My 31 has side pipes with no heat shields and needless to say some people (including me) had gotten "bit"... I have never seen shields that I would want to put on it so I have been considering header wrap tape... I do not know the diameter of them but I would guess them to be about 4 inch... The questions I have are... How much of it will I need to wrap each pipe about 3 feet...? How does it start and end...how does it stay on...? Best place to buy it...? Is it all created equal...? What's the best...? Also any other info that you know that I should know...??? Thanx!
One, the wrap retains moisture so it will rot the pipes. Two, your car will smell a wet dog if it does get wet... I've seen some nice heat shields built out of thinwall stainless tubing or perforated metal.
Thanx to both of you... I have also wondered what these header/pipes are exactly...does anybody recognize what they might be...??? They seem to be very well made...
How about TIG welding threaded mounts to the pipes and fabricating Stainless Steel perforated heat shields. SS perforated sheets are available from McMaster-Carr.
4" pipe will take about 12 1/2" per wrap, not counting over lapping. So it's going to take a bunch of it. Starting is easy, just over lap it to hold it in place, then work your way back. Most of ones I have seen use stainless steel screw clamps at the ends. Another option would be a CV boot type clamp with the crimp in the back out of site.
Everything Crazy Steve said is true and the some! Why not put a collector end on the header and run your pipes under the car, no more "ouchies" as my Granddaughter would say! KK
Header wrap won't look good at all. Shields from stainless like woodiewagon suggested are the way to go. Find a shop that has a punch press and have them stamp a design and form the shield, you can create your own design, or just do a standard oval. If you just use perforated sheet the ends won't look good, you need an area at the ends of the pipes with no perforations for a finished look.
I agree. However, if you want to be really innovative and waste a bunch of time, make a hinged shield with a lever that attaches to the door and covers the pipe when you open the door and flips back up when you close it.
I got wrap on my bike and it works just fine. Got is from who knows who about 15 years ago. Still is on an has aged just fine. Mine is over SS pipes so no worry about rust. Been wet plenty of times, just start it up and the are dry in 5 minutes or less. Run it in rain for 6 hours one day with our problems. It has to be made better today than mine.
I always thought this stuff was for race cars, rat rods, and motorcycle's. Personally I would go for a stainless shield, as it will retain its shiney. Instead of round holes, you could get little bowties cut. My two cents.
Header wrap would be the last thing I would consider doing, add heat shields or change to having collectors and routing the exhaust under the car or sell those to someone else and run zoomies, anything but header wrap. Just my 2 cents worth!
Unless your pipes are stainless or coated ( ceramic coat?) the pipe wrap will rot them out which is why it voids the warrantee on headers that are not coated. But burnt calves is a problem for sure. If it were me I would tack a nut in a couple of places along the pipe then take another piece of pipe and make myself some heat shields, maybe drill a few holes in it and call it good. think heat shields on a '68 Honda Scrambler here. Maybe take some card board and cut out some fake heat shields and tape them on your pipes for a look see. I am making a small shield for the rear pipe on my bike because the pipe lays right under the wife's peg, I am doing it just the way I tried to describe.
it looks like you have room to move them closer to the frame. i did it with a pair of j-bends. at the collector the j-bends move the pipe in. to make it all blend in i also put a dump tube on. send a pm with your phone number and i will send some pics.
I ran wrap for one season of super stock dirt racing back in 91 & although it kept my starter armature shielded from heat, it flat ruined a nice set of headers. I'll never use it again. I fab heat shields. Flux
Three choices as I see it move the pipes closer to the frame , or make a cover as others have said or do away with them and run a conventional system inside the rails. Vote ,NO to header wrap .
No to header wrap. Do as we do down here, because it's the law, and make a shield that covers the existing pipe. rather than weld studs to tubing, a couple to large diameter hose clamps with some stands that are vertical to your pipes. Roll up some thin S/S flat strips to match the shape of you pipes, slightly larger diameter cross section and screw them to the stands already in place. S/S looks like the chrome and with air gap, no one will get burned. I didn't saw it would look the part but it does provide a quick cheap fix to the problem
Thank you all for these tips and ideas... Ya'll are kinda scaring me away from the wrap but I don't think shields are what I want to see and I don't want them gone as I like the look... doing some cut outs at the collectors and going under the car might be the option... I think I have to absorb all of this and think it over more before making a move Thanx to all!
I use shields and wrap on the front this exhaust is temp so not to worried about retaining moisture your cars alot prettier so may not look right
I like the car!! A '31 Chevy looks good with the stainless steel you have on it, so a heat shield on them pipes, in SS would look good and on the money. Matching the wheels, firewall and hub caps. But something else would be to ceramic coat the pipes. That would give them a more humble look. And less chrome/shine would give it a more racy look.
Actually...they are not shiny...I am not even sure they are ss...they appear to be silver ceramic coated... When I first bought the car years ago one of my missions was to get rid of chrome...not really a chrome fan...except for the wheels...I do like those I replaced a lot of chrome with aluminum..I prefer the not so shiny look... As far as it being pretty...even tho I like that, I have always wanted it to be flat black... Trouble is, the paint is so nice that I don't think I could bring myself to paint it ...as my name implies, I make signs and wrap vehicles and I am seriously considering wrapping it in flat black vinyl because I can remove it later and have my yellow back... I photochopped a photo of it to look flat black to see if I liked it...below is that picture... Sorry for going astray from the subject as this is a whole other subject for a whole other thread...!!! LOL But my point is that shiny is not where I want to go Thanx again guys for all of the ideas and input!
If you use heat wrap any idea you ever had of your car looking nostalgic is out the window. Metal supply outlets carry what's called "expanded metal" which is what the old guys used for heat shields. Lots of different styles of expanded metal are available, just look around. Then form it over a pipe and attach it with stand-offs as has been mentioned. For appearance you can have it chromed as the old guys did, or you can paint it or ceramic coat it to match your sidepipes. This approach will take a little effort on your part but it will be "traditional" and it will look a whole lot better than header wrap - which looks like butt on a street driven traditional hot rod...IMHO, of course.
If you have 4" pipe now, split some 5" or 6" truck pipe in half and use it for a heat shield. It will still look like pipe, just bigger.
Lots of good ideas here... All I am concerned with here is the area where you can see the muffler is...maybe 30 inches... Thanx again for all of your input...
Not sure about your size but there are 7 million semi trucks out there with nice chrome heat shields on them . Gotta be someone has some old ones for sale.
The BIG TRUCK trinket store that sells lights and chrome and stainless for semi trucks has a lot of different style and size heat shields for the stacks on semis. Still every time I see your avatar or a photo of that car something in my brain says "hey look, t bucket pipes on a Model A coupe. Those pipes rather dominate the car to the point they are the first thing you notice even before you see the hard chop.
Thanx for the advise etc,,, Actually the pipes are one of my favorite things about the car's look... For one thing...they sound awesome, and who doesn't like that! But one thing they do is take away some of the "high boy" look as you can see that without them the body sits high and I like that they hide some of that... I can safely say that those pipes are not going anywhere anytime soon
Well...I did it! I really like the way it looks and after driving home from work I was able to lay my hand right on it (lightly) with no trouble at all... So now there will be no burned calves and that is a good thing... We will see how it wears...
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