I was tempted to wrap my ceramic coated headers to reduce under hood temperature but when researching the topic read a post that this will damage ceramic coated headers. Do you have any thoughts on this topic?
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PS. these headers are about 45 years old and were jet coated about 25 years ago. they still look like the day they were jet coated. I drive the car about 800 miles a year.
If you are trying to deflect heat from the shock, then wrapping the area after the collector should not pose any issues. 800 miles a year is hardly enough to get the exhaust warm.....
The ceramic coating will give you similar heat reduction.
Exhaust wrap does work but shortens the life expectancy of the the tubing.
Do you want to trade that off?
Also, there isn't much point in ceramic coating 303-304 stainless steel exhaust tubes. 409, that rusts, yes.
You are never going to find that ceramic coated exhausts are cool to the touch when running, so although you can scientifically measure the heat it reduces, it is never enough.
Therefore the ceramic coating is largely an anti-corrosion thing that almost entirely eliminates the corrosion on regular steel tubing but has the side effect of making the exhaust look finished permanently.
The most common color and the least expensive to do is the bright shiny silver color. New it looks like polished stainless steel but with use it will dull down to look like factory production stainless steel.
There are other colors available that I know of. Black, Ford Blue. The colors tend to water spot and cost more to do then the silver.
There is a chart of engineering numbers, temperature reductions some where and there have been published dyno tests that indicated an increase of HP of like 10 or 15hp when using the coatings.
Technically that is accurate but by comparison the gain or loss of HP is much greater then that when the air temps and relative humidity increase and decrease. So it isn't anything that is going to make the engine a "killer sleeper".
I think the best combination is ceramic coating, interior and exterior on regular steel exhaust tubing.
The Pantera engine compartment is going to be cooler with stock, under the car headers and exhaust v. 180° up and out headers.
Those in fact create some issues with cooking the exterior paint off of the decklid if you don't use a heat shield.
Ceramic coating reduces the engine bay temperatures, especially for 180 headers. The coating on the stock setup will reduce the temps somewhat but not significantly I wouldn't think so I don't see any advantage to wrapping them.
I did the warping on my airplane headers to protect the fiberglass cowling .. headers were made out of mild steel.
the result was that the tubing became brittle and broke …. Lengthwise! (Not a seam, completely apart, 6inch long, 2 pieces)
it was amazing when I took the wrap off and the tubing was like glass.. hit it with the hammer it deformed only a little and then just broke …
Wrapping headers keeps too much heat inside of the tubes and eventually ruins the metal, which in turn causes leaks. Been there and done that!
Thank you all for the useful information. I wish I had asked before removing one of the headers, as you know, it's no small task. Fortunately, I had removed the easy one.
