To wrap or not to wrap. That is the question

[spawpoet]

My current 260Z header is wrapped and it seems just fine. The header is of beefy construction though but I've had no problem with the wrap and I think the underhood temps are definitely lower and more importantly the carbs/intake are cooler. Not seeing how a ceramic coating could achieve the same result with a 50 micron layer of coating on the header.

While I did have trouble with oil leaks on the old leaky Jensen motor that was more due to it's design than anything else.

Ron

Ron,
I was skeptical of ceramic coating, but thats what we did with our header. It's an old clifford research that we sent to Jet Hot to have coated, and I can't believe how much cooler the whole engine bay is with it. I don't burn myself working in there any more. Significantly cooler than my uncles wrapped z header. He has some coated headers on his Datsun 2000's though, where I thought the coating was less effective, and the engine bays didn't stay all that much cooler than with an unwrapped, uncoated header.

Chris

[bonespec]

Ran a wrapped Stillen header, which was ceramic coated, for 10 years on my daily driver. It only rusted where the wrap had fell off due to scrapping, or not wrapped at all.

[Bob Roth]

We endurance race an integra, heres a third way, I fabricate a heat shield between the header and front of a block, but wrap under the oil pan. The objective is to keep the heat out of the engine, also to protect the header during 12 hour races. I figure the exhaust is cool enough for wrap by the time its under the engine

[dyoungre]

I haven't found a ceramic coating that a manufacturer recommends for rotary exhaust temperatures. I was able to wrap a mild steel header with normal header, but had some cracking / sagging issues when hanger issues developed.

After changing to a stainless header, DEI header wrap failed immediately due to the temperature. I found a special high temperature wrap, "Inferno", that works great on the stainless header. Anecdotally, my lap times now improve as a race goes on, instead of increasing as underhood temperatures rise and rise.