Hot Laps Presented by Heatshield Products: The Starting Line
We are jumping into the podcast space. Bear with us as we work out the kinks in the first few episodes. We promise the audio will get better! In our first podcast we dive into the history of the company. How we started, how we got here, and where we are headed. Then we work our way into tech questions and answers. We tackle the big difference between our exhaust heat shield Armor series and traditional exhaust wraps.
Thank you for listening! Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Leave some positive feedback. A 5-star rating is always appreciated. Please tell your
friends! #podcast
Show notes below:
Chris:
All right, so here we are.
Steve:
Yeah, here we are.
Chris:
This is the number one... this is a test pilot for Hot Laps HeatShield Products podcast, jumping in this space just to get some information out to our customers that... we get hundreds of emails a week about-
Shane:
Thousands of emails a week.
Chris:
Yeah, that we get questions about why and how we do HeatShield products. So I thought it would be interesting to start off with the early days because we are a family company. I think that's important. And, I think that's probably the number two, too, made in the USA.
But, Steve, can you tell us a little bit about the early days with your grandfather, and how did the company start, and why?
Steve:
Company started because my grandpa was a very hard worker. He was working for a genuine parts company and they forced him into an early retirement. And grandpa wasn't having any of that. So he ventured out and went to go work for this company in LA area. I don't remember the exact area, or town, or city, or whatever it was in, but it was called Turbo City. And they were dabbling a little bit in high-temperature insulation. And grandpa was a salesman for them. And, Turbo City basically made the decision to terminate that portion of the business, but my grandpa was out in the field. And he saw a need for it. Grandpa had done many things, farmer, diesel mechanic, army, World War II, get out. And then he went to a... I'm sorry... and then, he became a diesel mechanic. And then, he went to go work for a genuine parts company.
Chris:
So, basically, overall, a badass?
Steve:
Yeah, just a hard work... just that generation, the greatest generation, just a hardworking group of people, people that weren't afraid to get their hands dirty, people that weren't afraid to work and always wanted to work. And I think that's what kept him so young as long as he did because he worked all the time. He never really took his foot off the gas, so-
Chris:
Right, this is true.
Steve:
Anyway, he saw a need for it. Turbo city didn't want to mess with it. They just wanted to do just their turbos. And, grandpa said, "Okay, fine. If you're not going to do with it... " he went to my dad who happened to have a NAPA job or franchise store at the time and that's how the company started. Turbo City, I don't believe is in business anymore, but each HeatShield Products is. And that was back in 1985.
Chris:
1985.
Steve:
Yeah, so the golden years of the '80s.
So, the company started out slowly. But then, you joined after college, right?
Steve:
I joined during college.
Chris:
During college.
Steve:
Basically, I had always been working. I remember the first labels that we ever had were... I could paint when I was a child. I actually was a halfway decent artist, but those days have long since gone by because I don't mess with it anymore. But, I remember being on the Apple computer, the old Mac, the old square box Mac, and making a dot matrix, a flame label. So I basically... working at my dad's NAPA store since I was 10 or 11. And then, I would always do HeatShield stuff like help cut, roll, package stuff or make the labels on the computer. And we had... the big day was when we got the photocopy machine because the printers back then were so slow. So we could just photocopy the labels and all that. So, yeah, it's been an interesting journey.
So truly family-owned and operated?
Steve:
Truly family-owned and operated. And the best... I'll say this, the best source of R&D, our best feedback is whenever we got to work with a race team as... I'll never forget it. It was one of the most embarrassing days for me as a HeatShield, at that time, employee, not an owner, was when I went up with Mickey. And he's now a Throtl. But, at that time, he was working with Falken. And we went up to Irwindale Speedway. And, my very first turbo shield just disintegrated, just gone-
Chris:
Up in flames or-
Steve:
No, not up in flames. It just disintegrated and most... the stuff's noncombustible, but it just smoked and just fell apart.
Chris:
Wow.
Steve:
So, you learn by failure, so there's been plenty of failures along the way. But, the next time they were up doing testing at Irwindale, I told them, I said, "Look, I'll have one that'll work." And it did.
Chris:
Nice.
Steve:
But, it was a three-rotor Mazda, rotary motor. And it was bitching. It was a cool car, sounded mean and nasty. And, plus, it was just cool being at a racetrack, smelling the race gas. And, there were no crowds, that was my favorite part about it.
Chris:
That's cool. So you joined the team, things take off.
Steve:
Yeah, became an owner. My grandpa basically finally decided to retire after a good long ride. And then, I became the 49%. My dad's still 51.
Chris:
All right, so tell me a little bit... so family-owned and operated. But, on our website, we talk about our honesty policy. Dabble in that a little bit.
Steve:
Right, okay.
