The question is to Header wrap or not

[delta one]

I have ridden for hours in the rain, I'm sure the headers would have been wet the whole time. and after hours in the rain the last thing I would want to do is stand there while the bike running on the side stand until it stops steaming.
especially after a trip where all I want to do is check into a hotel and get some rest, and what if its still raining?

I use this scenario because that is exactly what it was when I went to buell homecoming.

 

[GW 04 XB12R]

Touche delta one. But, these pipes are stainless. I know you mentioned even stainless can become ruined from excessive moisture exposure... What defines excessive? From all I've seen stainless plain out lasts without rusting.

 

[chevnut55]

i dont want to put anyones bikedown because they all look great. but i hate the look of the wrap,it looks like the pipes fell apart and you needed to bandage them up to get home. on the good side if you had a broken arm you could match your bike.
i was thinking of coating mine but im afraid the all black would be too much,i will spray them with vht black header paint..if i dont like it i can wipe it off. also i deal with alot of race cars and the ones with header wrap aways rot out the headers,there only good for working on them motor without getting burned between rounds.my cars are all ceramic coated,tey cool down faster but i have alot of burn scares.

 

[delta one]

Touche delta one. But, these pipes are stainless. I know you mentioned even stainless can become ruined from excessive moisture exposure... What defines excessive? From all I've seen stainless plain out lasts without rusting.

No you are right it would take a whole lot of work to make it rust.
but the quality of the stainless isn't great, when I'm not on my phone I'll find the header thread on badweb where you can see how nasty the metal can look. They will stain and discolor pretty deep as well as getting rough. If you ever decide not to have the wrap you will need to spend some significant time sanding and polishing.

 

[oh9bolt]

The wrap saved my pipe in an accident! I double wrapped my pipe where the two pipes meet I'm so happy I did because it saved my pipe from being dented or rashed the wrap was worn all they way almost through the two layers! I will do this mod again just for this reason and for help with heat control of course lol. BTW there was no rust or any bad signs on the pipe when i took it off always run your bike in a covered area after riding in rain to burn/dry water soaked up by heat wrap.

 

[delta one]

I cant find the thread I was thinking about but I did find this image.
it is an 09 bolt

its not rust, I may call it pitting though, or something.
maybe Ill just stick with ugly, the bluing is fine but the dull brown spots are nasty.
under a wrap these spots will spread and maybe even get deeper into the metal.

and its not just the moisture but the moisture+heat, the o2 released from the evaporating water and hot metal make for an ugly combination after time, the heat makes the metal more vulnerable.

 

[nativeXb12Rbuell]

when i removed my header I took some scotch brite pads to it and polished it up and removed the corrosion that was in the stratches and the small ding in it , then i painted it with VHT Flameproof silica-ceramic header paint black for a few reasons , to help with the heat & heat retention and to coat it with something that may help prevent any possible corrosion that might occur from the wrap getting wet or any other possibilty of moisture being trapped under the wrap that may cause corrosion or pitting of the stainless which will lead to corrosion.

i like the look of how my header wrap looks ,and a few others wraps,( i wrapped and then rewrapped mine probably 3-4 times until i got it to look good taking my time) , but I have seen WAY TO MANY header wraps on here and other places that look terrible like the did not take the time or they didnt care how it looked. I think it has an old hot rod(rat rod sinister look) style look to it , but i did it because of wanting to hide the small ding and help take off some heat off my leg which it did some (it made the bike more comfortable in the high heat of summer),

and although stellio78 headers do look great ,
I not into the chrome look on my bike,but it looks great on his bike.
but if i had new or good header i would have had mine ceramic coated black.

