Exhaust wrap

Hey everyone.
I've been looking into getting some exhaust wrap to hide rust on my headers. I've heard from some people that the wrap can cause air cooled engines to get too hot and overheat. Is this true and is there anything else I should know before doing this?
Thanks

Why not remove them, have someone sandblast them & the use a flat black high temperature paint? Wrapping will gather moisture, making your pipes rust out.

I had them sandblasted a while back. It got most of the rust off but it left a bunch of dark pitted spots all over the headers. Will paint cover the pitted spots?

How deep are the pits? If not rusted through, several coats of paint should work.

nickleo373 wrote: I had them sandblasted a while back. It got most of the rust off but it left a bunch of dark pitted spots all over the headers. Will paint cover the pitted spots?

Use a clean steel wire brush.

Sand it lightly, wipe down with acetone and then coat with the black HI temp paint. Then cure with a heat gun and you're good to go.

I believe the downside of exhaust wrap is there being a lack of upside. Also its there to keep the engine area cooler and not usually the case that the engine overheats. Problem lies in the exhaust pipes getting so hot they crack from the metal getting brittle. If someone wraps up some nice performance headers to get rid of lingering heat and the headers crack, they just lost the cost of the headers for like...negligible reasons. Also rust is a huge deal as you all said. On the flip side it does look pretty cool...see avatar haha

Thanks for the replies everyone. After reading all the posts, I think it might be cheaper in the long run to just save up for new pipes. I liked the exhaust wrap because you don't have to paint the engine, but I think the bike would look weird with just the pipes black. Does anyone know of an exhaust system(preferably 4 to 1) compatible with an 81 kz550?

I had wrapped my headers a few years ago to cover up rusty pipes. I sandblasted the pipes, re painted the pipes with rattle can header paint - a month later it looked like crap again.

I got the 'black' wrap - it only stayed black for a week. Overall the wrap has held up pretty well other than that, although it started to fall apart a bit with time over the last few years.

It is a relatively cheap and easy way to hide shitty looking pipes - but it only looks good temporarily IMO.

I still have that header on and I know the bike will look so much better with the cool 4 into 2 that I am going to sandblast and maybe have chromed or ceramic coated.

Also - a note about ceramic coating - I had a full system blasted and coated awhile back. It looked great for about a month, then starting rusting to my horror and dismay. I live right on the coast so the salt air mustve gotten to it. Maybe the guy I had do it didn't do a good job? My point is to make sure someone does it who knows what they are doing if you have that done!