Steve:
So we always try to give a real temperature rating. There's a lot of fudging of numbers, that's why I always say read the fine print when you're buying anybody stuff. I do it. When I'm buying just anything at home, I try to do as much research as I can.
Steve:
A dollar is really, really hard to come by. So don't waste it. We always try to help people save money. Heck, if you can get away with using aluminum foil and you send in a tech question, I'll tell you to use aluminum foil if you want to save money. That's just how we do. I know it doesn't help us sell more, but I'd rather sleep well at night. So one of the things that helps me sleep well at night is we clearly label an operating temperature and an intermittent temperature.
Steve:
Operating temperature is the temperature of what the product can sustain without changing chemically. So that means it doesn't start to crystallize, it doesn't start to deteriorate. Basically, that's when it still remains flexible. As soon as you lose the flexibility, that's when you lose the strength, that's when you get problems with things becoming brittle and falling apart because there's a lot of... we get this like, "Hey, I get this... " one of the questions we get a lot is, "Man, these other guys told me the wrap was good for 1,800 degrees or 2,000 degrees. And it's getting brittle and falling apart." And the problem is they're really giving them the peak temperature.
Steve:
The peak temperature or intermittent temperature is what it's called in the textile business is basically what a textile or a fabric... or textile, fabric, it's same thing... or coating, or metal, or whatever it is that we're working with, what it can take for less than 30 seconds.
Chris:
Yeah, I think that's important.
Steve:
That's the intermittent temperature. Yeah, that's the important thing because a lot of people just throw the big number up there. They put that in the big print and that's not the real-world application. Nobody makes a 30-second drive unless it's a Top Fuel dragster or drag, drag racer stop... those guys are... Man, it's awesome if you're in the threes. But, most common or sevens, eights, nines, at that area for the really high street guys... so, yeah, for them, it would be a little less important, but-
Chris:
So fudging, basically, is someone's putting the peak operating temperature as their-
Steve:
Yeah, fudging. It's true. It could take that temp, but it's for less than 30 seconds. So-
Chris:
And so, our policy is to make sure that we-
Steve:
Give the continuous. Yeah, that's one of the things we have to do. It doesn't help us... if somebody looks at ours and somebody else's, and some of these are cheap eBay wraps and... God, please stay away from those. There are so many... the Chinese wraps, there's so many bad fibers, short fibers that you can breathe in. It's just stuff people need to stay away from. There's a lot of health hazards with those. so I'm happy these tariffs are coming into effect because I'm hoping it starts to slow the sales of those down because there's a health hazard there. But, yeah, that's it. That's all I'm talking about.
Chris:
Okay, so the other thing that we definitely tout at HeatShield is that we're made in the USA. What's the primarily... why do you feel that that should be so important?
Steve:
Well, I had two grandpas that served in the World War II, one in the Pacific and Grandpa Heye, the founder here, in the army. My Grandpa [Benoit 00:09:17] was in the Pacific on the Indiana. And it's always been ingrained in my family. There used to be those stickers in the 1980s, I remember those bumper stickers, even as a little kid, that said, "Hungry, tired, out of work? Eat your import." So it's just one of those things where I think it's important for... it's not to say that there aren't alternate solutions that aren't good in other countries because I'm sure there absolutely are. But, it's important for us to support our country because that's what's given us the opportunity to be here, right? We wouldn't exist if it weren't for America. So why not do our best to support our country?
Chris:
All right, very good. And then, quickly, talk to me, what does the future hold at this plant? What are we looking at, new products, new ideas-
Steve:
Yeah, we're always-
Chris:
... without giving too much away.
Steve:
Yeah, we're always looking for new ways to utilize things. Again, we started primarily as an automotive company, but we've really branched out. We're starting to make product for the home, backyard, kitchen, that type of thing, commercial kitchens. We're in the infancy stages on that, but we've been doing... the bulk of the growth the last three or four years has been all industrial, heavy-duty.
Steve:
Some of the emission laws changes in the heavy-duty industry have really created a demand and a need for high-temperature insulation that actually works, that can sustain harsh environments. So that's where we've taken the ball and run with it. Again, the best place for R&D, for me, is the race guys that... my two favorite ones to test products with, our drift and off-road racing. Drifting because those guys are spinning those motors like they're going 200 miles an hour. But, in a lot of cases, they're doing 35 just because there's no traction. But, that's the goal of it, to slide and the style, that kind of thing. And then, off-road, there's nothing more extreme than running your high rev and race engine in 120-degree ambient temperatures and then just having it just beat the crap out of you. So, if you can survive both of those two markets, you pretty much survive anywhere else.
Chris:
Good.
So, we can do tech questions, right? Is that what you wanted, yeah?
