JBA's Ceramic or Wrapped..or both.... cant decide...

[Throwin Plugs]

Hey all, so here's the situation. Tax man was good to me, I decided to bite the bullet and slap some shorties on my 2017 Express before I start popping bolts (been lucky so far at 43k miles). I can not for the life of me decide what to do.

Obviously the cheaper option would be to go natural finish, then wrap them. But at that point you might as well just get the silver ceramics for a little more. But then do you wrap those? And if you do, its just a slight jump to the titanium ceramic ones. But then do you wrap THOSE?!

Hahah. Im so damn confused. Its a daily driver. I dont beat on it, its not getting a turbo, or super charger, its not a race truck. I just wanna avoid the manifold issues and maybe gain a little boost if any. Maybe it'll make the carven sound better than it already does.

But anyway, what say you? There's so many conflicting conversations about this over the last few years, even down to the bolts. "Use grade 8, dont use grade 8, locking are good, locking cause knock sensor issues"

Also, ill be ordering fel-pro gaskets as they come highly recommended.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[NJMOPAR]

At 43k your manifolds have gone through enough heat cycles that you can have them planed even and reinstalled with fresh bolts & gaskets and be done.
The OE manifolds actually flow pretty good.

 

[CheechDogg.0n37s]

Don't get the stage 8 bolts they are worthless, the risk of the issues with the knock sensors will always be there with them ...

Doesn't hurt wrapping them, now that I found out that the wrap will actually smoke up to a week when you first wrap them has me less concerned about wrapping headers ... if you don't mind spending extra time and material to protect all your other hoses and lines with some other kind of heat protection then don't wrap them ... as long as you protect those lines and hoses you will be fine without wrap ....

But the wrap does look nice, it does keep engine bay temps low and it doesn't take long to wrap them at all ...

 

[Throwin Plugs]

Yeah thats kinda annoying the whole smoking thing.

 

[CheechDogg.0n37s]

Yeah thats kinda annoying the whole smoking thing.

As long as it just annoying I can deal with it for a week lol .... when @the_goodguy07 and I installed his AFE headers, he saw the smoke and freaked out then he freaked me out lol ..... even tough this is the first time that I ever saw wrapped headers smoke like that ...... at first it was just a light mist then it turned into a lot more when he drove it around the block ....

But one thing that I did notice when I took the wrap off was that it actually made it brittle in a few spots which is what has me a little concerned ... but I did read that moisture helps keep it from becoming too brittle and it "moulds" which is a good thing? ....

 

[NJMOPAR]

IMO if wrap was such a good thing the header makers would include a roll with each set.
I'd rather wrap the assorted hoses than have to replace expensive headers because of wrap issues.

 

[CheechDogg.0n37s]

IMO if wrap was such a good thing the header makers would include a roll with each set.
I'd rather wrap the assorted hoses than have to replace expensive headers because of wrap issues.

And that is what I was always used to doing in the past when we slapped headers in our cars lol ... we just protected the surrounding hoses and lines .... I remember my uncles and cousins that worked for Edelbrock always said never to wrap them and they never wrapped the headers on their cards and trucks and never had issues .... but then again those cars/trucks were built with more room in those engine bays lol ...