Snafu-Si

I've been looking up ways to reduce underhood temps, I came along that excellent post from SRDFTitan. The pros definitely sound amazing, with just a few bucks and some time.

However, I've been stumbling upon a few other post on various sites that claim that wrapping manifolds is a bad idea.

I've read some supposedly stories from various other car forums of claiming as such. That it'll keep TOO much heat and end up causing damage, that unless you want to go through a new turbo manifold every few months that it is not a good idea.

Also that the wrapping a downpipe with its exposure to more elements will build those contaminants onto the pipe further exacerbating bad exposure. Particularly if your downpipe is exposed to oil. I can say for myself that has been the case for me in the past. The idea does sound bad if the wrap was covered from oil and now you have a OIL SOAKED rag thats wrapped around a HOT downpipe that is now EVEN HOTTER because of the wrap and will cause a fire.

There are lots of other peoples experiences of it from Subie forums, to drift build forums, to corvette forums. I stumbled upon a lot of them on google searching.

One website that seems to hate it is http://www.centuryperformance.com/ex...o-not-use.html


One thing that seems consistant is that wrapping piping DOES in fact reduce temps. But at what cost? Claims are in the sacrifice that it will destroy all your piping.

So true? Not true? D:

Snafu-Si

One other constant I will say I also ran into is that everyone seems to say that using HEAT SHIELD reflective gold like wrapping to keep HEAT AWAY/OUT seems to be generally positive with no ill results.

OneBadTurboCRV

All you are going to get here is very opinionated views from different people. Some will know what they are talking about others will have absolutely no clue, you won't be able to tell the difference anyways.

One of the biggest problems with exhaust in general is it attracts moisture due to the nature of heating and cooling things above and to ambient temperature rapidly. When you get into more quality exhaust that uses stainless it is even more sensitive to continuously heat cycling welds and metal.

In my opinion heat wrap works and works well in both lowering temperature in engine bays and in maintaining temperature in exhaust systems and for a much smoother drawn out thermal gradient during cool down. This helps extend the life of all metals. The downside is that the wrap holds moisture and fluids MUCH better than metal (obviously). So if the vehicle is not ran often to burn off this moisture, then the obvious heat, air, and water mixture is a recipe for rust. Keeping the heat in while operating the engine (especially a turbo engine) is ideal since it helps with exhaust gas efficiency. As long as EGTs are in check to begin with, there is no issue with maintaining a temperature rather than having a continuous cycling of heating and cooling.

I have been heat wrapping all of my modified cars for over a decade now. I have not in any instance ever had a header, downpipe, or exhaust system rot out or crack from the wrap. If anything, it fails where there is NOT any wrap. I guess it could also come down to climate as well. With all that being said, spend the extra money and ONLY get DEI's Titanium wrap if you decide to wrap your equipment.

F22Master

+1 QFT

m4xwellmurd3r

I can see a car on the east coast thats just a weekend warrior or something get ruined by wrapped headers due to the moisture and not enough run time to make sure the moisture is cooked out.

But out here in az on a daily driver, no chance of that happening. Air is too dry for that to happen.

Also, I agree about what you said with egts. The exhaust can handle the echaust temps already (otherwise they would start accumulating heat damage inside just from running) so I see no issue with the egts damaging the pipe just because it has to hold heat in more

Snafu-Si

Hmmm so that tosses in another variable that is something I have not added to the equation.

Well my car is on the..... south coast, in Houston ish Texas area. Its humid here, really humid, disgustingly humid. For a good 7-8 months of the year its kind of sticky. October-March is pretty comfortable. People are fat, and they all smell. Sadly they're fat and they smell all year round.

Not sure that last part will effect the turbo components.

Been reading different forums on the same topic, from Corvette, Subie, GTRcanada, Grassroots, evolutionnm, wrx, bimmer, etc. It as OneBadTurboCRV has said, they're are very opinionated views, people are either very pro, and very con on the ideas.

All for mentioned, the same ideas of why the pros are good in every forums are consistently about lower temps, faster spool, better efficiency etc.

All the Cons throughout the forums also have the consistency of premature metal fatigue, corrosion, warping, risk of oil soak and fire, coked turbos, etc.

It seems no matter what forum I go to, people are going to either swear by it or swear against it. Everyone seems to either had good experience with it, or bad experience with it. I usually ignore the ones that say they "knew a person who's blah blah". Rather the ones with actual experience with it.

