Header Wrap

[adam]

Ok I finally got my 82 gs1100g good again after I got hit last summer. Only thing i had to do was find an exhaust for it. A guy I work with gave me a V&H 4 into 1 for it, awesome dude and thanks alot. It is a used exhaust so it does have some scratching and dents on the header. My idea is to just wrap the header and hide those ugly marks, also my kids for some reason see something shinny and instantly want to touch it so wrapping it will help there too. Doesnt matter how many times they get burned they keep doing it, like bugs to bug zapper, they just cant help it I guess. I have never wrapped a 4 to 1 header before and for some reason cannot figure it out. Is there some trick to going from the collector to each pipe? I have had no luck with youtube or any web searches except for starting at the collector and working my way up the pipe gives it better resistance to getting dirt and whatnot built up on the overlaps. This is all that I have left to do. Besides paint but I haven't got a scheme narrowed down yet.

 

[MatBirch]

I wrapped the headers on my wife's 550. I looked long for help too, and finally found a nice writeup by a guy with a Buell. He gave some great tips-

MOST IMPORTANT!!!--- Ditch the stupid little SS "zip-ties" that come with the wrap! Get a pair of safety wire pliers (Harbor Freight has them for like 15$) Use 2 wire ties on each end!

wet, but not saturated!
nice tight, even overlaps

Lastly, let it dry really well for several days. grab a few cans of your favorite color of exhaust paint like VHT Flameproof. lots of wet, heavy coats. Allow this to cure for a few days as well, then run the bike as instructed for the paint to fully cure it.

It came out looking fantastic!! and has held up really well. I used a regular "silver" color.

 

[Weapon]

start at the top. do each pipe to the collector then on the last pipe pickup all 4 and go right to the end.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Lastly, let it dry really well for several days. grab a few cans of your favorite color of exhaust paint like VHT Flameproof. lots of wet, heavy coats. Allow this to cure for a few days as well, then run the bike as instructed for the paint to fully cure it.
It came out looking fantastic!! and has held up really well. I used a regular "silver" color.

Painting the wrap I had not heard about yet. That looks good.

 

[sharpy]

Wraps are bad, HPC coating are good. Yes this is about race exhaust but its only one page i looked at, Many many more are about why Wraps are bad. And there friggn ugly. Maybe if its on a bobber and ure a redneck. http://www.centuryperformance.com/exhaust-header-heat-wraps-do-not-use.html

 

[Gorminrider]

huh, interesting! http://www.centuryperformance.com/exhaust-header-heat-wraps-do-not-use.html hereabouts,(B.C. Canada) , I always assumed it was the moisture/salt/roadcrapola that was trapped in wrap rusting them out but I see I am wrong.

 

[tkent02]

Not a fan of the pipe wrap, but your 550 looks great! Got any more pics?

 

[Buffalo Bill]

I'm always reminded of The Mummy and Boris Karloff when I see it.
If it was around back in the day, I'm sure it would have been on the Munster Mobile and the Dragula.

 

[TeamNeal]

Wrapping your pipes is not a "bad" thing to do. Esp if you want to keep from burning yourself. On a car, where sensitive electronics and air induction lives, keeping the heat generated by the exhaust IN the manifold IS a good thing. By wrapping the exhaust, heat radiating from the headers is kept to a minimum.

On a GS though (and most air-cooled motorcycles), the headers are open to the rushing air, which helps to keep things cooler. Wrapping your pipes is merely a form over function choice, whith the aforementioned "keeping from burning yourself" issue.

When you decide to wrap your pipes, it is best to apply a rust preventitive coating first as the wrap will trap moisture between it and the exhaust. Start at the collector on one pipe first and go up. But DO NOT go all the way to the flange! Only go to about 1"-1 1/2" below the bend that goes into your head. Trapping that heat so close to your exhaust vale could cause it to burn out (ask me how I know..... even tuned properly) that area of bare pipe will shead enough heat to keep temps under control near the valve and the surrounding aluminum of the exhaust port and head.

The whole idea of aircooling your engine is to get rid of heat as efficiently as possible, right? So then why localize heat in those areas where it is most important to be dispersed? Anyone warp a head due to overheating can attest to the headache and wallet ache.... so to speak.

Dont get me wrong, Im all for wraping your pipes (when appropriate). But doing it correctly is key.

But then again...... its your bike, and if its only a "look" or a "style" you are going for, then good luck to ya.

 

[tkent02]

I was actually thinking of wrapping a couple spots on a couple of dirt bikes, more to keep from burning myself or melting holes in my pants or boots than anything else.

