Ceramic coated or header wrap?

[83TransAm]

Does the Ceramic coating really make a huge difference, compared to a header wrap. I know they rust the header faster, but I plan never to have the car see rain, and also trying to save a few bucks.

Any opinions let me know. Thanks

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

Nothing keeps underhood temps down like header wrap, but it does cause premature failure of the headers.

If you want all of the chemical/physical reason why, ask Fred. In summary, the wrap retains the heat causing the steel to weaken and oxidize faster. This results in failure...has nothing due to rain.

If you can afford it, ceramic coating is the way to go on a street car. NASCAR uses header wrap because they could care less about reusing parts. Besides, they only run the engines for 500 - 600 miles.

[Joe 1320]

header wrap absorbs oil and becomes a fire hazard, plus it weakens the steel.


Just say no to the wrap.

[raroZ28]

header wrap absorbs oil and becomes a fire hazard, plus it weakens the steel.


Just say no to the wrap.

I would never use header wrap. Get it coated in forget about it, or wrap it and deal with header issues down the road.

[Timbers]

Jet Hot

I had mine Jet Hot coated a about 8 years ago, you can tell it cooled the headers down a little bit over uncoated.

If you are worried about burning up things you can protect a lot of your wires, and spark plug wires with insulated wrappings. I do this to my car.

Moroso makes a spark plug wire "sheathing" that slides over spark plug wires. Made of fiberglass and silicone and prevents your wires from direct heat radiation.

There are heavy fiberglass boots that you can slide over your spark plug boots to sheild them from header heat.

There is fiberglass cloth with a shiny metal backing to it, that you can buy, and use a high temp RTV to hold it on. This you can stick anywhere you want to protect from heat.

Finally there is fiberglass tubing with a metal foil backing to it, you can slide this over other wires in your car to protect them.

I did a lot of stuff on my car just so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking things under the hood. Also when I park in my garage I always open the hood after I'm done driving.

...Tim

[ChevelleSSLS6]

another option (even if you have ceramic coated headers) is fabricating a heat shield. With the Jeep 4.0 this is popular as the exhaust manifold is brilliantly located right beneath the intake manifold.

[Wild Willy]

I have heard all the usual bad things about the wrap, no first-hand experience-

The ceramic headers I had were great- lower under-hood temps and durable finish- there are some nice finishes available, too- "simi-chrome", brushed, etc- looks nice as well as functional-