What I found when wrapping my headers on my car was the lowering of the radiant heat under the hood. Before I wrapped the headers, I couldn't get my hands close to the headers at all and anything else close to the headers was very hot. After the wrapping, I could get my hands quite close without feeling any great amount of heat. I checked the surface temperature before and after wrapping and it was only a few degrees different. The wrap will be the temperature of the headers but best of all it prevents the radiant heat which helps to keep the surroundings cooler. Thanks for your video. Best Regards - Mike
@@jackdale9249 Radiant heat. You feel the heat from the hot exhaust pipe not the heated air. Like the radiant heaters you buy in a store. The air under the hood is heated because of the radiated heat from the headers heating everything around them. Best Regards - Mike
Not all ceramic coatings are created equal. In the USA we have Swain's White Lightning, and in the UK (maybe Europe?) there is Zircotec. Both are much thicker and significantly more effective than the thinner more paint-like coatings. Great to see a new video and the build progressing!
@@noxious89123 the exhaust coating really is purely decorative. it is very resistant and it does slighltly lower temp but that's it! you need a tbc coating for lowering heat radiation, which cerakote also makes in two versions, one is sand-golden and the other is called titanium red.
Swain and Zircotec use a plasma spray process similar to what's found on passenger jet turbine blades. I'm still looking a place that can do internal plasma spray coatings in a 2.5 inch inner diameter pipe.
The coatings usually don’t do much because they’re so thin. Furthermore black has a higher emissivity than any other color- cerakote being flat black makes it worse. Cerakote is just useful for reducing corrosion while also being able to stand up to the heat. White on the other hand reduces emissivity or thermal radiation by its color. Crazy how many people in here have such staunch opinions but haven’t even taken the most basic physics course.
This will overheat and burn off the ceramic unless it’s a very high temperature version. Inconel wrapped and spot/laser welded is the absolute best but comes with a hefty price tag.
I was getting itchy just watching you pick up the wrapped header without gloves lol. The biggest downside to wrapping, plus the stainless ties are good at shredding your hands/arms if working in a tight engine bay.
Please note! That “heat gun” (optical infrared pyrometer) doesn’t actually measure the temperature of the surface. It measures the infrared light being emitted from the surface and this amount of light is based of the emissivity of the surface you are measuring. In this case, you have shiny black paint (pigmented with ceramic particles) and silvery cloth. These substances will provide two very different emissivity values. You can never honestly prove that these painted on ceramic coatings are effective this way. A better way is to touch the surface with a simple digital meat thermometer. This will be the true surface temperature.
He only tested 1 brand tho. Sample size is too small. Also, the temperature involved is not representative nor is anywhere close to what is actually experienced by an exhaust header.
You can't compare both surfaces with a infrared measuring devise. Espacially on higher temperatures you will get a different result only because of the surface. A better result would be to use 3 heat guns, place close by at the header a peace of metal and measure who hot this will be after a few minutes. Nowadays there a way better system to protect the engine against the heat
exactly the emissivity of a given material will impact the IR gun reading. IR guns can be adjusted depending on the surface you are going to treat. A temp probe would be your best bet, they are often supplied with multimeters
I coated probably around 7000 sets of headers with Techline coatings, so I have experience with all types of headers. There is nothing that will do more damage to headers than wrapping them. The wrap holds in so much heat that it burns the carbon out of the steel. The headers that have been wrapped and run very long look like dried mud because they are cracked so bad
@@gregjenkins2925That's true, but if the 800C exhaust is constantly being splashed with water (which is not clean) and boiling it off, whatever is in the water will bake into the wrap. It's well-known that this leads to corrosion.
The IR emissivity of the coating and the wrap are probably different and will skew the results. Any chance you could test with a thermocouple? Also, what about a wrap on a coated manifold? And "au naturel" manifold?
@@noxious89123 Color has nothing to do with a surfaces ability to absorb and radiate IR energy. A surface emissivity or condition does. Color is only affected by ultra-violet radiation.
I would think a white or silver coating would be better as it would reflect more heat back into the header. Black dissipates more heat by absorbing it from the higher temperature source and dissipating it into the lower heat area. Wrapping or reflective coating also increases a header's efficiency by keeping heat in the exhaust "slug", thereby lessening velocity loss due to cooling. You should have tested a bare header as a base point.
@@me109aa I second that : My dear, late, grandfather assisted the assembly of the thermal tiling underneath the Space Shuttle Enterprise ( in the late 70’s at Rockwell Int’l, Downey, California ). I don’t recall the nomenclature or the specs - but they definitely were black, and definitely prevented the occupants from being sautéd. 👍🏽
Just a tip, you should have tapped the other runners, because if your headers work good it will create a scaveging effect and suck cold air, I have tried something similar and it did made a lot of difference on my testing.
