OK, I'm sitting here thinking about things to do with my exhaust for performance, sound control and heat protection and exhaust wrap pops into my head. So what better way to deal with some of my questions about this product than to seek counseling from my buds on the forums?

1. Heat Shielding... The wrap provides some heat shielding for when the pipes get close to the body, brake lines etc. How efficient is this? As in, how close can I run a wrapped pipe to a brake like or the floor pan?

2. Performance... The marketing of the wrap mentions power gains (focused mostly on wrapping headers) by using the wrap to control temps. How true is this? There has been discussion before about the efficiency of exhaust gases flowing through the pipes at cooler vs hotter temps. If I were to wrap my exhaust from the cats to the muffler, would this help performance any?

3. Sound dampening... When the wrap is installed, it will change the resonance of the pipes. How much dampening can I expect? Basically, if I wrap from the cats to the muffler, would this help cut down on in-cab exhaust sound?

As usual, thank you for your help!

Hi havock, some of your questions I can answer from past experience with wraps.

The gains touted are from cooler engine bay temps that are often associated with wrapped headers. The wraps do a fairly descent job of keeping the pipes cool further away from the headers just in case a line gets too close to it but in reality you don't want anything too close to the pipes anyway because of constant movement from the drivetrain.

They also do a good job of getting rid of the dreaded header tick that I can't stand. This usually only happens on cheap thin walled header tubing but it's still an annoyance, well at least to me... :D

Here's the drawback though and that's trapped moisture causing corrosion on the pipes. For that reason alone I don't use them anymore.

The factory headers are all but non-accessible due to the heat shields so the only part you'll be able to wrap is between the cats and further aft, which will not really net you anything performance wise. You should give it a try and see what happens then let us know how it works out for you.

I used an exhaust wrap about 15 years ago in an attempt to seal an exhaust leak where my headers and collectors came together. It didn't work for very long, but that's the extent of my wrap knowledge.

OK, scratch that idea! :thumbsdown:

Thanks guys!

Here's the drawback though and that's trapped moisture causing corrosion on the pipes.

In addition to that, when that stuff gets wet, it stinks as it dries out. If you want a thermal barrier, I would recomment the JetHot coating or something along those lines. I have heard good things about that type of ceramic coating.