Heat wrap???

[iahtnoob]

Would it be a good idea to heat wrap around a flex portion of a catback? What are the dangers if any?

[PoisonousBeef]

The danger of heat wrap in any portion of the exhaust is that you can overheat the insulated section and potentially cause it to degrade/rust/fail more quickly than it would if left uninsulated. I know people who swear by heat wrap and those who say it is never a good idea. If the metal used in your flex section is designed to withstand the heat you'll be putting to it then you will probably find no down side to the heat wrap. If not, I suspect it will be toast before much time has gone by.

 

In my personal opinion, I would not wrap a flex section because in my experience they are already the most likely element to fail in an exhaust. Imagine how quickly you can heat and cause failure in a wire (which is basically what you get in the flex weaves) vs. the wall of exhaust tubing (like a header). Good luck with whatever you decide. If you do wrap it up I will be interested to hear your follow-up after you've put some miles on.

[iahtnoob]

I don't care if the flex section fails. I just don't want the heat wrap to catch fire if that's possible.

[PoisonousBeef]

First, I've never seen anyone have their heat wrap catch on fire unless it was directly exposed to actual flames. Different wrap materials (fiberglass vs. ceramic fiber, usually) are good up to different temperatures and you will pay for better performance, but if you want to play it totally safe I would just go with a good ceramic wrap. I doubt any section of your exhaust tubing (other than the cat) routinely hits 1000 deg., so odds are that you could put cheap wrap on there and never have a problem, but if it was my car a good ceramic fiber would make me sleep better at night.