A temp gun measures infrared. The colour and more important reflectivity make a big difference to the recorded temps. If its shiny the temp is wrong. Given time and temp there is only one genuinely effective radiant heat protection and that's a heat shield with an air gap. A formed fiber metallic material like the stuff used above catalytic converters with a 10 mm air gap minimum is loads more effective. You put standoffs on the pipework to mount the sheet , form the sheet to shape and bolt on. No contact, 15% of the price and by far the most effective.
The better solution is the dimpled insulation made from stainless steel formed to make a continuous outer, same as the OEM’s use. An alternative is use the wrapped, but put a metal heat shield between the exhaust and the engine this will stop oil dropping on the headers and make a good air gap between the exhaust and the coils, wiring etc 👍
Black color has maximum absorption AND radiation of heat. My professional advice would have been V-136 (Piston Coat, heat cure) for the inside of header, and C-7700 glacier silver on the outside (polished to chrome look). That what I did for my turbo and exhaust system.
exhaust temps are as high as 1300-1600f. this doesn't show that level of heat. you can't use infrared to measure heat since it's skewed by reflective surfaces. to do it right, you need a thermal camera or imaging device. infrared is the worst approach.
You have not added controls mild or stainless steel headers uncoated or wrapped also wraps are reputed to retain or absorb moisture bringing early retirement to mild steel headers.
I’m pro wrap all day any day. Nobody will convince me otherwise. Unless the only qualifying factor is cosmetics. I’ll momentarily touch the headers on my hot rod with wrap on them. I’m yet to find someone with coating that will do the same.
Wrap is shite, ceramic is marginally better considering it will not catch fire if oil drips on it like wrap thus not becoming a torch(ask me how i know) . Ceramic wool (or different kinds of) and stainless sheets is the only way to goo.
More worried about the long term life of ceramic coating - especially on a turbo manifold. They can glow orange hot which means a lot of expansion and contraction - I'm not sure a ceramic coating is going to sustain that.
I have ceramic coated headers and I wrap them to keep the heat out of the engine compartment into the guy that says the corrosion 22 years later no problem you got to leave your car inside you can't leave it outside everything's going to corrode
Cerakote is not a heat insulation but a scratch resistant coating. Best technology for heat insulation is ceramic powder with Inconel layers, used in F1, WRC...
Wrap will also muffle things a bit, if you’re looking for some additional sound deadening. Usually I go with ceramic on track, wrap for street, for all the reasons you mentioned
Your logic is backward Wrap should only be used on track. As It is a fire hazard if there is an oil leak they will soak with oil and you will struggle to extinguish the fire on the side of the highway.
By chance did you do a separate test with an uncoated/unwrapped header so we can compare how the heat tamped up and where it achieved saturation with the same heat source? I'd love to see the overall effectiveness of both approaches. Thank you fornthis video.
cool video! I have cerakote and could not be happier. I have a toyota gt86 with a boxer 4 engine, I went Cerakote because of "oem" looks for the siren guys + I did not want the wrap to catch fire after soaking oil. I was so excited about installing the parts I totally forgot to measure the exhaust manifold temperature before/after
the discussion here was about temperature (albeit inconclusive). degradation of metal when using wrap is influenced by a number of other factors - not just heat - and is not a given.
I had an e46 330ci with headers that I wrapped, which also had a leaky valve cover gasket. I didn't realize it was soaking into the header wrap and it caused an engine bay fire in a snowstorm. I managed to put it out throwing a bunch of snow on it but not before it melted surrounding wires and the valve cover above it doing a huge amount of damage. Another car I had years before that had shorty headers on it, ended up totaling it out and took the aftermarket parts off it to sell, the headers had cracked underneath the wrap. Not on a weld but in the middle of a tube, I'm guessing it trapped too much head on the metal at some point causing metal failure? Really not sure Not worth it if there's any chance of oil getting on them or if you care about the headers underneath IMHO, just be careful out there.
loved the great idea! just don't know if the Heat Gun can manage the vertical upside down, thrus trigger the protection, varying the output that alters the result. Best to position no more than horizontal, or use 2 same gun w/ similar age.
If I may suggest 2 key elements that I think are missing in your experience. 1 : what temperature does the heat guns produces at the exit and at a distance equal to the lengh of your 3 to 1 tube. 2 : what's the temperature reading you get from heating a similar naked 3 to 1 tube with the same heat gun? (that would be the reference against which you can compare the 2 others). Love the idea of your experience, though. Thanks for sharing it.
Interesting video. That said, I think a better test would be to place a piece of sheet metal near the exhaust header, and measure the temperature of that (being careful not to accidentally measure the header temperature). This is assuming your main concern is radiant heat.
