Hey guys,
I’m debating weather i should heat wrap my megan sr manifold. The reason I’m thinking about doing this is to reduce the under hood temp obviously aswell as gain better exhaust flow through the manifold. Now this is where the confusion begins, I’ve been told by a few people that heat wrapping is good but I’ve also searched and found that heat wrapping will deteriorate the manifold much quicker from the fatigue that it causes on the manifold.
I don’t really want to spend $200+ on getting it coated and yes i realize this would be the ideal thing to do. The car will be mostly street driven aswell.
so what would you guys recommend? Wrap it or leave it alone?
coating’s shit IMO with the EGT’s I was hitting it was flaking off…
Wrap it is the only way to go and dont get the cheap shit either.
Any specific brand you would recommend Adam?
I was just putting the final touches on a group buy on this stuff.
I will post it in a couple minutes.
Check this site out in the mean time:
http://www.stockcarproducts.com/insulat2a.htm
Theo
heat wrap on the Megan.SSAC/OBX… whatever… header is going to eat that header up… chew right through it.your best to get some stainless steel sheet in 18-16ga and have it bent up also use heat tape ( DEI makes many different kinds ) on the areas around it so they don’t get heat soak… but heat wrap on THOSE chinese poo headres is instant death, you might as well order a new one now.
my friend heat wrapped his manifold and it helped his short ram intake cause overall engine bay temp dropped, but on turbo cars, where the manifold takes alot of stress and the air is intercooled anyways i dont think its necesarry and if u heat wrap it, it will not give off heat properly and cause more stress on the metal causing early wear down cracks and stuff, it will overheat, just like a furnace causing the main heat exchanger to fail, i wouldnt wrap it on a turbo car, the manifold is under alot of stress already holding the turbo on it and all that vibration and all
I thought we were talking about heat wrapping the exhaust manifold, not the intake one. That would make difference and a half on a turbocharged car, since a turbo essentially runs off heat. But it would make the manny last a lot less. It’s pretty much power vs. reliability.
then the object being you get a BETTER header to heat wrap, I wrapped a 13B NA using normal 304L stainless. nothing special… but it’ was certified after a year of running hard I took off the wrap to Re wrap it andthe header, barring the discoleration, was perfect… I’ve seen the cheap Chinese frabricated parts… ( hench forth known as 'Chi-poo ') fall apart at the metal around the welds where the stress and metal fatigue rates are the worst.
So soution to being able to wrap your header and keep IN the heat … is to get a header that costs more then a used X-box…
^Yea, but I figured since he already has one, he prolly won’t wanna sell it and get a different one.
yes but not everyone can see themselves spending $1000 on a manifold when essentially the megan/ssac mani’s are doing the job just aswell as the more expensive ones just not built to the same quality. I believe there are more contributing factors than just heat wrap that causes manifolds to fail prematurely. I’ve known a few people that had megan/ssac manifolds on there motors for a while without any issues at all while many other people said they were shit and are going to crack in no time.
… the heat wrap accelerates the failures that are there simply removes years of useable time from them … and as has been shown, very graphically many time last year… ou can’t repair or weld the chi-poo and have it actually last for more then a few hrs of soild abuse.
You can’t have it both ways… you take the good ( price ) with the bad ( it’s fragile and poor quality )
or good ( you can modify it till the cows come home to the bulls ) bad ( you pay more for it )
this is not a statement about this thread but just in general… You guys need to start taking a hard look at the things you do to your cars… there is a reason that ’ tunners’ are targeted by MTO all the time and getting inspected and the hot roders/ street rodders/ muscle cars guys drive right on by… the majority of those cars are built WAY better then an OEM , never mind the custom from the ground up jobs… the very opposite is true for the ‘tunner’ scene. so much crap is being jury rigged and bought that those cars are a moving accident… it may not come tomorrow, but the more crap and 1/2 assed parts and installs you do, the greated the odds that your going to end up hurting yourself or someone else… Go smoke a pack of cigs in corner for all I care, kill yourself, but build your car with a bit of respect to yourself, your car and the people around you on the road going 120kph. I get pulled over For MTO becuse of the crap cars on the road, waste of my time and it puts a negative light on my ’ niche’ group.
good point alex…ive sold over 50 megan manifolds in 3 years and not even one person has had to claim warranty as yet…
I think it also depends on what you are running on those manis.
if you are running like 8-11lbs on the stock t25 I think you will be fine but if you are running a BBt28 15+LBS then I think a few more will start to have problems becsaue of the massive heat increase.
but it does make sence, I am going to fun my Megan headder next summer just becasue I can not afford to get a good one made and then next winter spend a good $600+ on a custom one that will last and take the heat
just ceramic coat a megan header inside and out…save ureself the hassle of spending 800 on a header thats still gonna crack with wear over time…more importantly, get a megan downpipe with the flex in it which take all the exhaust flex and stress off the turbo and manifold joints.
