Header wrap/insulation

[JeepsAndGuns]

Anyone ever use any? I am getting ready to replace the factory steel tube exhaust manifold/header on my wrangler with a stainless steel one. The factory ones are real bad about cracking. I rewelded mine right after I bought the Jeep back in like 2001, its held fine untill lately. I have noticed a hairline crack starting again. So its time for a replacement.
Since the 4.0 has the exhaust and intake on the same side, I was thinking about wrapping the header before I put it on to help cut down on the heat getting thrown off it and getting soaked into the intake. I have heard a lot of people talking about how the wrap rusts out headers, but since this one is stainless, I wont have that problem.

So anyone used header wrap before? Any tips, tricks, or brands/styles to look for?

[EagleMark]

Buy a coated header! Keeps heat in exhaust and not under hood. Does not hold water and dirt to rot header like wrap. Looks good forever... Headman Elite if they make one for your car.

[gregs78cam]

You could try it. I don't know if it's possible but could you make a heat shield for the exhaust. Stainless will keep more of the heat in the tube than mild steel, but will still get hot.

[1project2many]

I always advise to skip it for street vehicles. When I was racing we used wrap on the racecar headers. Even those rusted fairly quickly considering they weren't run in bad weather.

If you want to keep the intake cool, coat the intake with ceramic thermal barrier coating. I did that on my Sunbird and what a difference... you can feel it with your hands. Hot engine, cool to warm intake. Look at tech-line coatings for relatively inexpensive coating you can apply yourself. I just bought another bottle to do a set of pistons.

[JeepsAndGuns]

I have already bought the new hader, should be here today or tomorrow. Plus I couldnt really swing the price of a coated header. Seems like every header I saw that was coated, was just stupid crazy priced over a non coated one.
I will check out that coating for the intake.

[FSJ Guy]

If you can get coating for the intake, why not coating for the header? Maybe there's a brush or spray on coating for headers? <shrug>