Doing about an eight inch section starting about 12" to 15" down the pipe won't cause it to fail for a while? Another spot about the same size right before the muffler which is up behind and under the plastic side cover.
These bikes go in deep water well over the pipe or even the head once in a while, but they will be run a long time to get home from there so moisture shouldn't be trapped in the wrap.
Also it's a very dry climate here so they won't be sitting wet for a long time.

Thoughts?

 

[GS1150Pilot]

Interestingly, Dr. John, of Moto Guzzi fame, did quite a bit of research on it. It is certainly a disaster for titanium, but the debate about its effects on steel or aluminium seems unresolved. One thing to bear in mind is the possible effect it may have on jetting requirements.

Here's a quick video discussing a few of the details of wrapping your pipes.

 

[Rob S.]

Not a fan of the pipe wrap...

+1..........

 

[Guest]

I ran a real nasty set of V&H 4-1 pipes for years and the best solution was roughing up what good chrome there was and painting them with VHT flat black ceramic. It made the set quite acceptable looking with a yearly re-spray. I also found when I changed to Delkevic 4-1 that V&H isn't a very good pipe.

 

[Grimly]

Wraps are bad, HPC coating are good. Yes this is about race exhaust but its only one page i looked at, Many many more are about why Wraps are bad. And there friggn ugly. Maybe if its on a bobber and ure a redneck. http://www.centuryperformance.com/exhaust-header-heat-wraps-do-not-use.html

He seems to be making up new branches of materials science and physics as he goes along.

 

[MatBirch]

Not a fan of the pipe wrap, but your 550 looks great! Got any more pics?

This is one of favorites!






The pipe wrap began as a means to an end. The originals are pretty much trashed. Lots of rust and pitting. I figured that I had nothing to lose, and if they last for a few years, great. They came out nice, and by painting them, the look is pretty subtle. I would see no reason to wrap a nice new set of headers.

 

[dorkburger]

I ran a real nasty set of V&H 4-1 pipes for years and the best solution was roughing up what good chrome there was and painting them with VHT flat black ceramic. It made the set quite acceptable looking with a yearly re-spray. I also found when I changed to Delkevic 4-1 that V&H isn't a very good pipe.

What is meant by this? Quality, performance, both?
Just curoius. I'm not much if a fan of the V&H megaphone or any megaphone for that matter.

 

[Guest]

Both, just bolting the pipes on built power throughout the power band. Some tweaking of the carburetor adjustments resulted in a lot of top end power This is with all the baffles in place. You can also hear what is going on a lot better just from exhaust tone when tuning and my hearing suffered a lot from Vietnam. The best that could be tuned with the V&H 4-1 street pipes was definitely way behind the Delkevic. I'm not an extreme fan of Stainless headers and their quirks but it is nothing that removal and a good polishing won't cure. It just makes it imperative that I find a good SS set of studs that are long enough for the header flanges that are thicker than the V&H.

 

[madjack57754]

He seems to be making up new branches of materials science and physics as he goes along.

Have to agree with Grimly.. This guy is trying to sell coatings... of course wrapping is bad for the pipe. How else will he sell you that $250 coating job.
Now to the issue at hand, I've been wrapping pipes for over 40 years. Mostly on two stroke chambers where temperature in the pipe is critical to efficency. The better insulated the pipe the better scavenging in the cylinder at the port. This still applies to 4 strokes to a somewhat lesser extent thus the coatings and wraps. Wrap manufactures tell the buyer to use their insulation sprays. Again they want to sell stuff. Me, I use the high temp ceramics coating from Kal-guard, inside and out on new pipe, and still wrap the pipes on my race sleds for that bit of extra heat retention, And spray the wrap after it is on tight.
Only had one failure in all the time I've been racing, and that was a Skidoo factory mod sled that had been wrapped at the factory raceshop. so I left it on. Mistake on my part was the pipe was wrapped all the way to the head and I never inspected it to see if it was done correctly. The pipe flange broke off about two inches past the exhaust stub from vibration and excess heat from running very lean.

 

[Throttlejock]

Be sure to check on Amazon. I picked up 100ft of wrap for less than the cost of one 50ft roll.

 

[Darkspeed]

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Were beat up and rusty TT pipes. Sanded them down, sprayed inside and out with automotive ceramic rattlecan, baked in oven, then wrapped. Exhaust collars should keep heat down and it is tuned safe(rich). Proud of how they turned out. Mini supertrapp megs to finish it off.