I know others have pointed it out but you cant get an accurate reading with a heatgun on a reflective surface. Now if you want to get a better reading take a piece of black tape and put it on both surfaces and you will get much better results. Now you need to actually mount them on the engine and run it that way because not only do you get head from the exhaust gasses but from the head and a heat gun cant get anywhere close to the temps an exhaust makes. I guarantee just due to the thickness of the wrap its going to beat ceramic all day.
I have both done in my car, its already been 3 years of daily traffic and some spirited driving, the wrap has started to degrade, but still does a good job and I guess the ceramic coating underneath should also break down due to friction with the wrap, but I will wait until it doesn't work anymore or I change the headers.
If protecting your plug wires is the concern - start using a silicone based set. Currently, high silicone sets have replaced wire sets that used to "require" a metal heat sheild at the boot due to plugs being just inches from (and nesting between pipes of) the exhaust manifold on "old" trucks like the Ram (circa 1990 Dodge). If further protection is needed, run the wires themselves through a heat wrap/sheath. Also, if you dont want oil getting into the wrap - stop pouring oil on it.
Not the ideal way to test IMO. Thanks for the effort. My thoughts are set on a dyno with constant drag and let it rip. Really wild get a oxy torch with a rosebud and let it rip.. Heat gun is not enough in so many ways.
Today my heat wrap on my subaru caught fire.. luckily my mate behind me flashed to pull over and save the car.... ceramic coating everything now.. don't do heat wrap!!!!
Infrared thermometers don’t work on thermally reflective surfaces, you would be measuring something else the laser is bouncing off and then hitting. There is a more accurate way to test this, place some black tape or patch of spray paint where you are measuring or use a probe that makes physical contact.
I used the fibre glass version on my lancia delta and you could just about touch the manifold. However you have to wrap rear to front otherwise the wind will catch the wrap. Also the wrap eventually ripps to shreds on pipes plus the damage it causes to the surface of stainless steel is also bad so i'd go for ceramic over glass fibre wrap. Not tried titanium wrap.
I wrapped a set of headers once, within 2 years they were cracked. I just bought a set of ceramic coated headers because I don't want to go through replacing them again. Every company that makes headers will not warranty any header that has been wrapped for a reason.
Without knowing the emissivity of the surface of the heat wrap and the ceramic surface, You can not get accurate temperature measurement with a spot radiometer. After the heat wrap, wrap again with aluminum tape and you will reduce the radiated heat by at least 50% The shiny alum tape will lower the surface emissivity greatly and retain more heat in the head (if that is the goal.
Good introduction, thank you.... couple of notes: do not touch heat wrap without gloves, otherwise your hands will be very itchy, it has a fiberglass material. I would use a few metal zip ties around it, to make sure it doesn't come off. I can confirm the heat wrap does really works - have it on my Kawasaki Ninja for 5 yrs already, on summer day rides I don't feel heat on my foot rest, makes bike to ride more comfortably.
Yeah titanium wrap is awesome stuff, I've run it on almost all my street bikes to keep that radiant heat inside the pipes, creating a scavenging effect to pull exhaust through, and to keep it off my legs while riding....it even pained me to do so, but I even wrapped the hand bent titanium Technical Sports Racing header I was running on my CBR1100XX, covering up all that gloriously blued, purpled, and golden titanium you could see peeking through the fairings hurt my soul, but my god was that thin walled titanium hot compared to the stock stainless header....but of course, I only wrapped up to the 60.5mm collector and then the rest of the full titanium on back to the Ladybird full titanium Tri-Oval silencer was left bare to color. 👌
Wrap gets dirty and if oil gets on it ,there is no small engine firer. Jet Hot a must to effectively do it. On company the sells snake oil is Zybar, the paint stays on ,but their radiant heat claims are straight out lies. And their sales pitch against ceramic coating is lying or as they call it good business.
Change to a better way,, sandblast the headers , Air blow them off and use the two thousand degrees vht header paint.. it's better than ever ,it doesn't change colors it's easy to touch up later and it's looks good and it's low cost, easy coverage..
I think best would be to place a temp sensor away from the headers or manifolds then close the hood without the wrap and with the wrap vs coatings. Since a laser gun checks the heat right where it’s produced and doesn’t tell us how much it radiates under the hood.
Just came across this video, nice test, perhaps not a true reflection of how they'll perform at running conditions but useful nonetheless, thanks for filming it I'm no expert, more bumbling amateur, but a couple of things 1) Using a IR thermometer, to get an accurate reading as I understand it, the emisivity needs to be taken into acount, so different colours and materials can effect the measurment. Better probably using a thermcouple or even better RTD 2) As to the usual old tropes about wrap rotting pipes, I'd add wrap can be waterproofed using recommended sealants, 2 I know are DEI and Thermotec who both produce paints to seal their wraps. Not advocating wrap over ceramic coatings I use both on motorcycles and never experienced problems. Currently re-wrapping some motorcycle headers which were wrapped for 8 years. The wrap eventually became brittle and fell apart, it had been sealed a couple of times. Pipes were like new underneath with no corrosion or degradation, no idea if I've just been lucky. Personally I'll stick to what I know and observe. Statements must be true because somebody posted it on the Internet, right?
