i know this is a topic that is repeated over an over, but i keep reading conflicting infor from people. some say header wrap absolutely will damage the header within just a short whil wile other say that they had wrapped their header and it was finr for 100,xxx miles.

ive been debateing a while now whether or not to wrap mine because i have an aftermarket header and it gets extremely hot under the hood in the engine bay and the heat radiating from the header is crazy hot.

so has anyone here ever used the header wrap with good luck>? i need this advice please thanks a lot.

 

Its all about how far down you wrap it. And what kind of weather the car is exposed to. If you only wrap it to where your heat shield ends or the header splits, you will be fine for a long time.

On the contrary if you wrap it way down low to the bend under the engine or even further it will undoubtedly get wet in the rain and be exposed so snow and moisture which will eat away at your header and can cause it to rust badly if exposed to salt.

 

oh ok. well my header is ebay afermarket and there is no heat shield or anything like that on it. its just the pipes. i do believe that my short ram intale is sucking up all the hot air from the header and also when the radiator fan turn on and it blows right under the filter causing sluggish ness and hesitation when i accelerate from a stop after sitting a little while. should i juss put the stock intake back on?

 

If a weld on it hasn't cracked yet it will if you wrap it. Ebay headers are made from sub-par thin material. The welds are known to crack under normal use. If you wrap it, all of a sudden there is that much more heat that it is subjected to. If that isn't a recipe for a weld to crack on a cheap header I don't know what is.

More to your original question...years ago when I first got my gsr I wrapped the dc sports ceramic coated header that it came with all the way to the collector and never had any issues with it aside from surface rust. I have since moved on to a mugen header that I also wrapped, but I only wrapped it down to right before it goes under the oil pan. No rust issues what so ever. I will probably be pulling the mugen to throw on a toda unit that will also be wrapped in a similar fashion.

for actually calling it a header and not saying "headers"

 

Not on a Honda, but I had a fiberglass based wrap on a painted mild steel header for 15 years, wrapped all the way to the cat. No damage, even though the wrap soaked up enough oil from a leak in the pan gasket to set it on fire on several occasions...

 

Lmao

 

Had a wrapped ebay header for 50k+ until I ripped the bottom of it off riding slammed. If it hadn't been bottomed out it would've lasted another 50k. Year-round daily driver in N. IL.

 

Step 1. Sell ebay header
Step 2. Spend good money on a real header such as Hytech or RMF (the b18s dont gain much power from bolt ons, in fact I bet you didn't gain 1hp going with an ebay choice, buy yourself one that will last, no weld cracks and such and gain yourself up to 5-7hp)
Step 3. If you really want to lower header temps, buy a quality header, send it out to get swain coated, then heat wrap in and apply the gold reflective tape in various parts of the engine bay. (the reflective tape is very popular in the EVO world and the EVO's engine bay gets far hotter than any b18.

 

Looking back, lmao indeed. At the time, I was one freaked out 18 year old when flames started coming out of the hood vents...