Exaust wrap?

[steven113]

What do you folks think of thermal wrap for headers? It seems an obvios choice to me in hot climates such as Florida where I live in the summertime. What are the downsides? I have SS motad headers on the bike...

[Nitrousva]

None that I've seen yet, I've been running it on my Two Bro's SS header for 10 years. the only issue for is when I change the oil filter, if you're not careful and spill oil on the wrap, it'l smoke for a week before it burns off. It's kinda embarrassing when you pull up to a light and the bike starts to smoke. I guess it's kind of like riding a Harley, for awhile anyway.

Robert

[mello dude]

Originally Posted by steven113

What do you folks think of thermal wrap for headers? It seems an obvios choice to me in hot climates such as Florida where I live in the summertime. What are the downsides? I have SS motad headers on the bike...

I did it on my 5th gen mostly to protect from frying the Penske shock. (I have the stock headers) I hear that it will accelerate the material fatique of the carbon steel headers, but I will worry about that if/when it becomes an obvious issue. I may buy a set of Motads for reserve in the future, but its not at the top of the list. Even if I still had the Motads, I would consider doing it. The wrap I used was from ThermoTec and it wasnt that bad a job. You do have to seal the crap outta the wrap when your done with the super high temp (2000 degree F) paint and bake it in a oven if you have access to it. Even so, I didnt have one to fool with so did quite a few heat cycles - run for a few minutes, shut down, run a few more minutes, shut down... etc. It will smoke up like the dickens untill it set in real good, so it takes a little patience. -- Summit Racing has quite a bit of options on header wrap and there looks to be some newer technology available since I did mine. Here's a link ----
Search Results for header wrap - SummitRacing.com
heres the coating stuff
http://www.thermotec.com/hi-heat-coating.html
another link
http://www.thermotec.com/full-product-line.html


Theoretically the hotter exhaust gasses are supposed to have better scavaging and faster flow to lead to more power. I cant say if this contributed to more juice on mine since I did the whole hog thing with a power commander and a BMC air filter at the same time. I can say that the 10500 rpm out of gas top end flat spot is gone. The bike was kinda going - "Oh, you want me to rev?" (You see that spot quite a lot in dyno graphs too.) Now, the bike just slams to redline on one linear rush now as compared to before.

Here's a pic I had handy of the header around the shock ---


Good luck,
MD