Wanting your input on wrapping the header.
Pros and cons - likes and dislikes.

Pics also good.

 

voids header waranty, prone to cracking

greatly reduces engine compartment temps.

 

yea thats basicly it in a nut shell.. its not realy nessisary for a street car. if your car is running hot i highly doubt its because of the heat from your header.

IT IS good tho to thermo wrap your electrical wires tho. it will help keep them from cracking and pealing from the heat over time.

 

also, in some cases, wrapping your header can basicly retain so much heat as to compromise the structural integrity of the material of the header itself. Of course this is MOSTLY only in Turbo applications... but we all know that rotaries run HOT exaust.

 

The big problem you have is that as it cools down, moisture in the air wicks on the fabric and metal. It stays there because of the wrapping. Think cold glass and go outside on a hot, humid day. Same thing, basically. After a couple of hundred cycles of heating and cooling, the metal of the header will have gone through the equivalent of a salt spray torture test. It takes YEARS off of the header life. Go JetHot 2000......once coated, you can get your hand within 1.5" of the header while the car is running and not get burned....

 

With NA rotaries you will crack the header if you wrap it. If you are trying to keep the temps down, try ceramic coasting inside the header, that will help the underhood temps to go down.

 

I'd have to agree that wrapping the header would pose a threat to header life. The reason for wrapping headers is to lower underhood temps and potentially avoid frying something important that is near the header(s). On RX-7s, since there is only one exhaust side, Mazda was able to locate most of the temperature critical stuff away from the header area, so I don't think there's much need on our cars.

Also, header wrap will marginally deteriorate your exhaust flow. This difference is so small, I doubt you would notice the difference, but I wanted to dispell the notion that header wrap improves performance outright. It does help in some cases where the car is heat soaking prior to producing power (like drag racing), because it lowers underhood temps, meaning a cooler intake charge.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...hreadid=269708 .........im gonna have him do mine as soo i get some extra cash.

 

thats pretty cool... does he mean 150 to 200 degrees drop?

I would probably do that if my header wasnt so darn shiny

 

Thanks for all the help. My header is so shiny and new I don't want to paint it black.
I was just thinking about wrapping it because it gets so red when siting at idle.
I do have one other problem with the install of my header.......
I can not find any info on the extra tube coming from the rear. Guess it needs to be blocked off?
I will try to post a pic again but for some reason it is not allowing me.

 

Header wrap was the death of my first set of headers on my 80LS. These actually burned a hole through the side of the #1 Rotor exhaust tube and turned the car into a fiend on the road - loud, loud, loud.

I won't use header wrap again - learned my lesson. Also, you state that you're considering it's use because of the red color that your headers get when idling - this is likely due to an overly rich idle mixture adjustment, not anything wrong with the headers.

Could be that by simply adjusting your carb idle mixture to a more lean setting, you'll fix two problems. The excess fuel from a rich idle mixture isn't being burned in the combustion chambers, and when ejected out the exhaust, is burning in your exhaust system. This leads to excess fuel consumption, high underhood heat, and poor header lifespan. HTH,

 

Hmm- I bought my RB dual system (used) and the header is wrapped...That's coming off tonight!
Thanks for the info in this thread!!

 

Since I am not running a carb. 1.3 GSL-SE FI what other problem could it be?
I did not run it long since the car is not complete.

 

Im just worried about the header heating up the intake manifold, and thus massivly heating up my intake charge. How much to get it cermaic coated?

 

you could fabricate a heat shield to bolt to the top 2 header bolts and divide the intake manifold and exhaust.

that's what i did

 

Isn't there something called Jet Hot 2000 that's supposed to be good for rotary headers?

 

well i went and looked up Jet hot. and this is what i wound http://www.powdercoater.com/jethot.html looks kinda spendy $$$$$