Ya i have a custom DP with Flexpipe, so that I am not worrie about at all. 
I also think I will get something tho with a little smaller runners.
Help spooltime, I rather increas that a little and shave a bit off the high RPM’s,
I put 10k on the manifold I bought from Bing and no cracks yet… its seen no higher then 12psi and is dis-coloured like crazy. I do not have a “flex pipe” DP… but I do have the hanger for the DP hooked up the flex mount or whatever ? as well as 3 or 4 more further back.
My Exhaust does sway quite a bit (to much) I plan on fixing it this winter… so if indeed these Manifolds are “so cheap” and crack mostly due to weight of turbo/exhaust movement then I dont know why 10,000km later mine still hasnt cracked ? ? ?
I have thought about wrapping it… Whether it would cause such a Heat Increase that the Manifold would crack almost instantly then fine, for what its worth I’ll go get another one.
Another thing I have thought about thou was Wrapping the DP, Ext and perhaps Cold Pipe. Reason for doing the Cold Pipe was maybe it “could?” help keep the cool air in and would prevent some heat soak from other items in the bay giving off heat “manifold/motor/turbo/hotpipe etc”. I also thought about Wrapping my engine harness and some other wiring just to ensure nothing burns throu and melts wires ?
EEhhh… While it is true that the muscle car guys tend to have higher quality workmanship and materials on their cars, that has nothing to do with why the police goes after us and not them. If you believe that, you seriously give the popo too much credit. They go after us, b/c the old people that vote (yes, we’re allowed to vote, but statistically speaking, we DON’T vote, I guess we’re too lazy to :D) hate our guts. They see US as the menace, and whoever puts that menace behind bars gets their votes. They’re not gonna have anything against a modded out Charger rolling down their neighbourhood when they either had one, or dreamed of having one when they were young.
Why would the Cops care if you vote or not, I would just say it is becasue we are being steariotyped becasue we are young. I have actually not had any problems at all, but that is also because I do not drive like a asshat.
I do not know, I also think itis where you go, it seems when people are getting hassled it is usually at night and they are around a lot of done up riced up cars and people sub 25.
uh police are not elelcted so that’s just silly and it’s your own fault you as a group don’t vote, no one else’s…
I’ve got quite a bit of family that are police, from MTO to OPP the ‘street racers’ are lessa concern to them then the ‘blue hairs’ as they say… they go after the tuners becuse the bulk of them atre rolling crap wagons… plain and simple, it’s easy for them to target this group becuse almost all will have at least 1-5 serious HTA violations and unsafe ‘repairs’. You give them a reason to target you as a group. Change the base attitude towards your thinking ( this thread is a perfect example, “why spend a few 50% more to get 300% better quality) when I can have a cheap header with known issues… it doesn’t matter” is the only solution, bringing in the cheapest parts you can find in the world is not the solution.
When looked at on a item by item level it may not seem to be an issue… but when looked at on a voerall group level… well you have the results at MTO check points.
I seriously don’t think MTO and EPA field mechanics look to see if your manifold is made by full-race or ss autochrome.
EGR? No EGR? PCV? No PCV? Altered or removed emissions equipment? TICKET.
One of the main reasons that muscle car owners aren’t hassled is because they are not subject to the same laws on emissions as modern cars. Therefore the police, MTO and the EPA have MUCH less leverage against them when it comes to emissions offenses (which is among the largest offenses ticketed against “tuners”, along with improper muffler [something the muscle car guys are equally guilty of, just not prosecuted]).
Although I do recognize and agree with your point that there are -many-, -many- ricers with unsafe and simply deplorable cars ruining it for the rest. It’s a shame - especially since there’s no talking sense into people like that.