 

[nativeXb12Rbuell]

oh and here is the answer to the stainless steel corrosion!

yes stainless steel can have corrosion it is corrosion resistant not corrosion proof, sorry we used the term rust as it really pertains to corrosion of steel, i would hope that most people would make that conection of what we meant, rust is corrsion, not that stainless steel rusts(&turn rusty red),unless it has some iron particles of some kind that has contaminated the surface, but yet that it can corrode. this would mostly happen in areas like scratches and pitted ,especailly when deep.

http://www.ssina.com/faq/index.html#1

http://www.ssina.com/download_a_file/cleaning.pdf

http://www.ssina.com/index2.html

http://www.ssina.com/corrosion/galvanic.html

http://www.nace.org/content.cfm?parentid=1001&currentID=1001more corrosion info

stainless steel- corosion resistance

Exhaust-Wrap-Smoke & stainlees corrsion thread

 

[GW 04 XB12R]

Thanks for the links/explanation. New news to me! My main reason was, as it seems it be for many others, to hide a small ding/scratches on my pipe from a little slip I had. I wasn't thrilled about the gold pipes anyway, and couldn't see polishing them every now and again.

Personal preference on the looks; for me it definitely works and matches my bike, unlike the gold. If it ever comes off, I'll put more on to keep the ding hidden, so damage to my pipes isn't an issue to me... Unless they start leaking, in that case I'll need to buy new ones.

 

[delta one]

I'm god whatever you guys choose, I just want you to be aware of the potential risk.
I'm not a fan of the wrapped look but that doesnt matter at all unless somebody is wraping my headers.
Do what you like best on your bike, and if you have header damage I think a wrap is a great option. Or if you don't like the polished look it's a great option.
Regardless just do whatever makes you happy on your bike, I'm sure the heat reduction will be a big benefit on hot days.

Now that I have seen ceramic in a color other than flat black or dull grey I may look into it myself for my headers. Not that I don't like the polished look but less cosmetic maintenance means more time to ride

 

[GregoXB]

I did a full header replacement and posted a video if you're interested. Definitely a DIY mod. Harley wanted an ungodly amount of money to do it by dropping the engine lol. One of the mechanics there couldn't believe I did it and after explaining it to him this is how he does it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxozheEre64

 

[dbxb9]

Im thinking of a MARPAT camo paint scheme for my XB9S. Pipe wrap might look ok. Cant say Ive ever seen it on a military motorcycle or any other military vehicle. At least not when I was in the Army.

 

[Ryan_G]

I was doing some light research before I wrapped my headers and I saw some misleading information in this thread that I wanted to point out so I am going to resurrect it even though it is rather old. I keep seeing people mention ceramic coating that comes in different colors. This is not a true ceramic coating. It is paint infused with ceramic. It is far less durable and effective than a real ceramic coating. Real ceramic coating cannot be any other color than white which is ceramic's natural color. Real ceramic coatings also cost a lot more $$. See: http://swaintech.com/race-coatings/race-coating-descriptions/white-lightning-exhaust-coatings/

"Many companies apply the shiny or colored paint based coatings and call them ceramic. Those thin shiny coatings are very different than Swain Tech’s White Lightning™.

Whereas it would be more accurate to call those thin shiny coatings good high temperature paints that may have a very small amount added to them, Swain really uses a ceramic coating that is applied molten where it bonds and cools directly on the substrate....

Because White Lightning™ really is a ceramic, it is not possible to offer color choices like you can get with paint based coatings."

If you are actually looking for noticeable heat reduction from the pipes you either need to go with a real ceramic coating like SwainTech or with header wrap. The two biggest cons of header wrap come from too much heat retention and a possible fire hazard. I will never use header wrap on my car's turbo manifold because header wrap is great at retaining so much heat that it leads to metal fatigue when their is a heavy turbo and downpipe hanging from the manifold. The manifold also sits underneath the hood of my car and if oil were to leak onto the wrap and catch on fire while I am WOT on the track I would never even know until the fire was out of control and most of the damage already done.

Corrosion is easy to avoid by first painting the header with a good high temp paint before wrapping it. Motorcycles also have no significant weight on the header to worry about increased metal fatigue from higher heat retention. The fire hazard is still a concern on a bike but the open nature of a motorcycle engine allows for identifying the problem quickly and putting out the flames before too much damage has occurred. I am probably going to wrap my headers because my main objective is to reduce the heat that the headers emit for riding comfort and burn reduction. Header wrap is just much better for this purpose.