If you're going to do any damn testing why don't you test it in the actual car instead of testing over the heat gun in a freaking infrared thermometer. When you wrap your headers up like that the heat does not leave and you're overheating your engine and your engine is going to perform worse when I get hot
I once left off the aluminum heat shield below the boot on my supercharged lotus exige. With just street driving, the rubber liner on the boot floor started smoking. Def a fire hazard that was luckily caught in time
In actual use, I can come into the pits off the track and I am able to put my hand on the wrapped headers, I could never do that with Ceramic coated headers..... same goes for Turbo Blankets
I'm not at all surprised by the results here. The wrap has both more mass (thermal capacitance) and surface area through which it can dissipate collected heat. If this is the only measure by which you were choosing header insulation, it would clearly be the winner. But as you said, there are other factors at play, including cleanliness, weight, corrosion resistance, and even aesthetic considerations. If you wanted to do this more scientifically, you'd need to maintain a control experiment: headers with no coating or insulation at all. Provided they were the same parameters (alloy type, thickness, etc.) this would at least tell you how well these two items performed in relative terms, as well as comparative terms. Cheers, from the US.
I had my headers coated, but they said not to also wrap them as the reflected heat degrades the coating - that was some years ago, so not sure on todays condition. The real benefit of this is not for under hood temps but to keep the exhaust gas hot for maximum flow and thus best power.
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What I found when wrapping my headers on my car was the lowering of the radiant heat under the hood. Before I wrapped the headers, I couldn't get my hands close to the headers at all and anything else close to the headers was very hot. After the wrapping, I could get my hands quite close without feeling any great amount of heat. I checked the surface temperature before and after wrapping and it was only a few degrees different. The wrap will be the temperature of the headers but best of all it prevents the radiant heat which helps to keep the surroundings cooler. Thanks for your video. Best Regards - Mike
actually it is "convected " heat NOT "radiated " !
@@jackdale9249 Radiant heat. You feel the heat from the hot exhaust pipe not the heated air. Like the radiant heaters you buy in a store. The air under the hood is heated because of the radiated heat from the headers heating everything around them. Best Regards - Mike
Not all ceramic coatings are created equal. In the USA we have Swain's White Lightning, and in the UK (maybe Europe?) there is Zircotec. Both are much thicker and significantly more effective than the thinner more paint-like coatings. Great to see a new video and the build progressing!
Very true Cerakote is the bottom on quality for heat insulation.
White Lightning is amazing. Techline is also pretty good with ID coatings too.
@@bt619x Honestly, I thought Cerakote was a purely decorative coating, was surprised when he said he'd had it put on headers.
@@noxious89123 the exhaust coating really is purely decorative. it is very resistant and it does slighltly lower temp but that's it! you need a tbc coating for lowering heat radiation, which cerakote also makes in two versions, one is sand-golden and the other is called titanium red.
Swain and Zircotec use a plasma spray process similar to what's found on passenger jet turbine blades. I'm still looking a place that can do internal plasma spray coatings in a 2.5 inch inner diameter pipe.
The coatings usually don’t do much because they’re so thin. Furthermore black has a higher emissivity than any other color- cerakote being flat black makes it worse. Cerakote is just useful for reducing corrosion while also being able to stand up to the heat. White on the other hand reduces emissivity or thermal radiation by its color. Crazy how many people in here have such staunch opinions but haven’t even taken the most basic physics course.
You should wrap the ceramic coated headers.
Best of both worlds
NO
Explain why please? @@timothywhieldon1971
Worst of both. The best way is the way the factory does it with sheet metal
This will overheat and burn off the ceramic unless it’s a very high temperature version.
Inconel wrapped and spot/laser welded is the absolute best but comes with a hefty price tag.
@@1magnit a small air gap and a piece of sheet metal is a terrific barrier
I was getting itchy just watching you pick up the wrapped header without gloves lol. The biggest downside to wrapping, plus the stainless ties are good at shredding your hands/arms if working in a tight engine bay.
I know what you mean… those ties are deadly!
just be carefull! lot less chance of 3 rd degree burns!
Please note! That “heat gun” (optical infrared pyrometer) doesn’t actually measure the temperature of the surface. It measures the infrared light being emitted from the surface and this amount of light is based of the emissivity of the surface you are measuring. In this case, you have shiny black paint (pigmented with ceramic particles) and silvery cloth. These substances will provide two very different emissivity values. You can never honestly prove that these painted on ceramic coatings are effective this way. A better way is to touch the surface with a simple digital meat thermometer. This will be the true surface temperature.
