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Anyone wrap their exhaust or thinking about it?

8K views 25 replies 16 participants last post by  cruizin 
#1 ·
I've seen it a lot on cruisers and never on sport bikes although the benefits sound great if they hold up anyone know any more on the subject?


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#11 ·
It's tempting, I can definitely feel the heat sometimes, the wrap is a bit pricey though. I'm not sure I like the idea of trapping heat into the stock pipes, seems like a potential problem for no real gain.
 
#14 ·
I wrapped my trans am and the only reason I did it is to lower the temperature under the hood, I believe that is the only real benefit that being said it does not make sense for a bike.

Unless you rest your heal there ??
Exactly this. Exhaust wraps are mainly for cars, especially turbos. Keeps under bonnet temps down as stated, all the heat stays in the pipe. Helps intake air temps to stay low.

On a bike, unless you are getting burnt by a particular hot part, it serves no purpose. This bike doesnt even get hot...........
 
#13 ·
the heat you feel from this bike is almost unnoticeable , if you want to ride abike that when it gets hot it cooks your legs/feet, take a 2002 upwards vfr800 for a spin, the seat gets toasty hot, your right foot gets cooked from where the exhaust pipe comes near it and the cross flow radiator fan sucks in from the left and blows to the right & cooks your right thigh
 
#15 · (Edited)
Anyone wrap their headers?

edit: Looks like a mod merged my post into this thread. Old thread couldn't find it, thanks.
 
#17 ·
Mira and I like to bounce around Colorado on the weekends and this last weekend was no exception; we went down to crawl around inside Bishop's Castle and stayed in a dinky little hotel in Colorado City, sampling the fare of tiny restaurants along the way.

On the way down, we stopped at a rest stop just north of Pueblo, and because it was hotter than Hell where we were, we stripped down to jeans and T's and snuggled up on the grass for a little nap; roundabout a half hour.

When we got back to the bikes, we knew something was wrong because there was a horrible burning smell permeating the air. Turned out that she'd draped her riding jacket and armoured pants over her saddlebags and the sleeve had fallen down and laid on the exhaust, after a solid hour of freeway riding. We've seen rain hit her bike's exhaust after that kind of ride and instantly evaporate.

After a half hour of cooking, the sleeve was still serviceable, but barely - there's a huge hole over her right wrist now, a ton of melted nylon mesh, and it looks like someone took a big bite out of the Velcro fastener. No armor damage, but she was pissed.

All that having been said - while neither of us ride a Ninja 300, the exhaust on *any* bike gets hot for a reason; it's diverting sleeve-melting, rain-evaporating heat away from your engine. Wrapping the exhaust will make this job more difficult, and will cause the exhaust to retain more heat, shortening the life of the exhaust system, and potentially damaging the engine.

If you don't give a damn about your bike and think a wrapped exhaust looks cool, knock yourself out, but if you plan on keeping your bike a while and bonding with it, I'd recommend against wrapping the exhaust.
 
#18 ·
As somewhat of a 'cruiser' rider (triumph bonneville) I think I can chime in. Exhaust wraps are for covering up the bluing of pipes. The heat causes the chrome pipes to blue and that's why they are wrapped (done today as a throwback to the old days when they didn't have the special chrome coating which prevents bluing).

The only reason I can think of why someone would wrap their liquid cooled bike's non-bluing exhaust is to look cool- you already have an entire system dedicated to cooling your bike properly, plus the air that air-cooled engines use exclusively for cooling. Your pipes will also not blue.

Me personally? I love the bluing of my pipes.
 
#21 ·
100% for looks only, wrapping pipes on a bike serves no purpose other than cosmetic and potential preventing from burning your leg (but the wrap still gets very hot). Those who think it does are only fooling themselves.

I have my headers in my IS300 wrapped, this was to reduce the engine bay temperature and ensure that cooler air was getting into the engine block. It makes sense to do so on a vehicle but not on a bike.

Though it does look cool on bobbers and cafe bikes.
 
#23 ·
#25 ·
Theory is the wrap keeps the headers hot and evacuates the exhaust gasses quicker, more efficient, hence gaining a few HP. Couple of our guys raced WERA and CCS on different bikes and both wrapped their headers. Only 1 HP increase on a built Honda F3 while the other guy's Hawk GT, TLR and RSV1000 netted same HP... With or without wrap.
That said, temps were cooler in the engine bays and the bikes had a "crisper" throttle response feel.
Also the exhaust wrap did retain moisture and caused rust on all headers and midpipes.

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#26 ·
Also the exhaust wrap did retain moisture and caused rust on all headers and midpipes.

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i have seen this more often then not, i knew guys at speedway who were lucky to get a season out of out headers cos they wrapped them and they rusted out.
 
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