wrappn the heads

[paulr]

i wana wrap my headers but have no idea how to. can someone give me the run down in an idiot proof fashion? the back one looks especially hard to get to.

 

[FIDOSOL]

I don't have a walkthrough but you can do it with a little bit of patience and smallish/normal hands without undoing the headers. Also you want to wrap evenly, if you don't then your pipes will heat unevenly which is bad for your bike.

 

[tf1175]

i did mine a month ago and it was very easy actually. Basically what i did was dry wrap it a little bit just to see how big of a space in between each loop i wanted then just cut the wrap to length while leaving some extra just in case. I started with the front header closest to the front wheel and wrap my way down towards the muffler. I wrapped until i got to where both headers come together and stopped there. I then moved onto the back header and wrapped down as far as i could get on just the one header then wrapped then both together to where the clamp was for my muffler and my header. The chin fairing hides it anyways so dont need to go too far down.

It was really easy to do and like FIDOSOL said it just takes patience and time. I enjoyed doing it and just take your time and try to make all your loops the same with equal overlapping so that it looks good. I wore thin work gloves because the header wrap has tons of small particles in it that i didn't want to get all over me. Just soak the wrap for about 30 seconds before you put it in and pull it really tight so that when it dries everything pulls together nice and tight. Let it dry over night (i put some fans aiming towards it to speed it up) then tape it all off and spray paint it with the stuff that comes with it.

Very easy and looks great. You might need to respray the wrap a few times but i just sprayed, let dry, sprayed, let dry...repeat a few times as needed and then you are good to go. wish i had a picture of the finished product

 

[HOVERJOCKI]

what does wrapping the pipes do?
Is it just for looks

 

[HellfireAkbar]

I think it looks better but that is not the main reason to do it. The biggest reason is that it helps cut down on the radiated heat from the headers. It keeps it off of both the cylinder heads and you. A cooler engine is a happy engine.

 

[LeFox]

diy header wrap

 

[squiers007]

Hey tf1175, how much wrap did it take you to do your headers (length) that way I know how much to buy. Thanks.

 

[Buellysses]

25' of 2" will do the trick. I ended up with about 5' left over.

 

[tf1175]

The kit i bought was this stuff I cut off about 2 or 3 feet after wrapping the first header and i used almost all of the wrap for the second header pipe including wrapping both pipes at the end.
I think for that specific link its 2 50 foot rolls which is more than enough and like Buellysses said 2 rolls of 25 feet should be good

 

[1DRTYBSTRD]

I heard that header wrap is bad for your header. That it can cause premature rusting. Is there any truth to this or is it safe to use?

 

[tf1175]

Alot have said that nothing happens and some have said that it can cause damage however i have yet to see any real truth or pictures to premature rust or anything like that. Hopefully someone on here will respond with how long they have had them on but you wont run into any problems as I know of people having their headers wrapped for thousands of miles. hope that helps

 

[GatorBuell]

Your wraped headers will rot out if you dont take a few precautions, Try not to get them wet when your washing your bike and if they do run the bike for a while to dry them out. Same as when you get caught in the rain if you have somewhere to let the bike run for a while and dry the wraps out. I have never seen a Buell do it but I have seen several Jeep headers rot out from getting wet all the time. I have had mine wrapped for a while and had the wraps off a few weeks ago to paint them and had no signs of rust.

 

[Buellysses]

I actually only started with one 25' roll of 2" and had a couple feet left. It's going to depend on how much you overlap your wrappings as to how much material your going to use. I overlapped mine about 1/2"

 

[tf1175]

Yea it's different for everyone and all depends how tight you do it and how much overlap. I'll try to get some pictures up here the next few days so you can see how I did mine.

 

[paulr]

ok guys thanks for the tips, im no longer worried about how hard its gona be and know im capable of doin it on my own. THANKS AGAIN!!