Wraping the Entire exhaust system.....

I've been doin a little research on ways to squeeze out some hidden / cheap horsepower . one thing that keeps coming up is Wrapping the entire exhaust system (and yes the headers too).. I'd go ahead and do this but im looking for a yes or no from our mature / more experienced Techies!.. Boe? Hobie? Rock? the factual pro's and cons of doing this are ....




Pro's:

* Wrapping the exhaust keeps all the heat inside the pipes.
* That trapped heat enables the exhaust gasses to pass thru your exhaust faster resulting in more horsepower
* For you guys that live in hot climate Florida, Texas, AZ, SoCAL ect. it will make the temperature inside your car ALOT cooler, enabling you to use less air conditioning which saves your gas mileage!
* Running a lean mixture with wraps will give u an increase


Con's

* Your gaskets take a huge beating. They will get toasted for sure. You will most likely be replacing them often.
* and of course the pipes will be ungodly hot.
* It looks damn ugly... but who care's its under the car



ok so engine / exhaust nerds... what advice or comments would you give? is this risky business or not??

 

Wrapping the header(s)/exaust does help since you will beflowing more hot air out, hence more pwer, BUT, with the 4g94, it wouldn't matter. U will not see the gains nor feel it obviously unless u go turbo it should def help. Our lil motors will not c any gains from that, unless its got some power. thats y i'm done with the lancer, moving on, gettin rid of it

 

WOW! really? dammm another bad *** lancer leaving i am going turbo. I'm trying to taste that fastest auto title

 

i could see wrapping the header and dp... as it will keep some of the hot air out of the engine bay... but beyond that waste of time and money

 

i hear heatwrapping your header and downpipe can cause excess stress on the welds

also, i believe eboy did it, and got a CEL because the excess heat threw something off

 

I wouldn't bother wrapping past the cat. My DP was wrapped, but I have to unwrap it to modify the downpipe in the next coupe of weeks. Since I'm putting on a log style manifold I'm not going to bother wrapping it, but the Kamikaze header I have and intend to modify into a turbo manifold will be heat wrapped. Worst comes to worst it dies. At least the Kamikaze header/dp is less than $300 to replace, so it'll leave me a relatively easy and inexpensive option if it causes a failure. I'm not certain on this, but it may also put additional stress/wear on your catalytic material, causing premature deterioration or failure. Generally speaking I wouldn't wrap tubular manifolds if they're not made of very thick material purely because of the tremendous heat that can build up. That's my take on it.

Someone may have a more experienced/scientific response, but another option is a heat-sealing spray coating. DEI makes one which I plan on coating my log style manifold with, as well as my downpipe. It can/should also be used in conjunction with heat wrapping in order to seal the wrapping and prevent it from rotting, which heat wrap is prone to when exposed to water, salt, road debris and excessive temperatures.

 

yeah i heard about that coating too