Exhaust wrapping ?

[Agothaclypse]

Hi all,
I saw some custom harleys the other day which had their exhaust headers wrapped with some kind of heat resistant bandage. After a look on the tinternet I found a number of relatively inexpensive products, these apparently reduce the external heat of the headers & also claim an increased power output. Whilst I am not bothered about any supposed power increse, I did like the look of it & thought that it may protect the headers, & more importantly, stop me burning my damm arms when I chain up the bike.

Does any of you have any experience of this & would it cause any problems with the catalytic convertor or carb elec ignition set up ?

Kind regards
Paul
2001 R1150GS ABS

 

[turbine_2]

About the only way I can see them reducing the external heat of the headers is if they're acting as an insulator, which means you're going to get hotter gasses coming to the cat and out the tail pipe. While I don't think it's going to be a problem for the cat (may even help as it will get to temperature quicker) we already know what the gas temp coming out a standard exhaust does.

 

[csd4t]

We use it on the sidecar to stop heat from the exhaust preventing cold air going thru the radiator (runs fairly close) can't see it doing any good on a GS tho. You can by various types from Demon tweeks.

www.demon-tweeks.co.uk

 

[bowser]

Exhausts and header wrap

I know this is an old topic but what the hell.

First if you want info on exhaust systems etc try this link http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/index.htm
they produce systems for harleys crusiers and bmw, I have a system on my harley and its by far and away the best exhaust I have ever used.
They are a little self opionated, but the information is second to none, I believe that they can be a bit slow on the production front but the wait is worth it.

Re the header wrap, its mostly done on Harleys where the exhausts dont have heat shields and is put on to stop melting waterproofs, thats my reason, there is supposed to be a small performance increase but I dont believe its much, the big down side is that the pipes run hotter and you can suffer from problems due to the pipes faracturing, due to heat cold cycle hardening and making the pipes more brittle. Again I dont know if that is a real problem or just a percived one.

All I can say is, I dont burn my leg anymore, performance hasent suffered, I havent broken my pipes yet, and I think it looks good.

15m rollof header wrap 15 quid, and I use stainless steel cable ties to hold it together.

 

[Steptoe]

Why don't you use bin/plastic bags around your exhaust like everyone else.

 

[jimbo]

these wraps insulate the exhaust and claim two benefits. the main one I've come across is too lower under bonnet temperatures in cars. the other is that by increasing the temperature of the exhaust pipe (because less heat is lost) the 'speed-up' exhaust gases and so give a power gain. Personally I don't find this convincing.
However making the exhaust manifold hotter risks more heat being conducted into the cylinder head and possibly the exhaust valve running hotter - not so clever...