Bought and installed some 2055's 2 years ago. Been experiencing an exhaust leak and didn't really troubleshoot....thought it was coming from the collector connection so I reseated and sealed it.

Leak/noise got worse in a week or two. Finally decided it was time to pull them and put on new gaskets...

Have a hole in the far back tube as seen in the picture

 

and another....better one

 

yet a third

 

Wild guess - the wrap voided the warranty.

 

Only a one year warranty.....they're nearly 2 years old.....

 

not even gonna bother contacting them cause of the age....I would have "cleaned " them up and got rid of the wrap eveidence before shipping or anything else...

taking to a muffler shop tomorrow to see if they can even be welded to 'make do'.....


the wrap definitely proved to be a HUGE mistake....not sure that caused it ....but after reading their website about wrapping...one of the over the winter projects was going to be taking the wrap off....hmmmm

started that one maybe 6 to 8 months too late

 

Yes, if they dont warranty it (wrap likely will void it, as five7 said) then just have an experienced welder tinker with it. Its not hard for a decent welder to fix in not alot of time.

Hell... I welded in my custom exhaust system with just a MIG in about 1/2hr. It was basically the same work as what you need, only the parts were on the car. Same deal with my cousin's cutouts when we installed them.

 

yeah definitely hitting the muffler shop tomorrow......

notice the gap around the collector in this one and that's a different tube....the driver's side has a little bit of a gap on one of them also.....think it may be time for new headers altogether.

Real sad thing is that about year and a half ago I sold a set of 2055's that I had bought off ebay that did not have the Y pipe....wish I still had them....

 

Yup, that does indeed look like you killed it with the wrap. I wouldn't waste their time and yours trying to claim it was their fault. Next time try ceramic coating if you're having trouble with under hood temperatures.

Si. :lala:

 

Not having problems.....just 2 years ago, before doing a lot of reading, it seemed like a good idea based on the Thermo-Tec website....

But, ALAS, being older and wiser and a lot more read....

I realized couple of months ago it was a BAD idea..but it was already leaking pretty bad then so I guess I was too late...

BTW...muffler shop says it is too crystallized to be salvageable...looks like new ones for christmas?????

 

This right here is a perfect example of how well header wraps work. As it has been stated in previous threads, wraps work very well. Too well infact and they start to break down the metal. We should use the pictures in a sticky to show what could potencially happen to wrappiong headers on a street car.

 

Permission granted.....:lala:

 

Was thinking about wrapping my headers next spring, lesson learned. Thanks!

 

Glad everyone is learning from my mistake.....


The new ones are due in here tomorrow.....2nd day air.....

 

wow, would have never guessed wraping the headers would cause that.. how dose it happen anyway?

 

Holds the heat in and causes the metal to crystallize 'cause of the stress from the extra heat.....

 

Muffler shop shows ignorance.

If it isn't "crystallized", it isn't metal. All metals in solid phase are crystalline in structure.

There may be a little extra stress due to heat expansion, but the steel is also weaker at higher temperature. Therefore, the stress that is there fractures weaker spots.

 

five7, what do you mean by crystalline in nature. I always thought the whole idea of metals was that there is no crystals with metalic bonding of atoms. That's why metals are generally reshapable, whereas crystals (i.e. ice, sugar...) will shatter way before they change shape.

Are we talking about the same thing or crystallization here means something else?

 

Crystalization happens / changes when metal is super heated, then cooled.

Take a peice of metal, heat it until it is red hot. Then let it cool down slowly.. Will be sorta week.

Take another sample of the same metal. Heat it until its cherry red, then drop it in a bucket of urine.

It will be many times stronger.

-- Joe

 

There is no usage of the term "crystallization" in the world of metallurgy. It's only used by the uninformed.

anesthes, the processes you describe, when applied to the typical steel, are "annealing" and "heat treating". A steel, such as your common coat hanger, if heat treated in that fashion would be very hard and strong, but very brittle - that's called martensite. If after "quenching" it you reheated it slowly until it turned a blueish tint, you would have "tempered" it (tempered martensite), so it would be still harder and stronger than the annealed steel, but not as brittle as the heat treated only steel.

"Elongation" is the term used to describe a material's brittleness vs. malleability or formability (toughness is the combination of strength and elongation capability). Ice, glass, diamond, sugar are all crystals, as are all metals. The elements, bonding, crystal type, alloying, etc. all contribute to their strength, hardness, and toughness, not whether or not they're a crystal structure.

(Personally, I prefer molten lead for quenching over urine. In thin cross-sections, such as a knife blade or the aforementioned coat hanger, it forms bainite, which is very hard, strong, and tough. In fact, I compared those properties of a bainite coat hanger vs. water quenched martensite and tempering in a college class project.)

 

Little did I know that putting heat wrap on my headers like an idiot would generate a lesson in metallurgy.

 

A very clear and present danger in these parts...