New GW stainless headers glowing red within 1 min at idle.

[Urglegrew]

Hey looking at a vanagon with the same problem (go westy exhaust). Red hot at idle. Did the op keep running it or what happened?
Sorry to bring up such an old thread

[otiswesty]

[denwood]

Refreshing clarity ^^^. To quote Dire Straits with respect to equal length tuned headers (and my WBX is long gone): "Money for nothing, chicks for free"

As I said previous...given normal conditions at idle with zero load, red glowing headers would suggest timing is retarded excessively, or O2 sensor output has your injectors pulsing like an all night dance club. (full disclosure, have not seen the inside of such a club in a decade or two)
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Cheers,
Dennis Wood
The Grape

[tencentlife]

There a residue of heavy grease coating the inside of DOM tubing, and it piles up somewhat thicker within bent sections due to the action of the tubing bender (and sometimes extra is added by the operator). This constitutes an additional fuel source residing in the tubing itself, which can be superheated by the hot gases right after the valve and briefly raises the temperature there. It only occurs on very first use and for a pretty short time. Further down the pipes the grease will mostly smoke off at the lower temps.

Other than that, there's just not enough energy being used to idle an engine, and so much time for the charge to burn completely, for the tail end of a normal idle burn to raise header temp to where a glow would be visible. To raise header temps to that point at idle requires a burn to be actively occurring in the pipes themselves, regardless of tubing material. That generally means late timing and/or overfueling, or something causing incomplete combustion so that excess HC is available to burn post-valve.

I've had my van rigged for live surface temp measurements of my WBXaustSS pipes 2" off the heads. Idling it is under 300ºF. Going down the road at full load with a 12.7:1 AFR the hottest it ever climbs is 700ºF. That's about the temp where a very faint glow might be visible in the dark, and at least 400ºF shy of where mild or stainless steel would start to show a dark-red glow in open shade. Type of steel matters little as to the temps at which it glows. Gauge does matter; ours is 16ga (~.065" wall).

We have only had reports of our WBXaustSS tubes glowing dully red right off the ports when the system is being run for the first time on a fresh engine, where engine speed is immediately raised to 2krpm for 20 minutes for cam break-in. Under these unnatural conditions the richer warm-up mixture is adding some extra unburnt fuel to the grease fuel available post-port. These pipes will never be seen to glow this way again in normal use.

[slo356]

Glowing red at idle within a minute sounds like SS material and gauge selection to me. I wonder if anyone running the Vanistan exhaust header system (also made to SS, dunno the gauge) has also experience this?

Btw, is the GW system really a header system? The Vanistan system is based on and utilizing a true header design with equal length runners, collection boxes etc. The GW system is just a stock exhaust system made out of stainless tubing...technically speaking.
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'65 T1 Sedan
'87 T3 Syncro

[Steve M.]

[denwood]

With temp II sensor disconnected and engine warm, what is your timing at idle and at 3500 rpm? I'm going to guess that your timing at idle may be set after TDC instead of BTDC. If raw fuel is leaving the cylinders due to incorrect timing, it will combust in the header and cause very high temps.

What is o2 sensor voltage at idle with warm engine, temp II disconnected (o2 sensor disconnected from ECU) at idle?

I've only ever seen heat like that after botching a techtonics chip install so that timing was not advancing properly. idle was ok at 5 degrees but advance with the chip incorrectly installed was locked at 5. After a very short drive the header pipe was red hot and melted the block heater cord..which was a few inches away. That was the digifant II in my i4 conversion...ran a lot better with the EEPROM in the right socket

Glowing at idle does not sound normal for any engine at idle and zero load...
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Cheers,
Dennis Wood
The Grape

[1vw4x4]

Dampcamper,
You are on the money. I've seen these stock pipes crack. This was mainly from expansion and contraction due to heat. The SS pipes are
going to be subject to the same if not worst, since they do not heat as evenly. Hearing that they glow red is not good news. Life time warrenty
or not I want them to out last as least the head gaskets...

[Dampcamper]

Not having a set of stainless pipes in hand to compare construction with OE steel, I speculate that the stainless pipes have thinner walls than the standard steel ones (they're made out of tubing, right?). Also, stainless steels don't conduct heat as well as standard steels - their thermal conductivity is typically about half of low-carbon steel's conductivity.
So, heat energy introduced at the exhaust port, which would normally be carried away by the greater thickness of the steel and its better ability to transfer heat "horizontally" (along the length of the pipe) doesn't get transferred away as well by the stainless...same amount of heat energy, concentrated in a smaller area = higher temperature, right? Same as happens with compression of air in your diesel engine?

I'll trust the designers as to whether this is an OK thing, the glowing pipes.

[chazz79]

Not reading into anything at all.

You made an apples to oranges comparison with a bs video that had nothing to do with the topic.

The video took seven minutes to get to the point of its creators are a group of ricer idiots that set their car on fire. So your comparison was that if you duplicate a situation that no sane person would, you'll set your car on fire. You run a vanagon like that and it's chucking a rod long before radiant heat even makes the cat glow.

Make a video, I'll grab the popcorn for that one and bet it takes way less time to get to the point.

I think I'll go to youtube and search for videos stating that jumping in a swimming pool results in getting folks wet.
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One day as a lion, or a lifetime as lamb

The green monster in bits and peices: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=332556&highlight=green+monster

[1vw4x4]

YES...

You clearly like to read into things. My only point was to show that hard
running any vehicle can and will product temperatures in this range.
Clearly not normal, but can happen.

[chazz79]

[1vw4x4]

Check out this video about 7 minutes... exhaust glows, and start a fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwYQDstYCF8

[otiswesty]

Mine are from Frank Condelli. I had them ceramic coated prior to install. Never noticed them getting red hot. They were alot more expensive than the new GoWesty pipes, so hopefully they are heavier guage.
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1978 Sage Green P22 Westfalia
1988 T3 Syncro Single cab

Just a regular guy

[chazz79]

This is normal of 304 stainless as it heat sets. It lessens with use but don't expect it to ever fully go away. I built mine without restrictions and it glowed in the daytime for awhile. Once it crusted up and started to look scabby the problem went away.

Don't let it scare you. It's normal.


Don't bother wrapping it either as that just promotes corrosion.
_________________
One day as a lion, or a lifetime as lamb

The green monster in bits and peices: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=332556&highlight=green+monster

[1vw4x4]

Glowing exhaust pipes are not uncommon if you are really hammering
an engine specially an old carb. engine. A fuel injected engine should never
do this at idle. This is typically a sign of a fuel system problem.

I'm just about ready to buy the GO westy SS head pipes...
Anyone have any thing good or bad to say about these???

[insyncro]

The GW Y pipe or collector pipe is different from the cast stock one.
The system does bottleneck at that junction.

[gyoung10]

Idle Control Valve, Idle Control Computer/Module. Just to clarify the header to the collector pipe are glowing. I am afraid to drive. Checked and set timing.

[insyncro]

Guys,
It glows right at the bend coming from the header flange.
Yes, the wall thickness of these headers is not the same as the originals, neither is the material.
They do show the heat.

Again, proper timing should be checked just in case.

[Howesight]

I thought the OP was saying that the stainless exhaust glowed red hot at idle. If that was so, he must have very retarded spark timing. Glowing red at highway loads and speeds is another thing.
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX