Heat wrap

jumbosrule

jumbosrule

Fully FX Invested
Premium
Location
Redondo Beach, CA
Car
2003 FX35T
Name
Brad
While replacing the motor mounts, the nuts couldn't be broken because of access. Just couldn't get good leverage on the nut.

To get there I ended up having the exhaust manifold removed. Since I now want to put OEM mounts back in, I was thinking I would remove the manifold again, but this time to do a heat wrap on it, back as far as I can go. It's not an expensive thing to do, but I wonder if there is any real benefit, besides maybe lowering engine bay temps?

Any personal experience on an FX, VQ, or other cars is welcome - just want to hear if I should even bother doing it?

I plan on going FI and will most likely get rid of the exhaust manifold at some point, which is why I'm not looking at headers. I thought a heat wrap might be an inexpensive beneficial mod to do before I get to FI.
 
not worth doing the stockers because there is already a heat shield there to protect other parts. Plus you already said your gonna junk those once FI. Save the $75 for future dyno pulls or getting your turbo manifolds coated.
 
Well I just can't help myself. I'm doing the heat wrap because I have to remove the exhaust manifold to gain access to the motor mounts. As long as they are off it's cheap and easy to do. Plus I'm getting black with stainless clamps to match the rest of the bay. Heh. I don't expect much in the way of performance, but I like the idea of lower temps under the hood. I'll try to take photos after it's all done.
 
No plans for headers. I still have FI on the horizon so wrapping the exhaust is the biggest improvement the manifold is going to get, till it's time to swap in the turbo manifold.

Went to Advanced Autoparts and picked up two rolls of 2" header wrap and a can of silicone sealant. Turns out you really only need one roll, and there was some left over after doing both sides. Need to return the second roll.

Wrapping the exhaust manifold after it's off is not difficult. On the car, it would be impossible. When you wrap the manifold, you have to get it tight enough that it doesn't interfere with the bolts or the access to the bolts when it's time to re-install. Only a couple of them were a little tricky.

After wrapping and clamping the wrap, a black high temperature silicone sealant is sprayed all over the wrap. The wrap I bought is a tan material, so it's easy to tell when you have the whole thing completely covered with the black sealant. Curing it is easy too - just use the engine to do it. In fact, it's the only way. You need the sealant to reach 400 degrees. Once it does, it smokes. Mine continued to smoke for about 20 minutes while the engine was on idle. Then it stopped smoking and I was good to go.

I would never have done this if the manifolds were not coming off for another reason. It's a pain (even with a lift) and it took a solid seven hours of work. I'm really glad it's all done though. The OEM manifolds were really pretty nasty looking - not very pretty unfinished oxidized metal. The wrap makes them uniform looking and I'm really glad I did it just from a heat standpoint. The gains in mpgs will show themselves over the next few tanks of gas, I hope. I noticed either a vibration dampening or maybe it's sound? Hard to tell.

I didn't take any in process photos and the manifolds are kind of hidden once installed and buttoned up. I'll try to sneak a couple shots of it and post them along with a testimonial when I have some info worth passing along.

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Photo update:

Passenger side - tough to get a good picture:

View attachment 178512

And driver side - a little easier to snap a shot.

View attachment 178515
 
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