Thermocouple. Came to say same for IR thermometer
Nice test - I was expecting the ceramic coat to be better…
Would be good to see you do this test without any finishes/wraps 👍
He only tested 1 brand tho. Sample size is too small.
Also, the temperature involved is not representative nor is anywhere close to what is actually experienced by an exhaust header.
You can't compare both surfaces with a infrared measuring devise.
Espacially on higher temperatures you will get a different result only because of the surface.
A better result would be to use 3 heat guns, place close by at the header a peace of metal and measure who hot this will be after a few minutes.
Nowadays there a way better system to protect the engine against the heat
That would be a better test and more scientific for sure.
exactly the emissivity of a given material will impact the IR gun reading. IR guns can be adjusted depending on the surface you are going to treat. A temp probe would be your best bet, they are often supplied with multimeters
Perhaps three heat gun and measuring outcoming air temperature from the collector...
We don't give af about the actual internal temperature of the manifold. We care about the heat that it radiates. That's what affects us
I coated probably around 7000 sets of headers with Techline coatings, so I have experience with all types of headers. There is nothing that will do more damage to headers than wrapping them. The wrap holds in so much heat that it burns the carbon out of the steel. The headers that have been wrapped and run very long look like dried mud because they are cracked so bad
my bro, INSTALL the headers, one side wrap, other side JET HOT coated, measure WHILST hot laps at a track....
The wrap looks cool, but another concern you didn't mention is that it holds moisture, which accelerates corrosion of the underlying metal.
moisture does not last long with plus 800c exhaust heat....
@@gregjenkins2925That's true, but if the 800C exhaust is constantly being splashed with water (which is not clean) and boiling it off, whatever is in the water will bake into the wrap. It's well-known that this leads to corrosion.
@@darylmorse - Hi, as I only do sealed / tarmac / bitumen / ashpalt, track work, all sealed tracks, no off road stuff, I have not had this issue,..
This is why you should ceramic coat then wrap over It
Protects the metal from any moisture being trapped
It does unfortunately , this is why I would do only ceramic imho.
I'm just doing both,.and they actually recommend it.
Would be interesting to see a benchmark without any insulation
Was thinking the same after watching this. It would give an idea of the gains/benefits from the original standard non protected or coated header.
What about using both?
The IR emissivity of the coating and the wrap are probably different and will skew the results. Any chance you could test with a thermocouple?
Also, what about a wrap on a coated manifold?
And "au naturel" manifold?
+1, the black ceramic coating is going to be picked up very well by the IR thermometer
I would love to make a more scientific test and with other coatings. I’ll see if there is any more that I can fit into my next session
@@noxious89123 Color has nothing to do with a surfaces ability to absorb and radiate IR energy. A surface emissivity or condition does. Color is only affected by ultra-violet radiation.
On my Harley I went with ceramic coated and I still wrapped them. I cant feel the heat on my leg anymore
That’s good input
I would think a white or silver coating would be better as it would reflect more heat back into the header. Black dissipates more heat by absorbing it from the higher temperature source and dissipating it into the lower heat area.
Wrapping or reflective coating also increases a header's efficiency by keeping heat in the exhaust "slug", thereby lessening velocity loss due to cooling.
You should have tested a bare header as a base point.
Research black bodies, black is better at high tempuratures, think SR-71 or the bottom of the space shuttle.
@@me109aa Black is better for radiating/releasing heat. You want to keep the heat inside the header so white is best.
@@me109aa
I second that : My dear, late, grandfather assisted the assembly of the thermal tiling underneath the Space Shuttle Enterprise ( in the late 70’s at Rockwell Int’l, Downey, California ).
I don’t recall the nomenclature or the specs - but they definitely were black, and definitely prevented the occupants from being sautéd. 👍🏽
Just a tip, you should have tapped the other runners, because if your headers work good it will create a scaveging effect and suck cold air, I have tried something similar and it did made a lot of difference on my testing.
Why not both?
In the last part he said, “the best its use both “
I've always used the wrap, but now f1 or wrc shielding is an excellent option. GFH products are top shelf.
I did both. Cerakote and Ti Wrap
what about a combination of the 2?
Did you make a measurement before any coating at all?
A temp gun measures infrared. The colour and more important reflectivity make a big difference to the recorded temps. If its shiny the temp is wrong.
Given time and temp there is only one genuinely effective radiant heat protection and that's a heat shield with an air gap. A formed fiber metallic material like the stuff used above catalytic converters with a 10 mm air gap minimum is loads more effective. You put standoffs on the pipework to mount the sheet , form the sheet to shape and bolt on. No contact, 15% of the price and by far the most effective.
