speaking of exhaust heat shields

The Ferrari header heat shield thread reminded me of this.

At SEMA this year there were a few companies offering this service

They simply called it "Supercar exhaust wrap" and through a combination of language barriers and them trying to protect their I.P. I was unable to learn much about it. 

I think it is gorgeous and want to learn how to do it. 

The gentleman at the Vibrant booth said he didn't know much about how it was done but said they offered the materials. 

I did find a few videos like this of folks modifying old MIG welders to turn them into spot welders to do it. Their results are significantly less attractive, but it is on the right track.

It looks to be fiddly and unpleasant task, but I am still interested.  

Anyone know anything more about it?

I have seen this stuff relatively cheap on ebay and alibaba, etc.  Planning to try it on the V6 rally BRZ exhaust, at least within the engine bay, although I was thinking I'd probably just use stainless zipties.

Interested in learning more.

What is the material? 

IP that?  Seriously?  That's hardly original. 

I don't know anything about the process but I agree that it's gorgeous.

I am standing next to two engine that have this type of heat shielding on the primaries. I know it is not sourced outside of the US, so I can find the vendor.

These engine use stainless ties to hold the hales together for each primary tube.

Common term is exhaust heat shield lagging.
For OEM's it's often custom contoured and has a lip that is tacked together and then folded over itself after being wrapped around the pipe.

For aftermarket stuff, it's commonly wire tied together:

Some potentially helpful links:

https://www.goodfabs.com/exhaust-heat-shield-insulation

https://zircotec.com/resources/news/why-heat-shield-your-exhaust-system/

Vibrant does offer a few pre bent shapes

and I have already ordered some of their "Sheethot" products to see how well it shapes without deforming.

What I am interested in is not the "held on with wire" variety.  I would bet the stuff I took pictures of was resistance welded and then passivated to get rid of the HAZ darkness that everyone else seems to have. I am also curious how they crimp it.

alfadriver said:

IP that?  Seriously?  That's hardly original. 

Whatever technique they use to make it look so much better than everyone elses would be the "trade secret". Is it resistance welding? Is it crimping? Is it a miraculous adhesive that can take exhaust temperatures?

Looks like something that would take a long time to do, but not especially difficult. Especially if it doesn't need to be pretty, just functional.

theruleslawyer said:

Looks like something that would take a long time to do, but not especially difficult. Especially if it doesn't need to be pretty, just functional.

For me, Pretty is the whole point.

Trent said:

alfadriver said:

IP that?  Seriously?  That's hardly original. 

Whatever technique they use to make it look so much better than everyone elses would be the "trade secret". Is it resistance welding? Is it crimping? Is it a miraculous adhesive that can take exhaust temperatures?

It looks great and all, but they'd have to come up with something amazing to be unique to make that.  Especially considering all of the things you just mentioned off the top of your head like that.  Seems that they are using the words to prevent anyone from competing.

I'm guessing the secret is that the segments of insulation are cut with a laser or CNC machine to allow them to look so neat when installed.

The stuff on RedStar's FB page doesn't have that same color for some reason. Maybe there's some secret process done to achieve that color, or make their welds less visible.

The cover photo for their page might have some clues though. They start with the contours, which seem to have crimped ends, and are welded (at least partially by a human). They must add the straight sections as the last step to maintain the clean seams.

Close up of the crimp and welding:

Here is one way of doing it. Not magic.

My initial thought was laser seam welded.

Not so much IP as skilled trade secret. The real secret sauce is joining the product to the clientele that will pay for the results. The world of "supercars" is all about ego and one-upmanship.  This is more akin to a boutique haircut that charges a lot of $$$ just to say you got your hair cut by some known-name stylist.

In reply to STM317 :

These are the kind of pics I was hoping to see. Thank you

STM317 said:

The stuff on RedStar's FB page doesn't have that same color for some reason. Maybe there's some secret process done to achieve that color, or make their welds less visible.

Poking around, this stuff appears to be available in both aluminum and stainless- that nice gold color sure looks like very uniformly heated stainless to me.

This German language video is the best I have seen yet in describing the process

Combine that with a passivation gel to delete the HAZ and I think you might be on to something

I will be pulling my old MIG out of the garage and experimenting converting it to a resistance welder. 

We had this done to a V8 ND exhaust system. I remember it being crazy expensive. I can try to find out who did it, it was definitely in the US. 
 

There are some pics of part of the exhaust here, I may have some more on my work computer. None of the process.  https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2016-mazda-mx-5-miata-10/

The reason I am so interested in this is that we can spend a LOT of time making a jewel of a stainless exhaust system. This Renault R5 Turbo1 for example

Pretty, right? Luke killed it on this one.

After 8 hours of runtime

significantly less pretty. It is amazing how fast it oxidizes. In a month it will look even worse. 

I figured I would practice on the simple and diminutive exhaust on the 850 first

Why bother bookmarking each individual video when I can just link them here?