stainless steel gruppe-s ....should i wrap it or leave it alone??????

 

i'd wrap it.

 

thanks but no thanks ive read alot about wrapping the manifold and have heard
1. premature stress causing metal to break down faster
2. oxidation due to moisture holding in wrap
3. fire hazzard due to oils and fluids soaking into wrap..
from what i have gathered i think ill be going with crucial racings / or jet hots coating .....have heard from 1 bad thing about jethott but nothing from crucial
no offense intended just my opinion now that i have researched a bit and thanks for your reply

 

some of us have been running with wrapped oem manifolds for years.

an external layer of heavy aluminum foil acts as a water/vapor/flammable liquid barrier. very cheap, something you can do yourself, and by all accounts MORE effective than coating.

 

Ok I didnt hear about the aluminum trick, but i have a gruppe-s stainless steel manifold. I think it would have different results as far as holding up to added stress from wrapping. They say coating it inside and out keeps engine bay temps down and resists heat from hurting metal values of header therefore not endangering longevity again thanx for reply

 

Putting aluminum next to steel is a very unwise idea. Mountain bike designers have known this for decades, putting special sleeves where aluminum and steel parts join. Aluminum and steel with any amount of water (which includes any amount of humidity) sets up the conditions for galvanic corrosion.

http://www.ocean.udel.edu/seagrant/p...corrosion.html

'80s Porsche 911s had a serious problem with exhaust and frame corrosion due to the contact between steel parts and the aluminum engine block; my father and I spent a lot of time trying to rescue his 911 Turbo from this and other corrosion problems.

 

Those are the reasons I would skip on the wrap.

 

here are my headers:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=763991

so you see, i've got some 1st hand experience here.

the oem headers you see in that thread are my second set. the first set, which came with the car, were wrapped too, with plain wrap and the spray on sealant. that was ok, but the foil barrier is about 10000x better. the important thing to note here is that i've actually tried both, and i'm not just talking out of my hat.

here are some threads which talk about the viability and advantages of using a foil overwrap:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=844588
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=869390
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1054680
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1165393

nothing comes close to the foil in terms of bang for the buck and ease of acquisition/installation.

as larry points out here: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...8&postcount=50

"Why does everyone look for $50 solutions for a $2 problem."

if i wasn't going to wrap, then sure, i'd put a coating on it. however, i have seen so many coatings flake off it isn't even funny, so i don't consider it for any of my own exhaust parts. a wrap + vapor barrier traps more heat than coatings do.

as for the condition of the foil it looks perfectly fine going on two years post install. there is no galvanic action occurring because there is no electrical circuit--the foil doesn't touch the pipe, only the fiberglass wrap.

as for cracking, show me one person with a cracked oem header caused by wrapping. it doesn't happen. even my relatively cheap thinwall stainless bosal split dump down pipe which has been wrapped since original install 4 years and 60k miles ago hasn't cracked.

in the end you make your own decisions. good luck.

 

So you are putting aluminum foil over the traditional heat wrap? Ah, that makes a lot more sense than metal-to-metal. I used to work in a bike shop back in the '80s when aluminum-frame bikes were first becoming popular, and I can't tell you how many bikes came in with the steel seatpost "welded" inside the aluminum frame because it wasn't installed with enough silicon (non-conducting) lubricant. Even the slightest voltage (such as the minescule current made by the static charge of rubber tires on asphalt) was enough to set up galvanic corrosion.

 

yup, THINK baked potatoe...

 

You guys have seen this, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txFqxGpdJTo

<evil grin>

 

that sucks ballz

 

If you go to the guy's web site, it says it was his exhaust wrap that caught on fire. Just in case that wasn't obvious from the video.

 

rofl wow. its almost like they were waiting for it to burn, they had the camera, knew where to look, sat back and watched it burn rofl.