Chris:
Yeah, we can do that.
Steve:
We'll pick off one or two. Let's do one... okay, I'm going to do... I'll do one generic question that I get a lot and one of them is why don't we recommend using an adhesive, like a peel and stick adhesive, on raw or unfinished carbon fiber or fiberglass. And, the reason being, we don't do that because if you think of... and, when I mean raw, I don't mean it's not painted and pretty. If it's smooth, the surface is smooth and you've got a nice flat line, that's fine. But, if it's one of those... I don't want to say cheap jobs because sometimes that's just the only way they can be made, where you can see the fibers and there's surface irregularities, right?
Steve:
So, if you think about an adhesive, it's a film... or just think of it as a flat board. So, take a flat board or a flat sheet of paper even, put it on an egg crate. And then, you only have these little contact points intermittently. So we don't recommend that because is what... the fabrics and the adhesives are paired together so they can support the weight of the material. So, by not giving it enough contact points is what it has a tendency to do is it can delaminate. It can start to come off, so that's one of the things is. We do get a lot of those questions. But, if it's not pretty, but it's still smooth, and I'm talking little dimples, that that happens even in metal, so that's not a game changer. But those ones where you see those big peaks and valleys with the fibers exposed, mostly in fiberglass, it's pretty rare that carbon gets that, but there are some cheap-
Shane:
Where they may be not having enough epoxy.
Steve:
Yeah, or something. Yeah, maybe the technique that they're using just doesn't accommodate that, but that's why we get that one. And we get that one a lot.
Chris:
So, if a customer asked and you couldn't stick it on, is there another way to get it to be-
Steve:
This is what I would do is, if we offer it in a non-adhesive version, I would use that version of the product, like a spray-on adhesive, because what that will do is that will help to build and fill those little gaps and valleys in there. Let it get tacky, spray the cloth or the textile, what-ever that you're using and then put that on. And that goes not just with our stuff, but that's anybody stuff. I don't know if anybody else... it's one of the things we want to do with the podcast is try to demystify or clear up a lot of the BS, right? That's the whole goal. And also, please submit your questions. I don't know where... this will be up on YouTube, any of those, podcast services up. Always please submit your questions to us. You can use the website, www.heatshieldproducts.com, and use the contact form there and submit questions because we like to provide answers. And we'll always be looking for good content.
Chris:
So, another one that comes up very frequent, we make a product called HeatShield Armor.
The one I get calls on constantly, emails constantly is what is the difference between HeatShield armor and a traditional exhaust wrap?
Steve:
There's a huge difference. The only similarity between the two of them is that they're both an insulator. An insulator is designed to retain heat or trap heat at the source. The difference between exhaust and HeatShield Armor, I put it this way, exhaust wrap or traditional wraps, header wraps, heat wraps, whatever you want to call them, it's older technology. There's nothing wrong with it, there's still products that are used that were invented in the early '80s that still serve a good purpose today. Some people are... it's kind of ironic now because you have to educate people so much about why an exhaust wrap is good. Now, we're spending some of our time educating them why the armor series is better. And we still make exhaust wrap. We still sell it, still sell a lot of it. And, again, there's nothing wrong with it. A lot of it's budget, right? What can your budget do?
Steve:
If you can't afford one of the armor pieces or to do your full thing in armor, then use an exhaust wrap. Or the cool thing about the armor is you could do a portion of it now. And then, when you can afford to, you can get the rest of it later, you can add it on later, that type of thing.
Steve:
So armor, first of all, it has a bio-soluble silica. Okay, so the base material is way different.
Steve:
Our exhaust wraps are volcanic rock, basalt, first ones to do that, by the way, everyone else did copy us, fiberglass with coatings. Vermiculite can be heat treated or the HPTC coating, which is cool. It makes it still flexible and strong at 1,300 degrees because normally fiberglass is only good for a thousand degrees where it's flexible and strong... and then an amorphous silica in the Inferno Wrap, same thing, only... I think we're the only ones offering a true 2,000-degree wrap, but it's a bio-soluble silica. So, naturally, the fiber itself is going to take more heat than fiberglass.
Steve:
My two favorite parts about it, it doesn't itch... if you have real sensitive skin, yeah, it's going to make you itch. And we always recommend respirator, gloves, long sleeves are recommended, safety goggles. So, even if we don't do that in our videos, that's what we recommend. It doesn't smoke. That's another thing, too, smoke. So, what exhaust you're at, smokes, what's the smoke, is it going to catch on fire? No, that's starch. That's something we can go into later. It's just outgassing. The outer aluminum layer is totally bitching because it's 1100 aluminum. So, it's very highly corrosion-resistant, it can reject a lot of water.
