Installing High Temp Exhaust Wrap: Key Benefits
Whether it’s a street car, a race car, or a vehicle that sees a bit of both, installing a high temp exhaust wrap provides multiple benefits that increase vehicle performance while improving reliability and longevity. Any time you can control and reduce the amount of heat being radiated from your exhaust system–from the headers all the way to the tailpipe–your car, truck, or motorcycle will be better off, and so will you.
About Exhaust Wraps
What is an Exhaust Wrap Made Of?
An exhaust wrap is made of a heat-resistant material such as fiberglass, ceramic, or titanium and is used to cover the exhaust manifold or headers of an engine. The main function of an exhaust wrap is to reduce the heat radiating from a vehicle’s exhaust system. Insulating the exhaust pipes with a header wrap prevents the heat from dissipating into surrounding areas, improving reliability, increasing engine performance, and creating a safer work environment and more comfortable riding experience.
Is It Good to Wrap Your Headers?
Before explaining the benefits of using exhaust wraps, it’s important to address a big myth. One pervasive misconception regarding exhaust wraps is that they destroy exhaust header pipes. The reason for this is that because the pipes retain so much heat when wrapped, if the exhaust pipe material is poor quality or has a low thermal limit, the pipe will begin to degrade and eventually come apart. That’s why it’s so important always to get the best quality headers and exhaust pipes you can and to know what the thermal limits are.
Benefits of Exhaust Wraps
Improved Reliability After Installing Exhaust Wrap
Heat exposure is one of the biggest wear factors on components in a vehicle. Its negative effects on plastics, rubber materials, fluids, and other components can be felt in the short and long term.
Installing exhaust wraps on exhaust headers and exhaust system pipes greatly reduces the amount of heat radiated from the exhaust system that saturates nearby parts with degrading heat. This means fewer plastic wiring plugs and fittings becoming brittle from constant heat exposure; less heat to wear on rubber hoses and lines that lead to eventual failure; and metal fluid lines (such as brake and fuel lines) exposed to less heat means less heat conducted by the metal and transferred to the fluid inside those lines via thermal transference.
ABOVE: Components near exhaust headers and pipes are exposed to constant high-temperature radiated heat. Long term exposure adds additional wear to parts and component, contributing to eventual failure or necessary in depth maintenance. In this photo, you see how close the exhaust headers run to the factory oil cooler on an LS3 V8. Insulating the headers with exhaust wrap drastically reduces the amount of radiated heat the cooler is exposed to. In turn, this allows the cooler to work more efficiently cooling the oil running through it.
High Temp Exhaust Wrap Increase Performance
Exhaust wrap increases performance in multiple ways. The first is via increased exhaust gas temperatures (EGTs). As the wrap insulates and keeps more heat inside the exhaust headers and pipes, EGTs increase, which leads to increased exhaust gas velocities. This improves the amount of spent exhaust gasses being scavenged from the engine’s combustion chambers, which leads to less power-robbing exhaust gasses left in the cylinder during the combustion cycle. In addition, on turbocharged cars, the increased EGTs help to reduce turbo lag and spool time so you can get to maximum boost faster.
Another way that installing exhaust wraps boosts performance is by lowering underhood temperatures. This leads to less heat saturating the air intake system, in turn helping to reduce intake air temperatures and cooler air entering the engine. For engines with an open-element air intake/cleaner system, this effect is felt even more.
ABOVE: Insulating headers with exhaust wrap keeps more heat in, which raises exhaust gas temperatures. This increases exhaust gas velocities and improves scavenging of spent gasses from the combustion chamber during the exhaust cycle. This is one of the ways exhaust wrap helps improve performance.
Safer Work Environment
If you’re a racer, working around a hot engine and exhaust system is part of life. In the short time between heats at the circle track or between rounds at the dragstrip, things must be done, and there isn’t time to let everything cool off. Installing exhaust wrap on the headers and exhaust pipe reduces the chance of scorching yourself on a hot pipe while trying to do work like pulling and checking spark plugs, changing fluids, and making necessary repairs to get you back on the track ready to win.
ABOVE: Between rounds at the dragstrip or heats at the oval, racers will often be pulling and checking their spark plugs to verify their tunes and make sure the engine doesn't have any issues. Working close to hot, unwrapped exhaust headers doesn't make the job any easier. Insulating exhaust headers with a quality exhaust wrap helps reduce the amoutn of heat the plug wires are exposed to, and reduces the risk of scorching a hand, arm or finger on a hot exhaust pipe while working to remove the spark plugs.
Lower Interior Temperatures
The heat radiated from exhaust headers and pipes don’t just heat up your engine compartment. Radiated heat from the exhaust system heats the vehicle’s firewall and floorboards, which is transmitted through those panels and into the interior. Yes, all vehicles have some heat insulation under their carpet and firewalls. But that insulation has varying degrees of effectiveness.
And with most race cars, there is no insulation to stop heat from getting inside. Insulating exhaust headers and the exhaust pipes by installing exhaust wrap reduces the amount of heat the system radiates towards the firewall and floors, heat that cannot transmit through to the interior, keeping interior temperatures cooler.
In conclusion, investing in high temp exhaust wrap offers a multitude of benefits for both performance and safety. By controlling heat radiation, you can enhance your vehicle's reliability, increase its performance, create a safer work environment, and lower interior temperatures. Whether you own a street car, a race car, or a vehicle that serves a dual purpose, installing exhaust wraps is a wise choice that will benefit you and your vehicle in the long run.
