Harry Babb wrote:Do you know if and where the Exhaust Coating is available for the Do It Yourselfer???
Harry,
JC Whitney carries exhaust wrap.
The son of the owner of Marine Exhaust Systems in WPB, split from dad's operation and went off on his own. He and I discussed hard wrapping a few years ago and the DIY version goes like this:
Wrap tightly to the desired thickness with woven asbestos belting. The thicker the better, but at least 2" for a 6" exhaust. Use stainless locking ties to secure the ends.
After that, coat the surface with polyester resin thickened with graphite powder. Then glass on carbon fiber tape, (
LINK to carbon fiber tape), again using polyester resin and graphite powder. In the glassing stage, thicken the resin less than for the coating step, so that the tape is fully wet out. Use two layers of the carbon fiber tape. Don't be tempted to make the resin coating too thick, the thinner it is the faster it will dissipate it's heat and not over cook the resin.
Use a good quality polyester resin, not that "thick as honey" crap that Evercoat puts out... Don't use epoxy.
All of the wraps have to be as tight as possible, start to finish.
Now, I've never done a hard wrap on an exhaust system, but I have experimented with the carbon fiber and polyester resin for heat shielding and if the glassed components are not in direct contact with the heat source, the resin didn't break down. So, all caveats apply...
You might want to do some test wrapping to help determine how material to buy. Gonna' take a bunch and the stuff ain't cheap.
Br,
Patrick