Steve:
If you install the armor properly where you fold the edges over and you're doing the overlap and flap like the instruction sheet tells you, you can pretty much run that thing through a puddle. And you don't have to worry about water condensation soaking through the wrap and then maybe getting onto the pipe.
Steve:
But, you know what, even if you have an exhaust wrap and you totally soak your pipes, just heat heat cycle it, keep the car running until it dries. And then, you're not going to have to worry about any rust or anything, condensation buildup in there.
Chris:
Yeah. I think that's another question everybody has is, "Well, if I wrap this, my pipes are going to rust because of the water."
Steve:
Yeah, that's one we'll definitely do at another podcast. Yeah. armor, so the outer aluminum layer... the other cool thing is you can paint it.
Steve:
We have either... we have a pipe kit where it comes with rivets built into it or we sell an accessory like the power anchor kit. So the cool thing about that is you can take it on and off as needed. If you're working around it and you cut your car up, you want to take something off or maybe you want to change an exhaust pipe, or reroute it, or something, well, you can pop that off and put it back on basically. And it's real easy to do.
Steve:
The savings with an armor is longevity. You'll have to replace it way less than an exhaust warp if you ever have to replace it. In fact, I think the last time I saw the guy that had the original piece that we did testing on, man, that might've been three years ago, but he had had it on his truck for I want to say five years. We're always testing stuff like a year or two ahead of time, just so we can get good... we want to get good data, good longevity. If we make something that works awesome but it lasts 30 days, that sucks.
Steve:
I don't want anybody to waste their money on something, I don't want to waste my money on stuff. So, I don't want any of our listeners, or customers, or whatever wasting theirs. The big difference though between an exhaust wrap and the armor is you can provide a gap. And that's what we always recommend on armors to... one or two-inch-wide gap, depending on the diameter of your pipe. And that allows the pipe to breathe. So, not in every case, but, a lot of times, metal can get heat-fatigued. It really depends on the metal. If you're buying cheap stuff on eBay, import stuff, say a Hail Mary when you wrap it and hope for the best or the armor even, for that matter. Because, a lot of that stuff, it really is less of an issue of an exhaust wrap causing metal fatigue, or heat fatigue, or like an insulator and more of an issue of the quality of the metal. Does it got a nice thick wall? Does it have... is it quality steel?
Steve:
There used to be a header manufacturer that made high-end bitching headers. And they used to sell some really good exhaust wrap with their headers. For certain SKUs, it was really necessary. So they included exhaust wrap actually on the header.
Chris:
Wow.
Steve:
So, clearly, they felt confident in their product enough to encourage people to wrap. Some exhaust manufacturers even will sell stuff with a wrap or add a wrap in it. You should feel pretty good about them because they're selling a high quality product, right? But, sometimes, again, your budget, it's all in your budget. What can you afford? We all want the nicest stuff. I know that with some of the vehicles I've been working on, but your budget doesn't necessarily allow it. So you just go with what you've got, but I think we can... you want to wrap it up?
Chris:
Yeah, I think that's good.
Steve:
We've got enough to do plenty of episodes, we're going to try to do one a week. That's the goal, right?
Chris:
Absolutely. And, really, this is for the viewers, at the end of the day-
Steve:
And listeners.
Chris:
... and listeners, thank you, to make sure that you guys submit questions. Because, as Steve said, money is hard to come by. And we don't want you wasting your money. If you want to come and look at our product on the website and then you have questions about purchase, if you call here, we will answer the phone. If you call the tech line, you will talk to somebody probably at this table.
Shane:
Or if you use the email form.
Steve:
Yeah, we'll definitely... because, a lot of times, it's after hours when you get a chance, too. Were 7:00 or 8:00 to 4:00. Most of our business has moved eastward. So, for our West Coast business, our operating hours are unusual, but... I'm sorry. Yeah, most of our business has moved East. But, yeah, if you can't get through on the phone, and a lot of times the phones are busy, so just shoot an email. And we're good at both. It may not happen as quickly as we like or you like, but we will get to it.
Chris:
Cool.
Steve:
For sure, so that's it. Well, thank you all for listening. Please subscribe. If you like this, find it useful, give us a thumbs up, or a star, or whatever, whatever the platform is that it's on and sign up for alerts. So, when we launch a new one, hopefully we can help you stay cooler, make some cheap horsepower, and maybe even save you money on electrical bills if we talk about one of the home DIY-
Chris:
Oh, yeah, we'll get there for sure.
Steve:
... products that we make.
Chris:
Instagram @heatshieldproducts, YouTube is HeatShield Products.
Steve:
HeatShield Products, yeah.
Chris:
We're on Twitter as well and Facebook.
Steve:
Yeah, that's right. Thanks. Thank you, everybody.
