Exhaust Manifold Protection

[Lextreme II]

Coating or Wrapping? There are many advantages and disadvantage of both. Which would you pick and why?

 

[cribbj]

If the headers are mild steel, they should be coated

If they're stainless, they could be coated, wrapped, or both

Mild steel rusts under wrapped insulation due to condensation from heating/cooling. It needs to be exposed.

 

[JBrady]

Hard to beat properly engineered heat shields. They create a thermal and radiant barrier while allowing cooling to the manifolds. Stainless is a great metal but again anything built from it needs to be engineered as it expands and contracts as it heat cycles and this can/will crack parts and welds. Stainless also conducts heat slower than mild steel so it insulates somewhat like Jet Hot coating on mild steel. Mild steel is actually a very good material if it is ceramic coated.

Wrapping is ok in racing applications but can overheat parts and accelerated corrosion. It also gets dirty.

 

[Racing-Solutions]

Most of the header repairs Ive ever done were on stainless wrapped headers in turbo apps. I havent seen problems with wrapping or coating in non turbo apps either way.