 

[jetlee]

You sound like a White Lightning salesman.

You most certainly can add pigment to get a colored ceramic.

http://www.ceramicindustry.com/articles/ceramic-pigments

 

[wolfo68]

+1 for Jetlee

You most certainly can add pigment to get a colored ceramic.

http://www.ceramicindustry.com/articles/ceram ...

From someone that has to understand heat tolerances for a ton of substances, to me you make it sound like it significantly reduces the stability of the ceramic compound. You have to add quite a bit to really screw up the structural integrity of this stuff. This is also why they have heat ranges on the products. For instance my metallic-ceramic is rated significantly less because of the necessity to add so much extra to the ceramic compound.

Looking at swaintech, they say it reduces heat by about 35-55%. This should be achievable by most ceramics, and could even be done in a two stage system with plain ceramic as an undercoating to cut temp and be able to use lower heat rated ceramic compound.
Congratulations, it's the same as my ceramic primer.

 

[Ryan_G]

You sound like a White Lightning salesman.

It does kind of look like a sales pitch doesn't it lol. However, I didn't recommend it in the end. I just linked to their site because I knew the info I was looking for would be there and I am at work so it was a quick search away.

You most certainly can add pigment to get a colored ceramic.

http://www.ceramicindustry.com/articles/ceram ...

Thanks for the link because I had not seen this information before and did not realize this was possible. From my own experiences and some other back to back tests I have seen I was referring to what is actually glorified ceramic paint. I will see if I can find sources once I am home if I have time. There was a trend where a ton of shops popped up out of nowhere offering colored ceramic coatings and it was all crap that came from the same manufacturer but most people did not actually know the difference. Those coatings were not all that durable and did not offer significant heat reduction. The coating was often very thin and would chip if it was hit with a hard surface. Good ceramic coatings are insanely hard to remove and are actually fairly thick (for a coating).

 

[d_adams]

http://www.cerakotehightemp.com/ << This is what I use. It's held up pretty well so far and is available in multiple colors. They target it at exhaust systems, as well as gun coatings.

What is Cerakote?

Cerakote is a ceramic based finish that can be applied to metals, plastics, polymers and wood. The unique formulation used for Cerakote ceramic coating enhances a number of physical performance properties including abrasion/wear resistance, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, impact strength, and hardness. Each of these properties is rigorously tested to guarantee that Cerakote products remain at the foreforont of the ceramic coatings market. Cerakote ceramic coatings utilize state-of-the-art technology to out-perform any competitive coating in both laboratory settings and real world applications.

The world standard in extreme high temperature coatings, performing up to 1800°F (Air Cure)
Satin NickelSatin NickelC-124QVIEW
GoldGoldC-122QVIEW
CobaltCobaltC-112QVIEW
Mag SilverMag SilverC-104QVIEW
Black VelvetBlack VelvetC-7300QVIEW
Jet BlackJet BlackC-138QVIEW
Turbine CoatTurbine CoatC-217QVIEW
TitaniumTitaniumC-105HQVIEW
TungstenTungstenC-111HQVIEW
Bright Silver

 

[jetlee]

I will see if I can find sources once I am home if I have time.

Don't stress on my behalf, I understand what you were referring to.

 

[XLXB]

The PO of my bike had wrap on it. When I went to redo the wrap I noticed cracks in sections of the pipe. I took it to a friend of mine that works with stainless and he said that they were stress cracks most likely caused by heat. He then welded everything up and I rewrapped them. The black eBay wrap I had wasn't enough so I bought some from Napa to finish it. Now after several thousand miles the eBay wrap is turning white and the Napa is keeping its color. My conclusion to my experience is it will eventually ruin the header and don't buy cheep wrap. When this one needs redone I will replace the header with the perfect used one that I bought and it will be wrapped (with the Napa wrap I already have because they make **** cheeper everyday). I personally like the look of the wrap on my bike. That my 2 cents...