Whats a good Exhaust Heat Wrap?

[Cman46290]

Hey guys,

I tried searching this but didnt find much....

I bought a new header and went to install it over the weekend... and thought it was gunna just be a basic bolt on... and be done...

WRONG.

The header i got was much longer than the stock one... so we needed to do some cutting to make it work...so we ended up just hacking out my CAT.... and buying new piping to weld in between the stock and the header....

After welding it together... it is a bit raspier than i had hoped... and i still have the stock muffler.... so i though about trying out an exhaust heat wrap around the place where we welded the piping together... to hopefully help tone down the sound coming from the piping...

Does anyone know a good heat wrap to use? or just order one offline?... i was looking at this one... cheap and you get a decent amount of it.

http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Plus-Connection-Header-Exhaust/dp/B001O4M1JY/ref=sr_1_3?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1288619812&sr=1-3

 

[Slo_Teggy]

Header wrap would not change the sound... it would keep the header (or whatever piping you wrap) cooler. If you want to make it quieter, get a new exhaust system that's quieter. You aren't looking for header wrap though, so start looking for exhausts that you like. you can stick with that header, but play with mufflers and center pipes. If the header is making a raspy noise, then you have a hole. Welding them isn't an easy task so it's easy to put holes in it. Make sure there are no holes and get a new muffler. That should do it.

 

[Cman46290]

well the raspy sounds seems to be coming from underneath the car... not from the header under the hood.... so im pretty sure there may be a few pin oles in the welding that could be leaking causing the sound....

SO what i figured was heat wrap it really good and tight and it may tone down the sound if wrapped over the pin holes in the welds.

Any other cheap ideas? cuz thats all i got other than re-welding it.

 

[Slo_Teggy]

you're going to have to weld it. No matter what you put in there, it will eventually burn threw and put you in the same situation you're in now, but a few bucks less. May as well do it once and do it right. Maybe a gasket has blown though. If that is the case, get a new gasket. Lift the car while it's running and follow the sound. That is the best way to find out what the problem is.

 

[Cman46290]

its a weird sounding rasp... when running you cant hear it at all... cant even hear the car running... but when i get on it or get into the throttle at all then it is raspy... im gunna drive it for a couple days to see if it gets any better... it seemed to get quieter as i drove today.....

But i will most likely get to an exhaust shop and have them re-weld it..

 

[Samurai_Blue]

Mishimoto all day errrrrrrrrrrrrrry day cuz!!!!11

 

[mjones73]

Put a flex join in between the header and your exhaust too if you didn't or you'll eventually break something from the motor moving.

 

[mirrorimg]

The wrap would most lileky deteriorate from leaking exhaust gases over time. I suggest you go back over and re-weld or fill in any holes that are causing your exhaust leak.

Also, with the cat removed you are getting a more free flow through the exhaust system by removing some restriction. That means a louder exhaust tone.

 

[WAR 178]

being that you eliminated the cat, are you sure its not the actual header pushing more exhaust thru? when I went from stock headers to greddy... the sound went up a bit. Now that I have 5zigen jazma headers even more sound when I get on the throttle( been asked if I have a turbo underneath the hood!)
but the heat wrap will just cool the pipes a bit, but cause you to speed up rusting out the metal.
g/l
x2 the opinion to put in a flex pipe or flange with spring bolts! or you WILL crack the header or exhaust pipes.....
x2 re-weld if there are holes in the 1st weld job. The exhaust fumes will get to ya someday lol

 

[mirrorimg]

And for everyones information, header/exhaust wrap does not cool the pipe. It simply insulates it so the heat does not soak the engine bay/the bottom of the car. The actual pipe gets HOTTER because the head has no where to go.

Installing header wrap on cheap headers is a good way to crack the welds or the pipe, because no-name brands use a mix of metals that they can get for cheap, and therefore are not very good at standing up to heat.

 

[Cman46290]

good info here guys, thanks for the opinions~

After i went home yesterday i decided to have a buddy sit in the car and rev it a bunch of times to try to pin point where the sound was coming from.... and to my surprise it wasnt the welds....

Apparently when we were moving and bending the piping around, the flange for the muffler (which had a slight leak before due to a bent bolt) got MUCH worse.... and the gasket was starting to crumble out of the pipe... .and was sounding like like shit. SO i tried to take out the sideways bent spring bolt that was in the flange out(causing the leak) and **SNAP** of course... it broke...

So basically i had to take off the whole muffler and took it to Meineke to have them get the bolt out of the flange,,, (my drill bits suck and couldnt get it ou..and i needed the car fixed ASAP)... and sure enough they wouldnt touch it without a CAT... ghey boys... they wouldnt even do my LOF... flame bags....

So im gunna take a vacation day tomorrow... and most likely put a custom pipe between the header and CAT...(flexpipe most likely)... and re-weld the CAT back on... so im legal again... and put the downstream O2 sensor back in as well.... and be done with it... so basically have an aftermarket header and stock exhaust.... with custom piping...