean F

i say wrap 'em, wrap 'em good

Gary R.

I'm getting an extra big roll and i'm gonna wrap your entire engine up!

BrianKeithSmith

Then drive it FLAT OUT

paradisenb

Well Gary, it appears you are getting a little skewered openly here. Not behind your back.

Gary R.

That's all that matters Randy, I want a frontal skewering...