Quality of the existing components also were discussed. One person claims that wrapping his manifold caused it to crack, then 6 months later, it cracked again, but he is using a cast iron manifold. Other detracted that he would to have this issue if he was using a higher quality Stainless Steel manifold.

Considering as mentioned possible settings of materials, and driving environment as well as driving styles, and my turbo components, I suppose information as for MY setting might paint a better picture for recommendations.

Car is a semi daily driver. I don't drive it in bad weather if I can avoid it. 63k miles in 15 yrs. I drove it more often when I was younger in college, but I picked up a beater CR-V later on and drove that daily and in bad weather and took better care of my EM1. The most moisture it sees is probably me washing it all the time. But there's also the unavoidable humidity in this fat, obese, stank hole Texas town.

Turbo is a old MaxRev Kit, back when Geoff was still there I believe before Full-Race came along. Its a Stainless Manifold, log style? Garrett T3/T4. The Downpipe is Stainless as well. The only thing that isn't is some of the intercooler piping is mild steel that's been temp coated, though I reused my CAI aem intake from post intercooler to TB. That part is aluminum.

Don't know if that paints a more consistent picture but from some forums the SS materials are more durable for such wrapping implications.

Snafu-Si

Something else that was discussed was conditions of the setup. If the vehicle is RACE CAR, or a drag car, track car, hot lapper, how much boost etc..... People stated that cars pushing BIG BOOST and high setups were more prone for the supposed "CONS" or wrapping. But daily drivers, just daily spirited drivers would be LESS susceptible.


My car is only pushing 5 PSI of boost. I guess I'm just a daily driver, I'm spirited, but I'm not redline to redline, redlight to redlight. I'm honestly more a type that looks for curvy roads, hills, keeping it smooth and fast, hitting that proper heel and toe and carrying as much speed. This is difficult now because HOUSTON IS FLAT, STRAIGHT, AND BORING!

I used to AutoX, SCCA events, STS, STX, SM, SMT, CMT classes, but don't anymore and haven't for a while now.

Hmm, I kind of forgot I wrapped the AC lines because they were touching the wastegate and burning it.

Well the other constant I also read that seemed to be universally positive was the HEAT SHIELDING wrap was universally liked with no issues. Not that I could think they would have any. So I'll certainly pick some up to wrap ......

Say post intercooler piping to TB? Probably the turbo inlet pipe.

One thing I did hear an alternative to the whole wrapping pro and cons were two suggestions.

1. Coatings, ceramic, jet-hot, etc.
2. Building a heatshield.

As for turbo wrap, jacket, blanket, Evo forum people said they could still see the turbo glowing even after they parked and waited for a few minutes. Somebody exclaimed that its a recipe for coked turbo.

Any suggestions on that?

Snafu-Si

Everytime I pull the dipstick out, it drips oil on the manifold. I can't imagine that being good with wrap on the mani. Have you guys run into problems with that? Or is the drop of oil not really a big deal.

I also read that there's a silicone spray you are supposed to spray onto the wrap after you wrap your mani. Its supposed to waterproof it or just protect it from other liquids?

You can see in my pic my dipstick is right between the mani, how did you guys deal with it. The stick is also resting against the wastegate too, gets awfully hot, even singe the dipstick part a little. I'll have to wrap the dipstick too! :p

I don't know how much this helps underhood temps but my carbon fiber hood has vents right above the manifold and wastegate. Its a old BKNW hood but back in COOOOLD days in michigan, I could see the heat rising from the vent.

I don't know how well the air flow affects it, the only thing I've tried is taking a high psi blowgun i used to clean dust from my workshop at my old job. I stuck it in front of the grille and my hand behind the vent, and I could feel air rushing out of the vent. I wanted to see if air movement while driving would create a flow from the front grille and flow through the vent. I hope its helping with cooling the underhood temps.

Here's a pic of the vent on my hood.











I don't know if the whole high pressure/low pressure would effect such vent. Maybe somebody understands it better. I'm hoping the overall angel of the design of the vent on the hood and natural air flow while driving will create a positive effect.

All I can say is, I see hot air coming out on cold days, steam on those rare times I got caught in rain. Which also makes a concern is, if I have WRAP on the mani, and it rains, it'll rain RIGHT on the Mani and the wrap? So is it a bad idea considering my setup?