Interesting data. Would be good to have a baseline non wrapped or coated dataset. Jet Hot also allegedly does a good exhaust coating.
Ya, would need the basline to say if anything is effective and if they were close or far apart on performance. B+ science fair work.
But what was the temperature with no coating or wrap as a datum?
but how about that exhaust body? if you wrap it make the exhaust faster to broke?
Why not do both wrap the coated headers
The better solution is the dimpled insulation made from stainless steel formed to make a continuous outer, same as the OEM’s use.
An alternative is use the wrapped, but put a metal heat shield between the exhaust and the engine this will stop oil dropping on the headers and make a good air gap between the exhaust and the coils, wiring etc 👍
Black color has maximum absorption AND radiation of heat. My professional advice would have been V-136 (Piston Coat, heat cure) for the inside of header, and C-7700 glacier silver on the outside (polished to chrome look). That what I did for my turbo and exhaust system.
I would like to see somebody test wraped ceramic headers.
exhaust temps are as high as 1300-1600f. this doesn't show that level of heat. you can't use infrared to measure heat since it's skewed by reflective surfaces. to do it right, you need a thermal camera or imaging device. infrared is the worst approach.
Test both together. Change wrap as needed or orefered
Loving this experiment just got long tube headers for my g37 sedan and I’m tryna figure out what’s the better way to go
You have not added controls mild or stainless steel headers uncoated or wrapped also wraps are reputed to retain or absorb moisture bringing early retirement to mild steel headers.
I’m pro wrap all day any day.
Nobody will convince me otherwise. Unless the only qualifying factor is cosmetics.
I’ll momentarily touch the headers on my hot rod with wrap on them. I’m yet to find someone with coating that will do the same.
you should measure with a fan blowing on the surface to approximate the heatflux .. and radiant heat while driving
I worry that the surface of the ceramic is altering your readings.. more reflective than the wrap is
Why not use both at the same time 👍
Wrap is shite, ceramic is marginally better considering it will not catch fire if oil drips on it like wrap thus not becoming a torch(ask me how i know) . Ceramic wool (or different kinds of) and stainless sheets is the only way to goo.
Pretty sure the smoking header wrap is the adhesive outgassing. Whether it is or isn't, I'm not sure how it couldn't be toxic.
5minutes? Maybe a few hours? Caramic coating can offer more, but could cross wrappin in reallife conditions…
More worried about the long term life of ceramic coating - especially on a turbo manifold.
They can glow orange hot which means a lot of expansion and contraction - I'm not sure a ceramic coating is going to sustain that.
Wrap always smokes on initial start up... it's perfectly normal.
Would of been nice to see a base line/standard
How about cost/ performance relationship. Ceramic cost more , but wrapping takes more time.
I have ceramic coated headers and I wrap them to keep the heat out of the engine compartment into the guy that says the corrosion 22 years later no problem you got to leave your car inside you can't leave it outside everything's going to corrode
Cerakote is not a heat insulation but a scratch resistant coating.
Best technology for heat insulation is ceramic powder with Inconel layers, used in F1, WRC...
Wrap will also muffle things a bit, if you’re looking for some additional sound deadening. Usually I go with ceramic on track, wrap for street, for all the reasons you mentioned
Your logic is backward
Wrap should only be used on track. As It is a fire hazard if there is an oil leak they will soak with oil and you will struggle to extinguish the fire on the side of the highway.
Appreciate your videos. Have a sub from Canada. Cheers
Thanks!
Idk if cerakote is the best use for this example. I'd use a different thicker ceramic coating on the exhaust
I wrapped my headers and they smoked for about the first five or six drives until the wrapping had hardened then no more smoke
Try VHT hi temp paint first, wrap , and re-paint it will be much cleaner and cooler,
Do both
By chance did you do a separate test with an uncoated/unwrapped header so we can compare how the heat tamped up and where it achieved saturation with the same heat source?
I'd love to see the overall effectiveness of both approaches. Thank you fornthis video.
Great point!
You should have tried whit out wrapping before 👍🤪 nice to see how much it does.
cool video! I have cerakote and could not be happier. I have a toyota gt86 with a boxer 4 engine, I went Cerakote because of "oem" looks for the siren guys + I did not want the wrap to catch fire after soaking oil. I was so excited about installing the parts I totally forgot to measure the exhaust manifold temperature before/after
Coating will flake after a while. Would like to see data from heat shield or inconel.
Done both and there is no comparison ceramic coating is far superior to wraps. just more exspensive.
Surprised this is even debated in this day and time. It is well documented that wrapping will destroy tubes over time.
the discussion here was about temperature (albeit inconclusive). degradation of metal when using wrap is influenced by a number of other factors - not just heat - and is not a given.
