Wrap cat on ft86 catted UEL header?
 

I'm planning to wrap and DEI hi temp silicone spray my new ft86speedfactory UEL catted headers, question is, if I should wrap the cat? Or just wrap the pipes and leave the cat exposed but spray it with DEI spray when I spray the headers after wrapping?

Asking because I read somewhere, wrapping cat retains more heat in it.

Thanks!

The purpose of the wrap is to keep the heat inside the pipe and out of the engine bay. If you race the car and are chasing 10ths of a second then wrap the cat. If not then don't worry about it.

Did you opt for the ceramic coating they provide?

Nope. Ceramic coating only protects from the rust, a wrap actually keeps the temps down but there are chances of getting rust, which is a risk I'm willing to take.

Ceramic coating helps keep temps down too. Not as effective as wrapping, but it is effective. Most headers are stainless nowadays anyway so rust prevention isn't the issue that it used to be. I can't think of one that is not stainless anymore.

Stainless is definitely not the same as rust proof. And header wrap definitely exacerbates that issue.

Proper ceramic coating does work as a thermal insulator. Not the crap that comes in a can, but a local shop that does a baked on ceramic coating. It definitely carries a better finish and is leaps and bounds easier to maintain.

Yes I am well aware. Most that I find are 304 and with hard running and header wrap you could easily put them into their transition temperature which also exacerbates the issue. I used to strongly be against header wraps on motorcycles since the extremely thin tubing they used would just disintegrate when you wrapped them after a couple years of hard use. You can hit it with a light pickleing solution which helps them out, since a lot of companies don't bother to properly passivate stainless parts.

No point wrapping your cat. Just leave it alone. It's going to get hot as hell. As for wrapping in general, if you are worried about rust, the wrapping will retain the moisture far more than ceramic coating. Besides, as long as you are not sitting in traffic for hours in hot weather, it will be fine. Trust me, I've never worried about melting something in my engine bay in the middle of the 105 degree Texas summer. Plus in Florida is more humid and rains more frequently.

I just bought some stainless uncoated headers for my car and I'm a bit concerned given the amount of heat protection that the stock headers have. So I decided to wrap the headers up to the cat in the DEI Titanium stuff which is basalt and not fiberglass. I'm not too worried about moisture since it rarely rains in Cali and I have the option not to drive the car when it does.



How many folks out there run uncoated and unwrapped headers? It seems to me it's like 99% of the youtube and pictures I see are just bare stainless.

I'm not running anything on my JDL UEL header. The only issues I've heard with aftermarket UEL headers are coil packs failing under heavy track use which I think is more a problem with the UEL design and not the header itself.