Hi everyone,
’04 R50 here, I just acquired some cheap stainless headers, and I was wondering should I wrap them before I put them on? I’ve read both good and bad things about wrapping them.
On a side note, the headers came with a test pipe. Would it benefit me to get a high flow cat and have a muffler shop weld it into the test pipe (replace the center section of the test pipe)?

 

In the World of Motorcycles, it was discovered that header wrap caused premature rust and failure- in a pretty big way. Best treatment for headers is Jet-Hot coating- works a treat.

 

I second the coating idea

 

Wrapping is probably not needed. It will probably keep the underhood temps down but other than that, not sure what else it would actually do for you. I'd keep the cat and get a nice high flow one. The extra power you might get out of the motor doesn't offset the extra harm to environment but that is just me. The motor will still crackle and pop with a Cat on the car, mine did when I had an R50. The Megan Racing cat-back is nice and it was the cheapest one you could get.

 

No, it's not just you.

Having lived in Southern California (not socal, not cali) in the 70s, I can personally testify to the benefit of emission control technology. Yes, it sometimes gets carried away, and I don't always follow the letter of the law, but yes, I am a fan of the air I breathe.

 

There's also a bunch of good high flow cats now too. I've ran a Magnaflow High Flow one on my custom exhaust (OBX header, Magnaflow cat, 18" Vibrant resonator and Varex muffler) and had no codes. I've switched to the RMW header since and no codes either. I just don't get the point of running catless on a street car. If you're worried about a couple horsepowers, either get better mods or find a car with a bigger engine...

 

Only wrap if its stainless, else you will only let it rust faster. Wrapping might help with scavenging

 

I don't have experience wrapping a Mini header, but I wrapped the mild steel header on my 1975 Midget 1500 many years ago. It really made under-hood temperatures lower, but the extra heat retained in the header ended up prematurely melting out a few welds in the header, causing exhaust leaks. Those had to be patched with extra welding and rewrapping. It ended up being kind of a pain. That's just my experience. I hope you have better results.

Scott