Temps not high enough to see ceramic do a better job at higher temps over the wrap
Great video
I had an e46 330ci with headers that I wrapped, which also had a leaky valve cover gasket. I didn't realize it was soaking into the header wrap and it caused an engine bay fire in a snowstorm. I managed to put it out throwing a bunch of snow on it but not before it melted surrounding wires and the valve cover above it doing a huge amount of damage.
Another car I had years before that had shorty headers on it, ended up totaling it out and took the aftermarket parts off it to sell, the headers had cracked underneath the wrap. Not on a weld but in the middle of a tube, I'm guessing it trapped too much head on the metal at some point causing metal failure? Really not sure
Not worth it if there's any chance of oil getting on them or if you care about the headers underneath IMHO, just be careful out there.
OK so your saying that we should go twin turbos and remove the hood!😷
What if you do both?
What is uncoated and unwrapped result?
Nice video. It would be great also to make the measurement naked for comparison. Thanks..
Best performance? Wrap ceramic-coated headers
loved the great idea! just don't know if the Heat Gun can manage the vertical upside down, thrus trigger the protection, varying the output that alters the result. Best to position no more than horizontal, or use 2 same gun w/ similar age.
Ceramic because it coats inside and transfers heat to exterior
It would be perfect if even the inside of the exhaust ports were coated.
When you said you moved the angle of the heat gun, I assume you mean you changed the angle of the thermometer 'gun' instead, right?
Yes
Cerakote is not Ceramic coating and basically offers ZERO heat mitigation properties. A real CERAMIC coating does wonders though.
How much better were the coatings than bare metal?
thats the real question without answer here idk why he forgot about this test
If I may suggest 2 key elements that I think are missing in your experience.
1 : what temperature does the heat guns produces at the exit and at a distance equal to the lengh of your 3 to 1 tube.
2 : what's the temperature reading you get from heating a similar naked 3 to 1 tube with the same heat gun?
(that would be the reference against which you can compare the 2 others).
Love the idea of your experience, though. Thanks for sharing it.
There’s quite a bit more that could be done to make this more scientific rather than a practical test
Interesting video. That said, I think a better test would be to place a piece of sheet metal near the exhaust header, and measure the temperature of that (being careful not to accidentally measure the header temperature). This is assuming your main concern is radiant heat.
I know others have pointed it out but you cant get an accurate reading with a heatgun on a reflective surface. Now if you want to get a better reading take a piece of black tape and put it on both surfaces and you will get much better results.
Now you need to actually mount them on the engine and run it that way because not only do you get head from the exhaust gasses but from the head and a heat gun cant get anywhere close to the temps an exhaust makes. I guarantee just due to the thickness of the wrap its going to beat ceramic all day.
Best would be a Shape-formed Inconel heat shield but that's painfully expensive and increases packaging dimensions
That’s the next level!
I have both done in my car, its already been 3 years of daily traffic and some spirited driving, the wrap has started to degrade, but still does a good job and I guess the ceramic coating underneath should also break down due to friction with the wrap, but I will wait until it doesn't work anymore or I change the headers.
Ceramic = ugly
Wrap = not ugly
If protecting your plug wires is the concern - start using a silicone based set. Currently, high silicone sets have replaced wire sets that used to "require" a metal heat sheild at the boot due to plugs being just inches from (and nesting between pipes of) the exhaust manifold on "old" trucks like the Ram (circa 1990 Dodge). If further protection is needed, run the wires themselves through a heat wrap/sheath.
Also, if you dont want oil getting into the wrap - stop pouring oil on it.
Not the ideal way to test IMO. Thanks for the effort. My thoughts are set on a dyno with constant drag and let it rip. Really wild get a oxy torch with a rosebud and let it rip.. Heat gun is not enough in so many ways.
Today my heat wrap on my subaru caught fire.. luckily my mate behind me flashed to pull over and save the car.... ceramic coating everything now.. don't do heat wrap!!!!
Infrared thermometers don’t work on thermally reflective surfaces, you would be measuring something else the laser is bouncing off and then hitting.
There is a more accurate way to test this, place some black tape or patch of spray paint where you are measuring or use a probe that makes physical contact.
I used the fibre glass version on my lancia delta and you could just about touch the manifold. However you have to wrap rear to front otherwise the wind will catch the wrap. Also the wrap eventually ripps to shreds on pipes plus the damage it causes to the surface of stainless steel is also bad so i'd go for ceramic over glass fibre wrap. Not tried titanium wrap.
I wrapped a set of headers once, within 2 years they were cracked. I just bought a set of ceramic coated headers because I don't want to go through replacing them again. Every company that makes headers will not warranty any header that has been wrapped for a reason.
