exhuast fitting and should i heat wrap?

[diathermy]

Hi guys.

Recently bought a williams. On way up home exhaust was making funny sounds. Anyway, I needed a new down pipe so have got one from someone here. I have taken manifold off so i can change the fire ring gasket (got a new manifold gasket too). While it is off i was wondering to heat wrap it.

is it worth it?
is it simple?
how much is the wrap?
do i wrap the down pipe too?

currently the down pipe has some sort of heat sheild that is rattling and rusty and missing quite a few bolts. is this a standard part and can i do without it? or should i repair it?

also, when i was taking off the manifold i noticed that the bracket at the bottom was not attached to a bolt coming from the engine. I assume it should be?

....and when i bought the car, I was told it had a supersprint manifold. How would i tell? it does not have the logo on it anywhere.

also!!!!...how does the lamda sensor come out?

thanks guys

[stevie_b]

Hard to say if it is worth it - in theory it will yield a small improvement in underbonnet temperatures and exhaust scavenging and you need to decide if the expense is worthwhile for that.

It's pretty simple to do. The wrap is about £30-£50 for a length to cover the manifold. You'll need less than 50 metres of the one inch wide stuff to cover the 4-branch manifold, but 50m is not enough to do the manifold and the downpipe, so you'll need to decide if you want to buy more to do the downpipe as well! You basically just start at the end of one pipe, wind the wrap round a little and secure it with a tie, and then continue wrapping the rest of that pipe and secure again at the other end - not much to it really but your hands get quite itchy from the wrap - wearing gloves could be an idea!

If you wrap the downpipe I can't see why you'd still need the metal heatshield, so that will solve one rattling problem.

The lambda should have a nut at the end of it where it meets the downpipe? Can't remember the size of it but you just stick a spanner on it and unscrew.

[Chadwick]

Bear in mind, heat from the engine isnt being disspersed when the manifold is wrapped. the engine is designed to lose this heatloss through the exhaust. Also, more direct heat will be transferred down the exhaust to parts futher down the car that also, arnt designed to get this hot.

Just somthing to think about, I nearly did mine, but opted out in the end.

[MAXIBOY]

not if its a mild steel manifold ..as it rust very quickly lol