Your thoughts on this product

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Well not sure right or wrong but I endorse DEI's stuff extensively. I have their woven reflective fabric over several of my intercooler hoses to avoid the heat sink effect that big black rubber hoses have in hot engine bay. I also have their convoluted plastic reflective tubes over several specific things that are close to the exhaust manifold, turbo and turbo downpipe on my rig. I also use their stainless steel ties and posted something about that here many moons ago - they are so super cool - they can tolerate intense heat and are removable and reusable.

Basically I'm using these things to keep heat away from sensitive stuff, I am not using it to keep heat IN the exhaust. However, I would use this on the exhaust but NOT on the turbo unit itself (they make a special setup to cover the turbo). I do not use it cause my exhaust is ceramic coated and that already helps hold the heat in the exhaust but if I did not have the coating, I'd have the wrapping.

AFAIK, it is a relatively undisputed fact that keeping the exhaust hot helps performance.

I pulled this explanation from another site:

"Think of exhaust gases as a piston moving down through the tubular system. As each pulse travels down the system, it creates a vacuum behind itself. The negative pressure behind each is the scavenging effect. As the velocity of the pulse increase, the negative pressures also increase. As you have an increase in velocity, the length of time that you have a negative pressure in the system is increased. The net result of high velocity to assist in scavenging is increased performance of the intake and exhaust system.

Maintaining higher exhaust temperatures throughout the system increases performance in many ways. Think of exhaust gases as a heavy liquid such as an oil additive. If the liquid were traveling down a tubular system in a cold state, it would move very slowly. If you heat the liquid, the density of the fluid changes. The liquid responds to the heat increasing its velocity. Exhaust gases respond in the same manner. Higher temperatures in a system increase the flow of the system. If the liquid is allowed to cool in the system, it slows the flow of the liquid. By this illustration, you can now see the importance of maintaining higher temperatures in an
exhaust system.

Wrapping the headers maintains exhaust gas heat within the header. This translates into more exhaust flow due to maintaining exhaust temperatures as it flows out of the engine. By improving the scavenging of spent gases, the engine breathes more efficiently. This reduces resistance of gas flow, thus allowing the engine to develop more power"



BTW, the best place I have found for purchasing all these products is Eastwood. You can find them at www.eastwoodco.com . HTH.


Ohh yea, BTW, why would I not use it on the turbo itself, well, that is hot enough already and although I might get even faster spool and spin by keeping the turbo hot, its not worth the reliability problem; this stuff is safe on steel tubing but not on castings in my opinion. I have two friends who run the Pikes Peak Hillclimb every year and they both had breakdowns due to cracking castings after using the turbo covers. They were pissed as you can imagine. They do use the stuff extensively everywhere else to both keep heat away from things and inside of things. HTH :cheers:
 
As far as the cats are concerned:

It's always a tradeoff between higher efficiency (more heat, closer to the block) and longevity (lower heat). You increase the heat transfer going to the cats, you decrease the useful life. By how much, I don't know. You'll be happy to know you're not polluting as much though!

As for wrapping the cat? That's a great way to make a cleaner running truck...and wear out the cat REALLY QUICKLY. If the heat sheild rattles like most do, go to an exhaust shop and pay them $20 to weld it onto the header/cat. Problem permanently solved.
 
tiorio said:
As far as the cats are concerned:

It's always a tradeoff between higher efficiency (more heat, closer to the block) and longevity (lower heat). You increase the heat transfer going to the cats, you decrease the useful life. By how much, I don't know. You'll be happy to know you're not polluting as much though!

As for wrapping the cat? That's a great way to make a cleaner running truck...and wear out the cat REALLY QUICKLY. If the heat sheild rattles like most do, go to an exhaust shop and pay them $20 to weld it onto the header/cat. Problem permanently solved.


Yea, I agree, dont wrap the cats, the whole purpose of the catalytic material (platinum substrate IIRC) is to chemically heat up the exhaust to the point of burning off pollutants. They get plenty hot on their own and because they chemically heat up the exhaust on their own, I cant imagine why storing extra heat in there (as opposed to extra catalytic material) would help at all. I suppose it could make for a faster chemical reaction but not necessarily a more complete chemical reaction. Also, I dont think this extra heat would add up to extra performance. It might add up to better pollution protection, but not better performance, I would not think. I think the way to go is to wrap up to the cat, and after the cat a ways but not the cat itself. On my system for example, the exhaust is ceramic coated up to the cat, and after the cat, but the cat itself is not coated. HTH. :cheers:
 
Instead, could a wrap or extra heat shield be put on the factory heat shields that bolt to the headers? I'd like to decrease the heat under my hood for those hot runs in the summer. My engine usually runs around 185F, last summer it broke 215F. I could feel the heat coming from the engine bay before I opened it. As soon as we hit the main lines and 5-10mph it cooled right back down.
 
pound3151 said:
Instead, could a wrap or extra heat shield be put on the factory heat shields that bolt to the headers? I'd like to decrease the heat under my hood for those hot runs in the summer. My engine usually runs around 185F, last summer it broke 215F. I could feel the heat coming from the engine bay before I opened it. As soon as we hit the main lines and 5-10mph it cooled right back down.


I dont think that would work well...for one thing the factory heat shields that bolt to the exhaust manifold have louvers in them most likely making for some flow of air and dissipation of heat. For another thing, unless you keep all the heat IN the pipes, you will just reflect the heat around within the engine area. Lastly, I dont think anyone would recommend wrapping the exhaust manifold itself as it is cast; the best thing would be to just wrap the exhaust pipes after the exhaust manifold, OR, get a custom exhaust made and coat with ceramic, that's the most permanent method and highest performance practice as far as I know. HTH. :cheers:
 
i use the DEI to wrap the exhaust on my fj40 with small block. i have to say it deff keeps the heat in. i would run the truck fro 15 min and couldnt even touch the exhaust for a second with it off but after putting it on i could put my hand on it for a sec or 2. however if any one does do this dont get scared after you wrap your exhaust when your truck smokes alot as the wrap burns a bit on its first few uses and smells kinda funny. also the DEI stuff is kinda nappy so when you put it on use cloves and try not to let it get all over you as it iches like hell.

mike
 
Forget the wrap. Go with ceramic coating and do both the inside and outside of your exhaust manifold. Coating the inside helps protect the manifold from cracking. Cost is about $100+ around here.
 
hoser said:
Forget the wrap. Go with ceramic coating and do both the inside and outside of your exhaust manifold. Coating the inside helps protect the manifold from cracking. Cost is about $100+ around here.

I absolutly agree! The wrap will work in the short term but you WILL be dealing with cracks within a year or two. I coated the TRD headers on my Tacoma 6 years ago and I have had no problems with them vs. friends that still blow out gaskets and have cracks, both wrapped and unwrapped.
 
I guess, maybe then, I could be in trouble..

I have already wrapped my exhaust from the manifold to the CAT and I have the blanket over the turbo. Been running like that about a year now. Other then the fact that my check engine light comes on (darn inefficient cat code) I have not had any problems and it has reduced my underhood temps.
I can see where the material would hold water and cause it to rust quicker, I may just replace the exhaust and go back to stock when it does go. Seems like I had better performance with the stock exhaust.

Yomama
 

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