Without knowing the emissivity of the surface of the heat wrap and the ceramic surface, You can not get accurate temperature measurement with a spot radiometer. After the heat wrap, wrap again with aluminum tape and you will reduce the radiated heat by at least 50% The shiny alum tape will lower the surface emissivity greatly and retain more heat in the head (if that is the goal.
Good introduction, thank you.... couple of notes: do not touch heat wrap without gloves, otherwise your hands will be very itchy, it has a fiberglass material. I would use a few metal zip ties around it, to make sure it doesn't come off. I can confirm the heat wrap does really works - have it on my Kawasaki Ninja for 5 yrs already, on summer day rides I don't feel heat on my foot rest, makes bike to ride more comfortably.
Yeah titanium wrap is awesome stuff, I've run it on almost all my street bikes to keep that radiant heat inside the pipes, creating a scavenging effect to pull exhaust through, and to keep it off my legs while riding....it even pained me to do so, but I even wrapped the hand bent titanium Technical Sports Racing header I was running on my CBR1100XX, covering up all that gloriously blued, purpled, and golden titanium you could see peeking through the fairings hurt my soul, but my god was that thin walled titanium hot compared to the stock stainless header....but of course, I only wrapped up to the 60.5mm collector and then the rest of the full titanium on back to the Ladybird full titanium Tri-Oval silencer was left bare to color. 👌
Wrap gets dirty and if oil gets on it ,there is no small engine firer. Jet Hot a must to effectively do it. On company the sells snake oil is Zybar, the paint stays on ,but their radiant heat claims are straight out lies. And their sales pitch against ceramic coating is lying or as they call it good business.
Change to a better way,, sandblast the headers , Air blow them off and use the two thousand degrees vht header paint.. it's better than ever ,it doesn't change colors it's easy to touch up later and it's looks good and it's low cost, easy coverage..
I think best would be to place a temp sensor away from the headers or manifolds then close the hood without the wrap and with the wrap vs coatings. Since a laser gun checks the heat right where it’s produced and doesn’t tell us how much it radiates under the hood.
Just came across this video, nice test, perhaps not a true reflection of how they'll perform at running conditions but useful nonetheless, thanks for filming it
I'm no expert, more bumbling amateur, but a couple of things
1) Using a IR thermometer, to get an accurate reading as I understand it, the emisivity needs to be taken into acount, so different colours and materials can effect the measurment. Better probably using a thermcouple or even better RTD
2) As to the usual old tropes about wrap rotting pipes, I'd add wrap can be waterproofed using recommended sealants, 2 I know are DEI and Thermotec who both produce paints to seal their wraps.
Not advocating wrap over ceramic coatings I use both on motorcycles and never experienced problems. Currently re-wrapping some motorcycle headers which were wrapped for 8 years. The wrap eventually became brittle and fell apart, it had been sealed a couple of times. Pipes were like new underneath with no corrosion or degradation, no idea if I've just been lucky.
Personally I'll stick to what I know and observe.
Statements must be true because somebody posted it on the Internet, right?
If you're going to do any damn testing why don't you test it in the actual car instead of testing over the heat gun in a freaking infrared thermometer. When you wrap your headers up like that the heat does not leave and you're overheating your engine and your engine is going to perform worse when I get hot
I would just do both that just me
I once left off the aluminum heat shield below the boot on my supercharged lotus exige. With just street driving, the rubber liner on the boot floor started smoking. Def a fire hazard that was luckily caught in time
In actual use, I can come into the pits off the track and I am able to put my hand on the wrapped headers, I could never do that with Ceramic coated headers..... same goes for Turbo Blankets
Is that on a car with the wind blow going straight over the headers or in a car with this compartment enclosed?
@@islandworks Hi, 99 Subaru STI.
I'm not at all surprised by the results here. The wrap has both more mass (thermal capacitance) and surface area through which it can dissipate collected heat. If this is the only measure by which you were choosing header insulation, it would clearly be the winner. But as you said, there are other factors at play, including cleanliness, weight, corrosion resistance, and even aesthetic considerations.
If you wanted to do this more scientifically, you'd need to maintain a control experiment: headers with no coating or insulation at all. Provided they were the same parameters (alloy type, thickness, etc.) this would at least tell you how well these two items performed in relative terms, as well as comparative terms.
Cheers, from the US.
What about both? Thats what Im considering - titanium ceramic coating with titanium wrap. How much of an idiot am I, internet?
I had my headers coated, but they said not to also wrap them as the reflected heat degrades the coating - that was some years ago, so not sure on todays condition. The real benefit of this is not for under hood temps but to keep the exhaust gas hot for maximum flow and thus best power.
What a meaningless “test”
I’m hoping to get Kooks 2inch coated headers for my gen 2 coyote engine, greetings from Bulgaria